Quite possibly the most unhinged game I've ever played.
I went in expecting a simple 2D Action RPG that'd be short but sweet as it was mostly made by one guy... turns out this is a +50 hour RPG that took 14 years to complete with one of the most insane stories I've experienced in quite a while that kept going on and on and on. I got to several points where I'm like "I believe I see the end of this massive tunnel... oh no wait there's still more." Yeah I think that phrase describes Astlibra Revision perfectly, there's always more.
Where to begin... lets start with the visuals. Most of the environments and backgrounds are these edited public domain photos and materials. It gives a strange tone to the setting of the game, as I'll be starring in the background and its very obvious that these textures of this cave are just actual photos of cliffs and rocks. Some of the enemies are like this... I think. It's hard to tell with some of them, but I'm pretty sure the dev used real photos for the penguins you fight at the snowy mountain. Its a bizarre style that straddles the line between being low-budgeted and stylistic. Its funny how this made me pay attention more to the backgrounds, trying to discern what are photos and what were originally made assets. A lot of monsters and bosses are original, and to its credit there's a lot of interesting designs that show a often-treaded but no less bombastic style of medieval fantasy.
Though speaking of designs, if you aren't privy to "anime" designs or tropes then parts of this game will be hard to stomach. You fight a loooot of giant women with huge breasts which is one thing, but the story also has "classic scenes" like the hot spring visit, or the scene where a woman has to wear something very skimpy because of a big misunderstanding, or the "N-not like I like you, idiot!" and so forth. I really hate talking about this stuff, but it be remiss of me to not give a heads-up. To be fair this game took 14 years to make. I can't vouch what was changed during all that time, but standards of art change just as much as the technology we use to play games. What's seen as fine at some point is seen as "trashy" later in time, even if some of this was always the latter to begin with. It's not unlike how the infamous Duke Nukem Forever was a mess of old mechanics and set pieces that felt immediately dated when it came out since it took so long to be "finished", only that the differences is that they are, thankfully, fleeting moments in this marathon of a game. You aren't going to go on a road trip without having to drive around some potholes, but I wouldn't argue with you if you said they should've patched those holes up.
Dwelling on these misgivings wouldn't be fair as it ignores the entire plot and boy howdy what a roller coaster it is. It involves a lot of time travel with the protagonist able to prevent disasters and fixing many a tragedy by traveling into the past. That's putting the time travel mechanic as simply as I can, but they take every advantage they can with it. Nearly anytime I wonder "What would happen if they did this?" they'd actually explore that possibility in due time. Does it always make sense? I don't know. Time travel isn't real so who the hell knows. I was admittedly smiling and nodding a lot of times when some unforeseen consequence unfolds, or a new rule of this temporal manipulation rears its ugly head. I was always like "I'm hear for it!" I'm also glad that some of my fleeting thoughts on the motivations and goals of this diverse cast gets explored in many ways. The protagonist, for example, is searching for his childhood friend that he lost eight years ago. And without spoiling it I had certain thoughts about this dynamic that I'm happy to say that the author did explore, and rather thoroughly at that. Some of the craziest reveals need to be seen firsthand, it goes places.
I don't wish to delve too much into the nitty gritty of the plot, so what do you even do in this game? I listened to a podcast that gave this game a near perfect descriptor, "It's like if Vampire Survivors had actual structure and a plot". This game is all about that progression and dopamine. You can place stat points into any stat you want, but re-speccing is easy, free, and even encouraged. Every armor, shield, and weapon have a experience bar that, when filled, will reward with either a skill or a skill slot in order to use said skills. Skills do, in fact, have a massive impact on how you play, so you're encourage to use as many weapons and armor as you can. Enemies drop materials in order to buy equipment, as well as "Force" that's used on this massive skill tree. The skill tree is mostly for permanent stat ups and the rare treasure, but it also gives access to the magic spells that have a wide variety of effects. Importantly, MP is only gained by attacking enemies, and it will decrease by itself if you idle for too long which encourages an aggressive playstyle. In exchange casting a spell will grant brief invulnerability, so you can blast through a wave of enemy bullets with good timing. Further increasing aggression is a combo counter that rewards several bonuses the more hits you rack up in quick succession, so don't stand around for too long. The flexibility in how you play your character is perhaps the strongest point of this game. I've had many instances where instead of grinding for better overall stats when I hit a brick wall, I changed my stats and equipment that made the bosses much easier to deal with. One of the most memorable moments I had was with this one secret boss that I fought way sooner then I should've. Unluckily for me it was a DPS check, meaning if I didn't deal enough damage in a short enough time then it was a instant-death. It was straight up impossible to pass the DPS check at my current level. Luckily I had a skill where my damage was multiplied threefold, but as a consequence I died in one hit. I could then pair that up with a skill where you can take one hit for free per battle, and I essentially was playing Ghost n' Goblins for the whole fight. Felt amazing when my crazy plan actually worked... after many deaths.
