Sometimes good things come to those who wait, and few things embody this concept better than ASTLIBRA Revision, the final release of a game that’s been developed by one man for over 15 years. KEIZO, a humble Japanese salaryman, started work on Astlibra because he felt there weren’t enough 2D action RPG games that filled the niche he most enjoyed. Over time, he released the game in parts as an ongoing freeware project, and in the last couple of years, a team came together to help him finally get it across the finish line. Astlibra Revision isn’t without flaws, but this is overall an enjoyable and unique action RPG that we’d recommend you check out.
Astlibra’s story primarily follows a nameless blond boy who loses a young girl close to him in a sudden monster attack on his village. When he comes to, he’s been struck with amnesia (ugh) and has no idea who or where he is, though he finds himself accompanied by a mysterious but friendly talking crow named Karon. The two set out to find their way back to the protagonist’s hometown, but they spend over eight years roaming the wilds with no success, and without seeing a single other human for the entire duration. The gameplay picks up when you encounter your first traveler and share a campfire, only to find that he and the fire have seemingly vanished without a trace by morning… as if they were never there to begin with.
Over the 40-ish hours it will take to clear the main story, things naturally get a lot more interesting, looping in ghosts, witches, time travel, dimension-hopping, and god-killing. It can be pretty hard to follow at times, perhaps partially because of the extended, stop-and-go nature of the development cycle, but Astlibra ultimately tells a memorable and emotional tale. In many ways, we were reminded of some of the early Xeno games with the ‘weightiness’ of its tone, yet this narrative still feels approachable enough.
Gameplay in Astlibra could be most accurately described as an action-focused JRPG, with elements of an '80s text-based adventure and a Metroidvania thrown in for good measure. It is broken up into isolated chapters, each of which has its own storylines, characters, and locales, after which you return to a hub city. In many ways, you can very clearly tell that this project was made in stops and starts over the course of 15 years, as it can seem rather disjointed and stitched together, but the final product is ultimately worth sticking with.
Combat is the star of the show in Astlibra, presenting as a mixture of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and the Ys series. You engage foes in basic hack ‘n’ slash battles, evading attacks with a quick backstep or a well-timed block with your shield. Meanwhile, every hit you land with your weapon builds up ST, which can be burned by a D-pad input that briefly summons a magic attack or creature, such as a rock spire erupting from the ground or a small dragon dealing AoE damage with its breath. Land enough attacks on a foe, and you'll knock them into the ‘Break’ state where they’re frozen and take extra damage.
This combat system features the perfect balance of simplicity and complexity, but the most alluring feature is the moment-to-moment feedback. There’s a satisfying crunch with every swing of a club or a slash of a sword, as the screen briefly pauses or shakes to sell the weight of the impact. Sometimes it can almost seem like these animation effects cause battles to get too chaotic when you’re being swarmed with enemies, but even so, there’s a tremendous sense of texture to encounters that never gets old—Astlibra does a great job of making combat feel suitably weighty.
Character progression is handled via a multipronged approach that gives you a few different avenues to power up your character. Leveling up via defeating enemies grants you a few skill points you can manually distribute to different stats, while enemies will also drop colored orbs that can be invested into a mazelike skill tree that unlocks an assortment of additional one-off stat bumps and abilities. On top of this, equipment items you wear can be leveled up and ‘mastered’ individually, with each one usually granting you a new passive ability for Karon that can be activated by using crystals you find while exploring. We appreciated this multi-tiered approach to building a character, as it ensures that you’re always getting stronger no matter what you do, and grinding subsequently feels much less tedious.
And grinding will be required occasionally while you progress, as the difficulty scaling can be all over the place. Luckily, there’s an almost Diablo-like sense of mindlessness to the combat that really satisfies the lizard brain—battles against trash mobs kind of require your attention, but you can easily have your attention on a podcast or Netflix show while you slowly work to make the numbers go higher. Those constant stat rewards really add some good feedback to encounters, and you don’t need to spend all that long toiling in an area before you’re ready to take on the next boss or dungeon.
Though we loved the way that combat and character progression is handled in Astlibra, one area in which it notably stumbles is in its obtuse puzzle design and signposting. This is the sort of game that expects you to talk to every NPC, and even doing this will sometimes only yield a vague hint about where you’re supposed to go next. Other times, you’re not really told what to do and just have to stumble around in the dark until you figure it out.
