Before the release of Asterigos: Curse of the Stars, I had skeptical expectations. Or to be more precise, they almost didn’t exist – well, just another soulslice, only in a bright wrapper and with ancient Greek motifs. And on our website the reaction to the news about the project was about the same. But in the end we got a game that, despite the problems in the gameplay, can be called one of the best adventures of this fall.
Girl from the North
A lot of success comes from characters, setting, and plot. At the same time, the plot itself is quite standard. Another magical crap, bad experiments, attempts to lift a curse that has struck an entire city – we’ve seen this more than once. Unless in Asterigos all this is accompanied by ancient Greek motifs and references – including the legend of the curse of King Midas.
The charismatic red-haired girl from the North – we also saw this: just remember Aloy from Horizon . True, Hilda from Asterigos still quite a child who can throw up her hands in a funny, childish way with joy right during a conversation – and this only adds color to her.
The girl went in search of her father, who led an expedition of the northern army to the cursed city of Aphes – there they hoped to find a way to alleviate the suffering of their king, who had become a victim of the curse. But in the end everyone disappeared somewhere.
Many, naturally, do not believe that this red-haired, freckled girl is capable of defeating the creatures mutated due to magic that have filled the city, but it is she who the Followers eventually begin to trust – that’s what a group of townspeople call themselves, who have been trying to overcome the misfortune that has struck Aphes for a thousand years.
And even more so, the fellow northerners whom the girl meets on her way do not doubt Hilda’s abilities. Among them there are also “goblins” – this is the name in her homeland for thieving adventurers who came to Afes in search of profit. One of them first attacks Hilda, and then almost confesses his love – and together they remember under what circumstances they met two years ago.
The devil is in the details
It’s details like these that make a familiar story more interesting and memorable. Yes, and the intrigues hidden at first gradually appear – the villain after some time will turn out to be not as clear-cut as one might think at first.
But the main thing is that, while running on assignments from the Followers, Hilda constantly finds new information, meets interesting characters, overhears conversations and sees fragments of events of the past, which in total gives a much clearer and more detailed picture. And these are not just another record of the progress of experiments, but interesting details about why people began to turn into harpies; about how and why two friends quarreled – a brilliant singer and an equally outstanding harpist.
In general, there are many colorful characters in the game. In addition to the music-playing harpy, in the Followers’ hideout you can meet a cunning merchant and informant trying to manipulate Hilda, as well as an anthropomorphic fox blacksmith. And everyone has their own story.
And in other locations (here are city streets, sewers, suburbs, a mine, and a huge prison) we find even more characters who make this world convincing and alive, for example, a werewolf who was attacked by other werewolves. There is an option to save him, but the consequences will still not be very pleasant.
And one day I came across a man who asked me to give gifts to a local preacher. In fact, she was only posing as a preacher, and a choice arose – tell the man the truth and finally plunge him into madness, or take him to her.
Research Instinct
All these side quests and characters are not indicated by question marks or exclamation marks on the map (it’s not here) – the game encourages us to knock on every door, study every nook and cranny, so that, for example, we can completely accidentally fall into a hole, find there an alternative passage, the spider eggs we are looking for in one of the quests, or a chest from which suddenly not gold will fall, but a green slug will crawl out and devour Hilda without a chance to escape. But that makes it even more interesting!
Exploring locations is also important because this is how we find rare resources necessary for the blacksmith fox to upgrade Hilda’s weapons, create protective amulets and improve her magical powers.
This also requires stardust (local currency), but there are no special problems with it. After each death of Hilda, not only she, but also her enemies are reborn – this also happens if you just rest at the checkpoint. Therefore, if you wish, you can grind a decent amount. But all these crystals, ore fragments and other valuable ingredients will not “respawn”. Collecting them is important, because at the highest and even at medium difficulty levels, enemies, especially bosses, are capable of providing serious resistance.
Adequate difficulty
This is despite the fact that at first it may seem as if the authors missed the balance. Of all the types of weapons, each of which gives a unique ability (a sword and shield, for example, allow you to block, a spear – parry and counterattack, and a hammer penetrates defenses), the main superweapon is the magic staff.
By changing the types of magic (fire, ice or astral) depending on the type of enemies, you can easily shoot many of them from afar. Therefore, it seems that it is enough to upgrade the branch of the staff, making it an increasingly effective weapon, study spells and increase the parameters associated specifically with magic in order to easily overcome all dangers even before they reach you. Moreover, using the staff does not consume mana, but, on the contrary, gradually restores it – it is spent on powerful spells.