The Vampire Survivors comparison comes from how explosive fighting can get. You can reach a point in power where you can kill anything with your 30 foot sword and your giant dragon summon, as your enemies erupt into gold and force confetti. These sessions can be a relaxing background game to play, but not the most enthralling if you're going for every achievement. I didn't get all of them, about 90% or so. It is a good sign from me when I go out of my way to get achievements in your game, but I'd be lying if I said I got that much more out of the game for getting them. This can be a very grindy game, almost never required if you want to see the end of the game but there is some great and exciting content that'll be way harder if you go in ill-prepared. I did do a lot of grinding just because I wanted to do it, so take that for what you will.
One thing that caught me by surprised are the many puzzles in this game. It's not always a straight shot to the chapter boss, you'll have to do some thinking and inventory management to progress. Sometimes the path towards progression can seem borderline cryptic, but there's usually a NPC nearby that can provide hints and guidance to what to do (sometimes you'll need to talk to the same person more then once). Oh by "inventory management", I mean that this game will rarely use a item automatically from your inventory. You have to manually open up your items and use the specific item needed. I kinda liked it actually. It made me feel smarter solving even the more basic puzzles since it was up to me to figure out what I needed to do, but maybe it could've used keys automatically at least.
Even at times I kinda wished this game knew when to end properly, I can't deny the amount of effort and passion that was put into this game. It feels like someone wanted to include everything they love into one game, and despite some iffiness here or there, it manages to put itself together far more eloquently then you'd expect. You'll be in for the long haul, but it'll be a unforgettable adventure unlike many.
...What do you mean there's going to be DLC?! This game is already 50 hours long!!
I went in expecting a simple 2D Action RPG that'd be short but sweet as it was mostly made by one guy... turns out this is a +50 hour RPG that took 14 years to complete with one of the most insane stories I've experienced in quite a while that kept going on and on and on. I got to several points where I'm like "I believe I see the end of this massive tunnel... oh no wait there's still more." Yeah I think that phrase describes Astlibra Revision perfectly, there's always more.
Where to begin... lets start with the visuals. Most of the environments and backgrounds are these edited public domain photos and materials. It gives a strange tone to the setting of the game, as I'll be starring in the background and its very obvious that these textures of this cave are just actual photos of cliffs and rocks. Some of the enemies are like this... I think. It's hard to tell with some of them, but I'm pretty sure the dev used real photos for the penguins you fight at the snowy mountain. Its a bizarre style that straddles the line between being low-budgeted and stylistic. Its funny how this made me pay attention more to the backgrounds, trying to discern what are photos and what were originally made assets. A lot of monsters and bosses are original, and to its credit there's a lot of interesting designs that show a often-treaded but no less bombastic style of medieval fantasy.
Though speaking of designs, if you aren't privy to "anime" designs or tropes then parts of this game will be hard to stomach. You fight a loooot of giant women with huge breasts which is one thing, but the story also has "classic scenes" like the hot spring visit, or the scene where a woman has to wear something very skimpy because of a big misunderstanding, or the "N-not like I like you, idiot!" and so forth. I really hate talking about this stuff, but it be remiss of me to not give a heads-up. To be fair this game took 14 years to make. I can't vouch what was changed during all that time, but standards of art change just as much as the technology we use to play games. What's seen as fine at some point is seen as "trashy" later in time, even if some of this was always the latter to begin with. It's not unlike how the infamous Duke Nukem Forever was a mess of old mechanics and set pieces that felt immediately dated when it came out since it took so long to be "finished", only that the differences is that they are, thankfully, fleeting moments in this marathon of a game. You aren't going to go on a road trip without having to drive around some potholes, but I wouldn't argue with you if you said they should've patched those holes up.
