Review: Astalon – Tears of the Earth

Developer – LABS Works

Publisher – DANGEN Entertainment

Platform – Switch, Playstation (Reviewed), Xbox, PC

I am a huge fan of Metroidvania games and when I saw the Astalon trailer I had a feeling it was going to be good. I was just surprised at how great it actually was. Few games really let you get lost in their levels. At times Astalon might withhold a bit too much information but overall the game is a delight!

The gameplay is mainly the typical metroidvania experience. Platforming, puzzle solving, and vanquishing massive amounts of enemies as you scour every room looking for hidden passages and loot. The difference with Astalon is you start out with a party of 3 members that you can swap out at save points. Each character has unique abilities that allow you to access different parts of the dungeon or complete puzzles. 

The three main characters are Algus, Arias, and Kyuli. Algus is the wizard of the party. He can fire off magic spells that help you with midrange attacking and his magic also provides powers to orbs that change the environment. He can even hit enemies through walls which is extremely handy! Arias is the crystal sword knight who is your close range attacker. He gets abilities that allow him to sprint, and reflect magic while having more defense. Finally, Kyuli is your archer. She has the ability to wall jump to reach higher areas and fire arrows at enemies across the screen.

Another cool feature of the game is how you upgrade your character. As you defeat enemies and break items in the environment you collect blue orbs. These orbs are a currency that allow you to upgrade your characters upon death. These upgrades can be global buffs for your characters such as more health or unlocking pieces of the story. There are also character specific upgrades like increasing Arius’ damage against bosses or making Algus’ spell radius larger.

This brings us to the quest and why the characters are brought back from death. Your party is on a quest to find the source of poison in the water supply of the villages. The source happens to be the tower of Gorgons. Algus, the lead character, has made a pact with the Titan of Death Epimetheus. In exchange for his soul, Algus is allowed to return from the brink of death until his quest is complete. You also can exchange the blue orbs to Epimetheus to appease his appetite for more souls for these upgrades. After you are finished purchasing upgrades, you start your journey as if it just begun but retain the knowledge of the journey so far.

Technically, the game runs perfectly. Throughout my 18 hour playthrough, I only experienced one bug which required a reset. The controls are tight, and allow precise platforming which is very important to get right. The music is very well done and feels appropriate for the environment that you are exploring. It never felt repetitive or annoying to listen to the same song over and over as you spend a few hours in a zone. The only issue technically that I had was with ladders. It felt like when I reached the top of a ladder I would get stuck or fall if I didn’t jump at the top which was pretty annoying. The environmental design and pixel art is top notch. The different areas of the tower all feel unique and are interesting to explore.

For the most part, save points and shortcuts are evenly spaced throughout the tower so you don’t feel like you ever lose too much progress upon death. This is true for every section except one, and it honestly lead to a massive amount of frustration. It had a stretch of 25 rooms that you have to traverse with a very limited health pool. This required me to go back to other portions of the dungeon that I hadn’t found yet and level up and find more items to make the trek easier. It turned out that this was one of the last sections of the game and I was heading to one of the final bosses required to beat the game. This area can be accessed with only about 50-60% of the map complete which threw me off.

Once you complete the game there are additional game modes to unlock such as boss rush mode or even play through the game with a very big change. There are also additional characters that you can unlock in the game as you playthrough as well as alternate endings. There is a lot of content here for the price! It took me about 17 hours to beat the final boss, and then another hour or so to unlock 100% of the map and items to get an alternate ending. I would say between that and the alternative modes there is at least 25-30 hours of content here.

There are a lot of aspects to enjoy about Astalon and I hope that there is a sequel or even prequel game. The interactions between your party are limited but impactful. The map is designed well with plenty of secrets and unlockables. The game also provides enough challenge that you most likely won’t breeze through it and get bored. I would highly recommend this game to fans of metroidvania games or even fans of roguelites.