Such a great monster tamer game. Love a lot of the monster designs and animations. Really enjoyed my time with it, especially the first two thirds. The novelty of the combat system and premise kinda wore off towards the end, although I just scratched the surface of tactical possibilities. The finale also was more on the weaker side, because the group feeling between the other teammates wasn't really there, so some stuff didn't have a big emotional impact. But it's extremely impressive, considering it came from such a small team. Had some surprisingly fun movement / platforming-ideas as well and the combat system is really thought-out.

Played it on a PS5 and honestly, the in-game graphics look pretty incredible. The "cutscenes" which are more of a slideshow kinda seem out of place, but it's obviously a budget decision and although they look pretty rough at times, I can understand it.

The biggest problem with this game is that the first playthrough is probably not gonna be extremely enjoyable. The characters are pretty much always talking and the only ways to follow the dialogue are a) be able to understand japanese and b) read the very small subtitles in the bottom left corner. But since Astebreed is an action game, this doesn't really work, because you can't play very good, whilst reading. Kid Icarus Uprising did this way better, but an english dub would've been the solution, which probably comes back to the budget restraint. Ignoring the dialogue is also not the best option for the 1st playthrough, since the game puts a surprising emphasis on the story, which you probably shouldn't skip the first time (it's not great and extremely rushed, but you probably could find some aspects to like).

Besides that, the combat is pretty fun and surprisingly complex, although melee + homing missiles seems kinda op in comparison to the normal shooting style. They also did some really slick 3D camera work in some scenes, when focusing on stuff happening in the background or finishing moves. And uh, mech looks cool.