For example, we noted one egregious event early on where progress was gated behind a conversation with a shopkeeper, but the only way to trigger that specific conversation was to talk to another completely unrelated NPC elsewhere in the village. Had we not looked it up, we wouldn’t have any way of knowing that the shopkeeper had anything else to say, much less that they would only say it after you talked to someone else and returned to attempt another conversation.
The point is, Astlibra can sometimes feel antiquated in the worst way. There’s nothing wrong with an RPG that refuses to hold your hand and forces you to engage with the world more intentionally, but Astlibra sometimes goes well over the line into territory that feels spiteful and tedious just for the sake of it. This is the kind of game that we wouldn’t recommend playing without a guide ready to go on a second device, as you’ll otherwise find yourself intermittently running into practically invisible progression walls and trying to figure out what the developer wants you to do.
Visuals in Astlibra are another disappointment, although they aren’t necessarily bad. Your character roams across various 2D planes placed in front of photorealistic backdrops, and it has the effect of feeling like an unfinished build of a game with temporary art assets. Character designs are also basic, while the animations are generally stiff and rather awkward. Sure, there are certainly improvements in visual fidelity when comparing this to the original freeware release, but there’s an underlying incongruity to the art direction here that simply can't be overlooked.
Luckily, the soundtrack almost makes up for visual shortcomings, imbuing the adventure with loads of atmosphere that reminded us of '90s JRPGs in the best of ways. Whether it be the quiet piano medley when you enter a swamp or the high-energy battle theme when enemies jump you, the music here does a great job of stoking your sense of wonder and giving Astlibra the feeling of a grand adventure, even if the visuals can’t quite sell the fantasy. This is the kind of soundtrack that’ll have you looking for a YouTube playlist, and we’d recommend playing with headphones if possible to get the full experience.
Conclusion
Astlibra Revision may not be a truly great game, but it is most certainly an interesting one. At the very least, it is unafraid to challenge JRPG conventions in unique ways while also demonstrating mastery of the genre’s most basic tropes. It can feel a little too archaic in its design and haphazard in its pacing, while the vaguely Flash game-esque visuals are a bit of a letdown. On the whole, though, it proves to be a worthwhile experience, one that we would especially recommend to fans of older RPGs. If you can look past its faults, there’s a lot to love about Astlibra; we’d suggest you investigate if your interest is piqued.
Comments 30
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I was hoping for a review of this game as I love RPGs with realtime combat. An interesting story and good soundtrack as well. I’ll pick this one up.
Definitely want to give this a try. Thank you for the honest review
Its signposting /puzzle design is the reason why the title has been on my wishlist fir 6 months on steam (and not in the basket)
Ill pick it up eventually but I need to mentally prepare myself for the old school puzzle design
Metroidvania elements you say?
Sold.
Onto the wishlist it goes in the hope of a physical copy down the track.
I just needed to know if the performance is smooth enough during hectic fights. Can anyone confirm? Because the knock on the visuals is about their direction, not the performance.
Glad you guys reviewed this no matter the score given, but there is one thing I have a gripe with. I played the entire game on steam plus postgame and never once needed a guide, and this was BEFORE they re-translated the entire game prior to the switch release. You really only have so many areas to go through in a chapter, people to talk to and key items to use. It's pretty hard to get lost. The game is a little old school but if you can play any of the old Zelda games pre-windwaker you will be fine with this game.
Oh my, they need an art director
@PinderSchloss
Definitely! The graphics are not bad but the way they mix their colour palettes seems random and makes my eyes sore. Still interested in the game, though.
@jobvd By 'real gamer' do you mean someone who happens to like this exact game or games like it even though, even for professional reviewers, it seems to have some major flaws? Everyone is welcome to have their own opinion on any game, but I don't think it has much to do with being a 'real gamer'.
Never heard of this, but something that is a 7/10 and interesting is basically my jam
@jobvd Agreed. Absolutely a 9/10. It’s a shame that humble presentation is considered such a drawback for the tacit 2023 hive mind. But not everyone will get it, and that’s fine - it’s their loss!
@Levantine Does that include the n64 zeldas?
I appreciate the review, but I can't say I'm any closer to figuring out if I want to play this though. I appreciate someone explaining the signposting as I would've likely figured out that I needed to retalk to NPCs in order to proceed forward in the one example given. Visuals are still mixed for me, but I "think" I can forgive them. I'm still waiting for a sale.
