Astalon: Tears of the Earth

Astalon nails the aesthetic it's aiming for. Game looks great in the way a modern game aping retro-game sensibilities should. Gameplay-wise, controls are fine and level design is quite impressive as well. Difficulty is on point for the for the first 3/5 of the game before falling off hard due to the upgrade/rpg system at work. I don't like stats progression in these types of games because they rarely work well and it doesn't here either for the most part. There's also a fair bit of bonus content in alternate game modes and a boss rush. The game forces to use manual switch between characters and it's rather annoying, but before long you can freely switch between them during gameplay and it makes the enforced campire switching feel entirely pointless or more likely a vestigial element of the game. Campires feeling vestigial is something I'll touch on the next section, which is the probably the most disliked aspect of the game. Astalon uses a lot of mini-shortcuts in lieu of less and more significant ones, and this would work well if not for the game's big bugaboo, that being the death penalty. For whatever reason, you start at the beginning of the game whenever you die. Yes, there are elevator shortcuts but there aren't enough of them, or they aren't placed well enough to not be frustrating. The micro shortcuts only accomplish so much and the game runs into a serious problem when it's just simpler for the player to die and respawn at the beginning of the game rather than navigate through a dozen rooms to reach an elevator. That kind of thing is clearly a design problem. The game has campfire rooms that 100 percent feel like they were supposed to be checkpoints/warp points but aren't for whatever reason and only serve as save points. Simply making these room additional warp points would nudge this toward being a five-star review. In short, Astalon is a very good metroidvania that is hampered from being great by some questionable design decisions.

As soon as the game starts you can feel that good Super NES vibe. The retro graphics looks great and I like the dark/occult settings (the overall vibe is still "good fun" and not too dark). The game is non-linear in the sense that you can explore the tower (the entire game takes place in a tower) in a non-specific order. The map is big and it's really fun to venture out/discover new sections. We discover new settings, power-ups, keys to unlock sections that were previously inaccessible, etc... It quickly becomes an obsession to want to discover everything that the tower has to offer! The game's controls are very good, but they aren't crisp enough for my liking. There is some "floating" in jumps, characters don't move very fast and move too "smoothly". However, these are minor annoyances. The biggest annoyance is the campfires which are save points... with absolutely no purpose! If you die, you start again at the start of the tower and not at the save point. Why?!? Over the entire game, you'll waste several hours just going back to the point where you died last time. Luckily the game is really fun because otherwise it could be a deal breaker for some. Also, we eventually discover elevators that are shortcuts to different sections, but it's still a huge waste of time. Oddly enough, the further you progress in the game, the easier it becomes. Characters become very powerful and monsters/bosses are no longer really an issue. Still, overall the game is not a walk in the park and you will have to be persistent to complete the game. Short story: A Metroidvania that deserves a solid 4/5 and on which I have spent a fun 20 hours. Hope to see a sequel with the necessary improvements.

Old school metroidvania game, NIce pixel art graphics, smooth controller and a very challenging game, every death makes you want the revenge. Give it a try, you won´t be dissapointed!

I'll gladly admit I'm a sucker for platformers. And I love the exploration and unlocking of new abilities often found in metroidvanias. Got this on sale expecting to have an okay time with it. I did not, however, expect to get engrossed enough to immediately want to dive into the unlocked game modes at the end of the game. The graphics and sound evoke nostalgia for a system I never had when growing up. The gameplay is smooth and precise. Rarely did I feel I took damage because of bad mechanics or cheap enemies. There's plenty of challenge to be found, but very little of it felt cheap. The mechanic of starting from the beginning on every death seemed daunting, until I realised that apart from buying power between lives, your unlocked shortcuts stay open making death not that punishing, as long as you made a bit of progress in your last run. If you have a liking for platformers and for exploration I can wholeheartedly recommend this. Do note though: That filling in the bestiary is required for unlocking one of the extra modes. So if you want that, make sure to finish it before facing the end boss.

A huge map that is organically connected, As you gain abilities, the area you can go to expands, Soon hidden items and secrets, 8bit game style graphics and music, It is a game that mixes the classic sensibility with the modern Metroidvania genre. But only one thing is different. Ordinary "Modern Metroidvania" games allow you to upgrade your abilities at your base or save point, but this game requires you to die. At first, I thought it mixed the characteristics of "soul-like" or "rogue-like". However, looking back after seeing the ending, I see that only the upgrade method is different, and it is just a device for conveying the story.