As if UFO 50 itself wasn’t enough of a blessing, the team behind it had to go and throw in a game with an abundance of blessings all its own. That catchy little earworm of a micro-jingle can first be experienced shortly after clicking a rather unassuming icon on the second row of the chronological game selection screen, just to the right of a game I can’t believe I’m skipping over for this one.
Yep, I’m talking about Avianos.
Strategy and simulation games aren’t normally my bread and butter, but that’s not what I want to accomplish with this series. If I were simply writing about “UFO 50 games that Joe Luster really dug,” I’d be remiss not to mention Kick Club, but I also want to put the spotlight on UFO Soft offerings that may otherwise be planted in a garden just to the south of my wheelhouse.
Avianos is one of a decent amount of UFO 50 games that I would normally bounce off of based on instinct alone. Its presentation gives off an air of inscrutability at first glance, but just under the surface awaits yet another miracle game that manages to work some real black magic with the established two-button interface.
One of the joys of the entire collection is dusting off a new game and spending the first few minutes trying to decipher what in the world it even is. Some titles make this easier than others. It doesn’t take more than a few seconds to figure out what Ninpek is all about, after all. Star Waspir is, in every notable way, a hardcore vertical-scrolling shmup. Avianos, on the other hand, is fairly esoteric by comparison.
The elevator pitch is simple: It’s a resource-gathering, territory-taking, auto-battling strategy game at heart. The fact that it can make all of that work with as little friction as possible with such strict limitations in place is what makes it a miracle. Introducing a functional strategy-RPG so early in the collection would be mildly notable on its own, but the real draw of Avianos is that it’s charming as hell.
From the avatars of the prehistoric deities—which you can call upon for blessings that will benefit you in different ways depending on which one you or your opponent choose to worship—to the adorable little sprites doing battle within castle walls, Avianos perfectly encapsulates what’s special about this whole 50-game jamboree. It shows how much personality you can squeeze out of something so seemingly insignificant as a jingle a few notes in length, or a lone bird archer standing watch on a castle turret, facing down the inevitability of defeat. Raze it all, damn you!
You can practically feel the unspoken lore pouring out of each of the ancestral gods, begging you to upgrade Brontor’s miracle so you can farm more bones for reasons. Odds are you won’t even understand those reasons in your first few games; it truly doesn’t matter. Avianos disguises a simple set of rules beneath layers of unexplained ancient currencies, dusted off with archeological delight like so many neglected cartridges. Once you get the hang of it, you’ll wonder how you ever got by without Stegnar’s surprise attack, or Rexadon’s mighty miracle upgrade path.
Avianos might not be my favorite game in UFO 50, but it was the first that was truly indicative of the potential it had to gently nudge me out of my comfort zone. It’s not something I’ll go back to time and time again like Velgress, which is much punchier and easy to pick up and drop at a moment’s notice, but it’s something I’ll always appreciate.
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