AWAKEN - Astral Blade

Honestly, much better than what I have expected. For one, it is much larger than it might initially seem. Exploration is quite fun, and there are many unique kinds of collectibles, which is always nice. Combat is probably where this game shines the most, as it genuinely is really fun and satisfying. Art is great, especially in the cutscenes. There are some visual bugs or inconsistencies out in the world, but it is hardly noticeable. Voice acting was a surprise, and a decently well done at that, albeit the frequency of its appearance was rather...off. Sometimes it appeared for like one sentence, and then went quiet on the next one. Music is...fine. I mean, I will be honest, it is a bit of a letdown. It is essentially nothing but ambiance. And while it is actually well done ambiance, like, it does sound nice, it still gets stale rather quick. It also ruins the mood of the boss fights, as there seems to either be no actual battle music, or battle music is also an ambiance, which is...definitely a choice. Story is nice enough, nothing too crazy, but maybe my standards are just way too high. Tho I will say that dialogue is sometimes a bit unnatural, both because of the weaker translation to english, and because it just is either too expository, or too random. One final gripe I have, is that upon reaching the endgame, balancing just gets thrown out of the window. On normal difficulty, you get one or two shotted by a decent chunk of standard enemies, and by every single endgame boss. For standard enemies it is fine, as you also one or two shot them, but it gets problematic in boss fights. Still, game is quite generous when it comes to accessibility options, so makes it a bit better. Albeit I do think for future games, some better balancing might be welcome;3 Anyway, game is good, better than it might initially seem. Can recommend.

I finished this on story difficulty (see below) with Ending A after 9 hours and using a map. Initially, I wanted to gives this a lukewarm recommend, but I cannot do so anymore. The game is tedious as hell, and low enemy variety and bullet sponge bosses made combat and exploration not very fun overall very quickly. The game scratches the metroidvania itch, without it really standing out in most departments otherwise. I like the graphics and everything looks mostly polished. On the negative side is a garbage story that is trite and confusing, inane dialogue and some design decisions, which did not do it for me. Graphics and world-building also feel very inconsistent: aliens, spaceships, plants granting abilities, christmas trees, just put everything into a blender and ... well. It worked well for Nine Sols, here it feels cheap and amateurish. Worst offender for me were the accessibility settings for difficulty: I applaud that they exist, but the implementation is idiotic: the game starts out nicely on standard just to present you with real bullet sponge bosses (and boy, most have a second health bar). The third boss (three graces) was so spongey, after being prompted to turn down difficulty after dying many times, I was stuck on story difficulty because you can only put difficulty back up again at set places, which I hadn't found yet even despite playing for hours afterwards. Normal areas on story are a joke, so this baffling design decision is kind of ruining a part of the game. Why not have an option to just switch difficulty whenever you want to?! Given that combat started soon to feel repetitive, I kept the difficulty low, but the game still felt like a chore quickly. A pity.

意外的不错，主角的性能和数值给的很大方，普通模式到后期纯爽局。 剧情的话大概讲的就是一位究极重女为实现爱人梦想谋划了五百年，最后被女主打败说服的故事，话说女主的老婆没了两次好惨 o(TヘTo)

Muy divertido, vale mucho la pena si te gustan los Metroidvania. Solo una crítica, la curva de dificultad está muy difícil al inicio del juego, y el farmeo es excesivo. Si corrigen eso le pondría un 10/10.

2일동안 재밌게 했습니다 장점과 단점이 둘다 많은데, 그래도 장점이 더 많았어요 장점 - 전투 할맛이 남. 타격감 좋음 - 이동이 시원시원해서 좋음 - 상당히 직관적 - 어디로 가야할 지 지도에 간접적으로 표시되어서 헤매지 않게 해줌 - 유저 편의성 좋은 편이라고 생각됨 - 볼륨 큼 단점 - 뭔가 짜치는 그래픽과 모션 - 공중 패링안됨. 패링 손맛은 거의 없다시피 함 - 스토리가..좀 아쉬움. 서사가 좀 없달까.. 웅장해지는 맛은 없음 - 잔버그가 좀 많음. - 실수로 하드코어로 세팅하고 쭉 했는데, 긴장감은 딱히 없음

Good, not great but good. The story is a bit weird if you try to follow it. Combat was probably my favorite thing to do, combos are easy to pull off and you feel some good power scaling as you progress. It's not a terribly difficult game, especially near the end. I think my one big complaint is that the character movement seems "marionette"-like, cheaply done. Other than that it's a decent game.