Ariana and the Harpy’s Feather is a platformer based in Brazilian folklore brought to us by the Brazilian team of Duaik Entretenimento. Although the game only now arrived on Xbox One, it was already available last year on Steam. Apart from that, the game has been nominated for 7 awards, out of which it won 4 accolades. I was curious about the title and wanted to know if the wins held merit.
As stated before, the story of the game is inspired by some of Brazil’s indigenous culture folklore and it’s about a local boy called Aritana. Yes, Aritana is a boy and not a girl. By his own choice he embarks on a dangerous quest to retrieve a feather from a rare harpy (in Brazilian culture it’s a mystic bird and not the woman with wings and claws of a eagle type of monster). Although this may sound simple, this harpy can only be found on the top of the highest mountain in the land of the man-eater Mapinguari.
The main feature of the game is the ability to change postures, or stances, that grant you abilities to jump, attack and change the speed of the game for a short period of time. You are equipped with the Shaman’s Staff that Aritana stole on his way to fulfil this task, and the more you progress through the game, you will unlock new abilities, new moves and new combos. It’s up to you how to use them to succeed in your quest.
The game consists in a total of 12 levels, 3 of which are boss fights against Mapinguari that require concentration and mastery of the skills learned through previous levels. There are also 4 additional bonus levels that grant you the ability to expand your life meter by collecting the medicinal plant in them. To access these bonus levels, you have to collect the Muiraquitãs amulets scatter through each level, 5 on each one, and offer them to the statue in the end of the level.
Aritana and the Harpy’s Feather offers a new way to play a platform game. One is the controls scheme, which is completely different of previous games in the genre that I’ve played before. The regular D-pad and buttons scheme has been completely cast a side and instead the only way to control Aritana is using both analog sticks, the left one to move (which is already possible to use in other platform games) and the right stick to perform the various attacks. To jump you use the right trigger. The left trigger and the right bumper are also used to change between stances and to activate the special abilities of each stance. This new control scheme was developed exclusively for the Xbox controller, and once you get used to it it becomes intuitive. It just took a while to get used to them and it frustrated me a little bit.
There’s another feature that changes the gameplay, relative to other games of the genre, this one is related to the enemies. In Aritana and the Harpy’s Feather you don’t actually kill the enemies, called spirits, that you found on your journey to retrieve the mythical feather. After you hit them them will disappear for a while and respawn shortly after. You can keep track of them as they become “non lethal” from the way they move around you. You have to be careful because sometimes their path continues until the end of the ledge where you are and when aggroed they will harm you.
Besides the Mapinguari, the boss, the game has a different variety of enemies that are divided in two major types. The blue ones, that you can kill from the start of the game, and the red ones that can only be killed after you acquire the fire staff. Until that you have to dodge and avoid them.
The rest of the gameplay is very similar to other platform games. There are the Guaranás, that are a Brazilian fruit and look like an eye with leafs on top of it, to pick up. After you pick up 100 of them you will win an extra life. There are also secret areas scattered through the levels and the Muiraquitãs amulets that I’ve mention before are also there.
Once you finish the game you will have the chance to replay any of the levels and will also be able to start the game from scratch but with a hardened difficult. In this mode be prepared to test your limit, because if you for some reason find the normal game hard in some situations, in here you will see what hard means. This option will be available above the slots of the game saves called “Start New Game +”.
Graphically the game is very well designed and detailed for a 2.5D game (there are other levels that change it to full 3D). The art-style of the levels is inspired by the art of some of the indigenous tribes of Brazil, which makes it another unique feature of the game. Even the few cutscenes of the game have their unique touch. The soundtrack is very smooth and responds to how Aritana feels during the game, which give it a non-linear effect that will always be different as you travel through the game.
Aritana and the Harpy’s Feather is already available, and for now it’s only available on the United States ($10) and Brazil (R$19) stores. I would give it 9.5 out of 10 because it is a great game that elevates the platform genre. I recommend it for both old and new platform games lovers. I finally understand why people love this game!
João is a games journalist, Senior Editor at XDA Developers. They contributed 156 articles to ICXM between 2015–2017, focused on game reviews, Windows and PC, and Xbox news: previously reported for Neowin before joining XDA Developers in 2021, where he leads coverage of Windows, Microsoft, and hardware.