Game Review: Wheels of Aurelia (Xbox Series X)

Set in Italy during the late 1970s, Wheels of Aurelia is a visual novel that attempts to ‘buck the trend’ by making driving the focal point of its extremely limited gameplay.

You take on the role of Lella, a young woman driving to France to confront her past. Along the way, she will meet an array of characters and travel companions. Through their conversations, the player will learn more about Lella and the tumultuous period Italy is experiencing right now. From politics to women’s rights to religion to protests to sexuality and so much more, no conversation is off limits to Lella and those who get in her car.

It’s those conversations that Wheels of Aurelia attempts to hold your interest with. Allowing the player to respond in different ways, thus dictating where the conversation goes. How you interact with certain characters will determine what ending you get and Wheels of Aurelia has 16 to unlock.

Necessary replay value as the actual game can be completed in around 15 minutes with minimal effort. Heck, the game even has an achievement for completing it without pressing a single button.

Which should give you some clue as to how pointless the ‘driving’ aspect of the game is. You can simply let the car coast along as it steers itself around bends, or you can take control, speed up and drive through traffic. It’s not as though there’s any real punishment for poor driving. You can pinball off cars and nothing will happen. Although there is one or two endings that do require more measured driving.

Wheels of Aurelia wanted to do something different with the visual novel aspect by including this gameplay aspect but in reality, it actually takes away from the game. Driving is an irritation and feels pointless. Even the races that can occur in certain routes lack any semblance of challenge. What it does is distract you from the meat of the game and that’s its story.

As you drive, characters talk and you need to interact to move the story along. You can remain silent (there’s an achievement for that too) but if you want to experience all that Wheels of Aurelia has to offer, you’re going to want to talk to the characters. Yet, the lack of substance to almost all the conversations make it all feel pointless. It’s like the characters are babbling at a hyper speed. Bouncing from one topic to the other without anything to connect the two. It comes across really unnatural and becomes hard to absorb. By the end of the game, 16 endings later, the main character of Lella still felt undefined.

All of this is made worse by the fact that by ending 8, you will likely have seen the majority of the conversations. Aside from a few minor tweaks here and there, the replay value of getting all the endings is greatly diminished by having seen and heard it all before. It’s a boring game from the start but reaches mind-numbing levels when attempting to unlock all the endings.

Visually, the colourful art style and isometric backdrops are pleasing to the eye and sonically, the blend of cultural and historical music fit nicely. Both are probably the most positive things about the game. Which is such a shame as the idea of Wheels of Aurelia is solid, it’s just the execution that leaves much to be desired.