Demo Review: Awaken - Astral Blade
Awaken - Astral Blade is an upcoming sci-fi/fantasy metroidvania developed by Dark Pigeon Games and published by ESDigital Game. While I was not immediately sucked into the game, the demo had me wanting more by the end. Awaken Astral Blade demo has you take the role of Tania, an android tasked with finding out what happened to a research team in some ancient ruins. A simple start to a plot to get us going.
Story Elements
The intro cutscene conveys all you need to know. You’re an android working for some sort of organization where you are sent on missions to help people. You have a handler who tells you your mission, and sends you on your way. While this is often more narrative than some metroidvanias give you (see Hollowknight) more storytelling elements were introduced throughout my time working through the demo.
The environmental storytelling had care poured into it. The background of the game was not simply repeating backgrounds but ones that had genuine creativity that if you took the time to notice would have you asking questions about the world you inhabit as you observe creatures moving in and out of the background. A nice touch that recalls backgrounds from Metroid Dread and Hollowknight. Along the way to the first boss you’ll notice more and more large claw marks in the surrounding rock structures that makes your encounter with the first boss feel more immersive as you are engaging with an actual creature living in the world rather than just some random big boss that doesn’t fit with anything else experienced so far.
The game also has a simple but effective means of building out lore and feeding you information. When you pick up key items or key places to interact with the environment, text will appear on the screen to explain what the item does, but also additional text as to what the item is in the world you inhabit. It’s a nice touch to world building.
Visual Elements
The Art style of the game seemed very similar to many Vanillaware titles. Highly detailed hand drawn background and sprites that seem a little too rigid for my tastes. While not a big deal with regards to gameplay, it’s just not my cup of tea. As static images they look great, but as moving sprites they seem more like dolls on strings to me. Again, this is more a preference and artistic style choice so I’m not really faulting the game for “bad art.”The one thing I will say is like many Vanillaware titles there is a bit of stylized fanservice to the main Character model of Tania. She’s a classically beautiful anime girl with long legs and a big chest. She’s pleasing to look at, and I don’t think this is a bad thing. In fact I think that when it comes to stylized art it is actually quite difficult to make a sprite (male or female) look aesthetically pleasing without crossing the line into ridiculous body proportions that detract from the overall look of the game and the immersion of the game itself. I think Awaken - Astral Blade pulls this off not just with the main sprite of Tania, but the rest of the highly detailed character sprites and the environment. All of the art is pleasing to look at for various reasons. There are also various costumes to equip that boost different stats, have their own lore snippet, and look really cool. I hope there are a lot of them to choose from in the final product.
The one area I feel I need to criticize when it comes to Tania is the walking animation. There isn’t one. No matter how slightly you press a directional input, Tania runs even if your sprite is moving very slowly. It looks silly and breaks the immersion. I hope the devs add this animation to the final product.
Sound
The music of the game is well done and evokes the environmental feel and somber tone of Hollowknight. The sound effects fit well with the events on screen and help signify to the player what is going on especially when things get hectic on screen. You don’t just see visually that you got hit, you hear it as well. The one sound I feel I need to criticize is the voice of the protagonist. When you hear Tania fight she does not sound like she looks (if that makes sense). I get that her model is a petite woman, but she gives off an heir of a battle hardened mature adult while sounding like a child. I get that this is probably an artistic choice, but I think the game overall would be better service is Tania sounded more like an adult woman, rather than a little girl
Game play mechanics
The mechanics of the game were what really shined for me. The controls were tight and intuitive and at no point did I feel like I didn’t have control of my character. Collision detection was on point and to my pleasant surprise there was no collision damage. You only got hit by an enemy if it took a swing at you. This design choice makes quick movement through an environment faster and less frustrating when trying to backtrack. It also means you need to pay attention when dealing with harder enemies if you want to defeat them more efficiently. Similar to the parry mechanic in Dead Cells, there is an upgradable parry mechanic in Astral Blade as well. Timing the parry (or doge) action at the right time will throw Tania into a sort of bullet time mode (which is also upgradable) which allows you to move quickly to strike an enemies weak spot, and/or pull off a string of combo strikes by pressing the correct sequence of attack buttons. Doge, parry, combo inputs and the tech tree all add to the combat mechanics in a way that made me want to play more and make my character stronger. Killing enemies wasn’t just to protect yourself and progress through the map, but to gain experience points to upgrade your character to handle more dangerous enemies. I would have liked to see directional slashes or directional input added to the combos, but this was not a deal breaker for me. I loved Dead Cells, and that game had neither combos or directional slashes.
As I played through the demo I was intrigued and was enjoying my experience. Exploring a map while finding your way through a maze is always fun, but I was missing a true challenge. That is, until I came to the first boss. I don’t know if I just suck at video games now, or if this boss was genuinely hard, but it took me about 10 attempts to finally bring him down. Even with the no collision damage with enemies mechanic, it was evident right away that I could not simply mash the attack button and damage rush the boss. I had to utilize everything I learned thus far to achieve victory. Timed parrying and dodging were key and there was very limited room for error due to a low invincibility frames after getting hit, especially in the second phase of the fight. It was just the right amount of challenge/frustration that kept me trying again and again. This boss challenge also made me forget I was playing a demo. After I finally killed the beast, I felt that nice sense of accomplishment that only a true challenge can bring. I wanted more and I was excited about the challenge that awaited me (and this wasn’t even hard mode). I was then met with immediate disappointment as I met the “Demo over” screen.
Conclusion
It’s evident that Awaken - Astral blade has been made with care and attention to detail in every area of game development. The issues I had with the demo were mostly nitpicks but I do hope they are addressed (especially the walking animation). All-in-all the demo succeeded in making me forget I was playing a demo, which is ultimately going to be my “grading system” when it comes to reviewing demo. If I feel a sense of disappointment when the demo is over, then it gets a thumbs up from me and is immediately added to my wishlist. Give the demo a try yourself, and add it to your wishlist on Steam today