Dwelling on these misgivings wouldn't be fair as it ignores the entire plot and boy howdy what a roller coaster it is. It involves a lot of time travel with the protagonist able to prevent disasters and fixing many a tragedy by traveling into the past. That's putting the time travel mechanic as simply as I can, but they take every advantage they can with it. Nearly anytime I wonder "What would happen if they did this?" they'd actually explore that possibility in due time. Does it always make sense? I don't know. Time travel isn't real so who the hell knows. I was admittedly smiling and nodding a lot of times when some unforeseen consequence unfolds, or a new rule of this temporal manipulation rears its ugly head. I was always like "I'm hear for it!" I'm also glad that some of my fleeting thoughts on the motivations and goals of this diverse cast gets explored in many ways. The protagonist, for example, is searching for his childhood friend that he lost eight years ago. And without spoiling it I had certain thoughts about this dynamic that I'm happy to say that the author did explore, and rather thoroughly at that. Some of the craziest reveals need to be seen firsthand, it goes places.
I don't wish to delve too much into the nitty gritty of the plot, so what do you even do in this game? I listened to a podcast that gave this game a near perfect descriptor, "It's like if Vampire Survivors had actual structure and a plot". This game is all about that progression and dopamine. You can place stat points into any stat you want, but re-speccing is easy, free, and even encouraged. Every armor, shield, and weapon have a experience bar that, when filled, will reward with either a skill or a skill slot in order to use said skills. Skills do, in fact, have a massive impact on how you play, so you're encourage to use as many weapons and armor as you can. Enemies drop materials in order to buy equipment, as well as "Force" that's used on this massive skill tree. The skill tree is mostly for permanent stat ups and the rare treasure, but it also gives access to the magic spells that have a wide variety of effects. Importantly, MP is only gained by attacking enemies, and it will decrease by itself if you idle for too long which encourages an aggressive playstyle. In exchange casting a spell will grant brief invulnerability, so you can blast through a wave of enemy bullets with good timing. Further increasing aggression is a combo counter that rewards several bonuses the more hits you rack up in quick succession, so don't stand around for too long. The flexibility in how you play your character is perhaps the strongest point of this game. I've had many instances where instead of grinding for better overall stats when I hit a brick wall, I changed my stats and equipment that made the bosses much easier to deal with. One of the most memorable moments I had was with this one secret boss that I fought way sooner then I should've. Unluckily for me it was a DPS check, meaning if I didn't deal enough damage in a short enough time then it was a instant-death. It was straight up impossible to pass the DPS check at my current level. Luckily I had a skill where my damage was multiplied threefold, but as a consequence I died in one hit. I could then pair that up with a skill where you can take one hit for free per battle, and I essentially was playing Ghost n' Goblins for the whole fight. Felt amazing when my crazy plan actually worked... after many deaths.
The Vampire Survivors comparison comes from how explosive fighting can get. You can reach a point in power where you can kill anything with your 30 foot sword and your giant dragon summon, as your enemies erupt into gold and force confetti. These sessions can be a relaxing background game to play, but not the most enthralling if you're going for every achievement. I didn't get all of them, about 90% or so. It is a good sign from me when I go out of my way to get achievements in your game, but I'd be lying if I said I got that much more out of the game for getting them. This can be a very grindy game, almost never required if you want to see the end of the game but there is some great and exciting content that'll be way harder if you go in ill-prepared. I did do a lot of grinding just because I wanted to do it, so take that for what you will.
One thing that caught me by surprised are the many puzzles in this game. It's not always a straight shot to the chapter boss, you'll have to do some thinking and inventory management to progress. Sometimes the path towards progression can seem borderline cryptic, but there's usually a NPC nearby that can provide hints and guidance to what to do (sometimes you'll need to talk to the same person more then once). Oh by "inventory management", I mean that this game will rarely use a item automatically from your inventory. You have to manually open up your items and use the specific item needed. I kinda liked it actually. It made me feel smarter solving even the more basic puzzles since it was up to me to figure out what I needed to do, but maybe it could've used keys automatically at least.
Even at times I kinda wished this game knew when to end properly, I can't deny the amount of effort and passion that was put into this game. It feels like someone wanted to include everything they love into one game, and despite some iffiness here or there, it manages to put itself together far more eloquently then you'd expect. You'll be in for the long haul, but it'll be a unforgettable adventure unlike many.
...What do you mean there's going to be DLC?! This game is already 50 hours long!!