@Captain_Toad I would say yes. The things you do, mainly between temples, in OoT are the same level of signposting and puzzle solving as in this game.
@MeloMan Minor early gameplay spoiler but:
An example I can give you is at one point you need to turn a wooden skull into a gold one. Earlier in the chapter in a cutscene someone falls in a lake and the lady of the lake pops out and talks about silver, gold, or the plain object. So you need to take a wooden skull and drop it in the lake. The game doesn't TELL YOU that you need to go to the lake, just that you need to turn the skull gold, but again there's an entire cutscene showing you what to do 30min before you actually need to do it.
@TotalHenshin I am a few hours in (which has had some hectic battles and screen-filling bosses) but haven't seen any obvious performance issues. The hit pauses that tge review mentions might make such things hard to spot anyway but to my eyrs it is running very well.
Glad that this has finally got some coverage, I have been really enjoying it so far. I also think the score is a bit harsh here, but you do probably need to be the target audience to get the most out of it I suppose. Firtunately I think I am.
Removed - trolling/baiting
I can definitely look past the negatives and the positives certainly seem quite interesting so I'll eventually get it for sure!
@jobvd I disagree with the notion of "real gamer" despite arguably being one myself when it comes to Nintendo games, but I agree that the score seems too harsh compared to the contents of the review - although nowadays I don't personally mind the former that much and mostly care about the latter - and that games don't necessarily have to appeal to the general public.
@Levantine I was also thinking of Ocarina of Time as that my experience with that game as a kid was exactly what is mentioned in this review, in fact even got stuck to the point of abandoning the game when you turn into an adult (finally finished it by playing the 3DS remake and didn't need a guide to do so, only to get everything and so also complete it).
By the way, good that the game shows you that in a cutscene, but The Honest Woodcutter is also a classic so that's an additional clue to that puzzle!
@JohnnyMind For me as a kid, I could never figure out how to get into jabu-jabu. I don't know if there actually was a sign or hint anywhere, but I could never have realized as a kid to get a fish in a bottle from lake hylia and then drop it infront of him. It wasn't until I was older that I was like "huh, so that's what I need to do!" I felt like such a doofus 🤣
With NintendoLife tending to be too charitable with their scores if anything, it's disappointing to see them miss the boat like this. I'm nearly halfway through the game and haven't had to look anything up, and it's really not that hard if you're actively paying attention (which, granted most games don't expect you to do these days, and it sounds like the reviewer thinks of this as more of a "podcast game".)
The point of the visuals is fair. I find the dark, amateurish style charming and feel that it gives the game the homemade quality that's very much appropriate for it, but it can definitely look garish and inconsistent.
That amateurish feeling isn't really present at all where it counts, however. The combat and progression systems outdo many of Astlibra's peers, from studios with many times the resources. It just feels great to play.
I think an 8 for a general audience, and a 9 or higher for diehard RPG fans would be scores that more accurately reflect the quality of the game.
@Levantine Yep, that along with Darunia took me a while, but I eventually got past those point... unfortunately only to get stuck when you become an adult as I mentioned, to be precise because of the Hookshot!
I'd give it an 8.5/10. Not everything is made for everybody, and this was clearly intended for us real gamers. It's that simple.
@Warioware Thank you for letting me know! As a real gamer, my aversion to natural light and my vehement disdain for people that disagree with me (that I use to cover up my insecurities the way these Doritos’ crumbs cover up my fingertips) makes it hard to reach out to normies like yourself. 😏
@TotalHenshin lol, I totally undetstand, I didn't see the light until I was already a man and by then it was nothing to me but blinding.....
A little harsh, it's an excellent game and very addicting, but valid point about the obtuse puzzle design choices - I needed to watch a YT vid more than once to find a way of progressing through quests. Everything else is outstanding (the game is so fun you don't notice the graphics).
@Levantine Thank you for that. I consider that fair signposting and something I typically catch, so that's OK with me.
@PinderSchloss was a one person 15 year thing with primarily asset use
@Dragnoran That means they’re talented and that an art director could really elevate this further.
If you’re re reading: I’d love the job 😜
@jobvd From a No True Scotsman fallacy to an ad hominem fallacy. You're on an ignominious roll.
While gaming sites are arguably for "real gamers" only, certainly by planting our flags in the Nintendo fandom, we've embraced the "blue ocean" approach of welcoming casual gamers.
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