But the further you go, the more often situations occur when enemies sharply reduce the distance, squeeze, limit the space for maneuver – in general, they do everything so that the use of a staff and magic does not seem like a panacea. I especially liked the bosses in this sense – each of them is memorable and distinguished by its own tactics, and some attack together or offer to first go through the ranks of elite warriors who arrange unique tests for us.
Therefore, you have to think https://nonukonlinecasinos.uk/review/lucki-casino/ about leveling up at least one melee weapon and the talents associated with it, about more general parameters and abilities that increase stamina and health points or make potions and evasions more effective. Fortunately, the skill tree here is branchy. And learned features can be disabled at any time in a special menu.
And at the same time, this is not a pure soulslice, but an adventure action/RPG that does not torment us with sadomasochistic complexity, but maintains a comfortable balance for a wide audience.
In any case, it won’t be boring – the game often changes its surroundings and events. In one location we run through the streets of a supposedly ancient Greek city, fight colossi and harpies, hide from ballista shells and look for a way to turn them off, in another we climb rocks, overcome bomb traps in a mine and jump on ledges. And in 10 minutes we communicate with the city nobility at the reception.
What really raises questions is the behavior of the enemy AI. It happens that opponents, having chased us, run to a certain point, turn around and calmly go back, allowing us to calmly shoot them in the back – they do not react to this at all.
Asterigos: Curse of the Stars good because it gives pleasure both from difficult (even taking into account periodic AI glitches) battles, and from exploring the world, studying its lore, completing quests. In general, this is one of those bright story-driven adventures that we are so lacking now.
Pros: well-developed world and lore; interesting plot; bright characters; various locations that are interesting and useful to explore; challenging and exciting battles; quite detailed role-playing system; the game looks and sounds great; good Russian localization.
Cons: In some places there is still a feeling of imbalance, and the enemy AI behaves too stupidly.
Asterigos: Curse of the Stars
Best comments
I finished it yesterday and was overall pleased. They even show a slideshow about the future fate of the characters at the end, depending on what decisions you made and whether you completed their tasks at all. So there is replayability too.
The visuals are nice, and oh my God, there is no agenda at all in the game. I’ll explain why I even mentioned this. The fact is that I thought this was a European game, so I was so surprised that we have cute female and male characters here, and the importance of family ties can be seen in almost all tasks. Only in the credits did I see Chinese names, and everything fell into place. You say, so what?? And you’ll be right, but for me it turned out to be a pleasant bonus.
The game is simple. This is not a plus or a minus, just a given. Although I completed all Souls, I was never a good player there, but here I actually didn’t encounter any resistance. Ordinary enemies are very passive, most of them can be killed immediately, and they don’t even have time to snap back. There are a couple of exceptions, for example, the same gatekeepers in Styx or the incomprehensible nyoh in the Flooded Region, but otherwise… Bosses are more aggressive, of course, but also easy to read, so if I died on someone once or twice, it was only because I was greedy.
Weapons are not so varied. The attack speed with a spear, hammer or sword is the same, as is the number of blows to kill an enemy. The only difference is in the special blow (a shield and a sword are similar to a spear, because a shield can also be used to counter. attack). The staff with bracers and daggers can be considered truly unique.
The game has skills, which is cool, but most of them are useless, and the rest are too strong and make a simple game even easier. Need to balance.
Overall, very good overall, I recommend it to those who like to roll. I’m waiting for the DLC.
Red-haired, green-eyed and freckled hair never goes out of style
Played it at the demo festival. I’m very glad that she continues to maintain the level of interest. But -10% discount on the day of release, this is of course a slap to all those who pre-ordered it.
