Reclaim Your Heritage In Falcon Age – Review (PS4, PSVR)

Machines have replaced humans and are using them to harvest materials. Refineries and mines litter the land where farms used to be and robots and drones have taken over. The story of your people is fading, and there are only a few who are part of a resistance to take back their land and heritage.

The world is bleak, but filled with hope.

This is the story of Falcon Age, the new single-player, first-person adventure game for PS4 and, optionally, PSVR. You play as Ara, a young prisoner who escapes with a little help from a pet falcon that befriends her while she is in captivity. With the help of your aunt and your new best friend, you’ll help Ara recover the land that has been stripped away by the machines.

Gameplay and Story

The gameplay will change depending on a number of factors. You can choose to play on a typical screen with your DS4 or in the PSVR headset armed with your trusty Move controllers. The base game has combat, but you can choose to experience the world of Falcon Age without it in a special mode called Imprint. Though we played this title in each configuration, at least for a short amount of time, the majority of our time with Falcon Age was spent in a PSVR headset in the mode that allows for and encourages combat.

Ara escapes from her captors and is soon helped by her gruff aunt. Her falcon, who you are unable to name until your aunt agrees you are ready to do so, will be a major help to you on your journey to reclaim the land as well. Ara can use her falcon to gather resources and items, attack enemies, clear land, plant seeds, hunt, and perform a variety of other tasks. 

You are also armed with an electrified baton that can act as a whip. This baton allows you to perform many of the core functions of the game needed to complete your objectives and progress.

If your falcon gets too injured, you are able to call her back to you (done in VR by physically moving your hand near your mouth and whistling) and remove the darts with which she’s been shot. This will bring her back to health somewhat, but you can also pet and feed her to restore additional health. 

Crafting and Upgrades

Though Falcon Age is mostly about exploring areas, reclaiming them, and bringing them back to life, there is also a large crafting element at play. This crafting includes creating new upgrades for your falcon that grant her various abilities. A stealth hood will make your falcon less likely to be seen by your mechanical foe. You can create or buy gear that will allow her to detect and destroy land mines. 

Of course, there are also plenty of cosmetic items because, when you can dress up a bird – you dress up that bird. Cowboy hats, bandanas, toys, masks, helmets (which do seemingly give some stat boost), and goodgoodboi doggo masks abound. 

You can also collect recipes and cook for your falcon. These treats may help bump stats for a period of time or even heal her from any injuries she may have sustained. 

Sound and Design

For a game with so tense combat, especially in VR, Falcon Age has one of the most mellow soundtracks we’ve ever heard. Sure, there are areas where music is more tense and dramatic while enemies are around and you are engaged in combat. For the most part though, you’ll be treated with soft, soothing tones and be lullabied into appreciating the world around you.

The environment is gorgeous. Soft color palettes speak to the story’s message and allows you to appreciate the plight in which your character and their friends find themselves. Each pixel was thought out and placed in an effort to make you feel as though you really are in the untouched wilderness. This is made even more apparent by the blatant contrast in and around industrialized areas, making you hate the robots even more and appreciate that for which you are fighting.

Technical

In the normal play mode (non-PSVR) we saw almost no issues at all. There were no frame rate stutters, control malfunctions, or disorientation due to poor optimization at all. The only issues were that which are detailed below and apply to both versions.

Unfortunately we can’t quite say the same for the VR leg of the title. It’s not jarring as compared to other titles we’ve played, but something just didn’t feel right with that headset on. Sure, you can see all around you for miles and there’s no experience quite like following your bird as she flies through the sky above you. Even with this version of the game being built from the ground up, it still suffers from some of the technical limitations we find with the PSVR platform. Controls sometimes got a little wonky, pointing at things didn’t quite work like it should, and your falcon’s head was oftentimes completely blocking your view when she was perched on your outstretched hand.

We could chalk some of the difficulties with the VR version up to the relative newness of the tech. However, we’ve also played a ton of VR games with the exact same setup and had almost none of the same issues.

The other technical difficulty came with controlling your falcon while in the sky. Sometime she wouldn’t come back when you called. Other times she wouldn’t leave when you told her to. This wasn’t common, but when it happened in the middle of a battle, it wasn’t particularly optimal.

Conclusion

Falcon Age’s narrative is touching and sincere. The concept of bonding with a pet or companion to accomplish your goals is not one that has been overdone, and will appeal to many players. Technical issues aside, Falcon Age is a welcome title that not only helped us see a different angle of modernization than we are used to seeing in the medium, but was also incredibly cute and enjoyable. Clocking in at around six hours (depending on your skill and desire to explore) Falcon Age is a must buy at the $20 price tag.

Check out our Review Guide to see what we criteria we use to score games.

Falcon Age was provided to the reviewer by the game’s PR company, but this fact did not alter the reviewer’s opinion.