The game, of course, surprised me with its size and amount of text/dialogue, even though I’ve been following the news on the game since the first trailer. I started it as a stub so that I could quickly complete the week before the vacation, and upon returning with a clear conscience I could start completing the long-awaited Plague Tale. As a result, after playing for 35 hours, I haven’t even opened all the locations yet. The dialogues may need to be skipped, but for some reason I want to read everything, listen to everyone, because they are often well written. And not everything is as banal as, for example, in Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, where there were also a huge number of lines of text for almost all oncoming and. Plus, the difficulty affected the completion time. Since the game’s art reminded me of Immortals: Fenyx Rising, I decided that it might also be a cakewalk at an average level. I probably shouldn’t have done that. After all, I defeated one boss only on the 25th attempt, and this despite the fact that by that time I was already solidly pumped. Yes, and the smallest mob towards the end of the game destroys 30% of its health, taking into account that the heroine’s level is higher than necessary, because I try to explore everything and everyone, completing all the side effects (fortunately, the world here is compact). In general, I stopped rushing, began to simply explore this world, listen to everyone, read everything, delve into what was happening. That’s why it didn’t work out before the vacation (I’m afraid that all the interest would be blown away during the 3 weeks of “downtime”
Let me ask, did you play it yourself or get at least a little closer acquaintance with the object of discussion before voicing such a categorical assessment?
It’s just that the game has similarities with Immortals except for its visual style and antique surroundings.
This game is basically a corridor ARPG with numerous soulslick elements, and Immortals is an openworld ARPG that was clearly inspired by the last Zelda.
Simple? If you play on low difficulty, then I think yes. On high, where enemies are killed in 1-2 hits, the game can provide quite a good challenge for a player not too familiar with the genre. But at the same time, do not strangle her, as her spiritual ancestor sometimes does.
Children’s? One way or another, the game raises clearly non-childish themes. For example, suicide, cannibalism, experiments on people, as well as thoughts about the nature of power, slavery and other social topics.
Greeks with their gods? The game has its own setting. Which, firstly, resembles Rome rather than Greece, and secondly, there are no gods in the plot of the game. Only in the lore, and even those are not Earthly.
Let me clarify right away that the comment was written not to enter into a discussion, but only so that the reader who is interested in the game does not get a false impression based on your comment.
I played on a PC without a gamepad and didn’t experience any problems with the controls, that’s why I didn’t write anything about it.
The developers wrote in their last message that they will add a function for reassigning keys, so you can wait.
Thanks for the comment! I’ll buy it just because of this, so that on the weekend I can play with one hand and eat something with the other) Otherwise, “Ring E” has sucked all the strength out of me over the last week.
I’ll tell you more, you can even choose the difficulty level there. So, given that at the highest level of difficulty it is easy, then at the story level, I believe, the enemies themselves die of fear at the sight of the heroine.
I’ll set it to "easy" to see for myself.
The keys, indeed, cannot be reassigned yet. And the selection of elements is assigned by default to F1-F4, which is not very convenient. But if you have a gaming mouse, then you can get out without painful consequences. My mouse allowed me to reassign 7 operations, so it became convenient to play
Yes, I just read books all the time and compare them with them. I don’t necessarily look for games with a lot of dialogue. And I don’t call the dialogues here outstanding. However, some rudiments of literate literature combined with some kind of “liveness” already make you periodically catch your eye, and this cannot but please. At least this year I liked: Cyberpunk 2077, God of War, Catmaze, Syberia 4, Neon White, Guardians of the Galaxy. Surely there are games with a huge amount of text of higher quality, but apparently they do not correspond to my genre preferences.
Reviews on Steam complain that PC controls are terrible, plus there’s not even an option to reassign keys.
There’s not a word about management here.
Even together. “Even compared to books they are bad”?) Seriously??
I approve of criticism. My mother told me: “never go on the Internet with your opinion.”.» Especially on Stopgame and DTF.
Your life is so boring that you are forced to crawl through public pages and look for mistakes in comments. Sorry.
Look, no one ever remembered Immortals: Fenyx Rising. Not a single “gambler”. Everyone compares it to some kind of Soulslike, redhead means definitely Aloy.
No, this game is a copy of I:FR, just as simple, lightweight, childish, the same Greeks with their gods, only the graphics are not so cartoonish.
"Not bad dialogues"? Have you ever played games with dialogues before?? Dialogues here are the biggest minus of the game. Tons of text about nothing. In attempts to tell the history of the city and other events, the game breaks the platinum and just pours water. When you can explain everything in one phrase, you have to skip 10 phrases. Plus, side dialogues are not voiced, which also detracts from perception. Deaf and mute people communicate how they spent the evening, and this is presented as a serious plot dialogue.
Who cares? I also read books and? Yes, compared to the books, the dialogue here is bad. Moreover, this is a game, not a book. And making a huge amount of silent dialogue is at least a disgusting job of a game designer. Many repetitions of already known facts, touching on unnecessary topics within one “conversation”. You liked it, ok. But citing books as an example is stupid. Unless of course you read bad books.