Astebreed

1. busterbeam

   Mar 22, 2016

   10

   One of the best, most underrated indie games out there, made doubly impressive by the development company's obscurity & status as part-timeOne of the best, most underrated indie games out there, made doubly impressive by the development company's obscurity & status as part-time devs and sadly held back by various public misconceptions, the primary one being that it is a "bullet hell game" and thus "doing it wrong". Despite classic arcade-like design principles, it's not a "nostalgia game"; it can hardly be described as "X meets Y". Maybe Sin & Punishment's cinematic on-rails presentation + a shmup's bullet dodging + Alien Soldier's sheer variety of stuff to do... but that wouldn't really do it justice.
   
   It's not really a bullet-hell; I'd have trouble calling it a shmup. It's more of an... anime mecha game. You control a robot while locking-on, shooting, sword-slashing and comboing your way through various perspective-shifting stages. You have two normal shots (activated by tapping their respective buttons) & two lock-ons (holding down their respective button). The lock-ons are a forward & spread shot respectively, either targeting around you in a circle or in a straight line. Your slash is more than it seems at first glance; sure, you can quickly tap the attack button to do a fast combo, but this can often leave you open; sometimes, AVOIDING the longer combo attack by timing your presses just right is the better way to go. You can also hold on to the sword button along with whatever direction you want to dash towards, sword-first. Lastly you have a variety of context-sensitive special attacks; if you press the special attack button while locked on to nothing, you will damage whatever is near you (the range of this effect increases once you unlock the second mech) and creates a short aura of invincibility around you, which adds a nice element of strategy. While locked on to a large group of enemies, your mecha will automatically home in on them and slash them up at a crazy speed; meanwhile, while only locked on to a single enemy, you will pull off a very anime-esque move on it taking out a significant chunk of its health. The scoring system is easy to understand and hard to master and involves plenty of practice of all the aforementioned skills (once again, refer to the tutorial on scoring). Many will feel that the game will completely destroy your fingers, but if you find yourself mindlessly mashing the normal shots chances are you're not playing it right; the lock-on is very useful throughout most of the game and balances out the button-mashing quite well. The on-rails camera-shifting (from side-scrolling to vertical shooter to behind-the-back third-person) is truly impressive; it helps add to the game's variety while also making for interestingly-composed cinematography.
   
   My only two significant gameplay gripes are the balance issues and the lack of a DEFAULT option to set the movement keys to WASD. The latter, however, is easily fixed by googling "Astebreed WASD" and getting the Astebreed tweaker from the Steam forums (however note that sometimes it might create a strange delay for the directional keys; if this happens, just restore the defaults and set your own controls again). The former might just be a result if my (crappy) play style, but it feels like an area in stage 3 along with the last boss are both a bit too much of a difficulty spike. Even then it's nothing as big as, say, the contrast in difficulty between Ikaruga's first and second stages. Beyond that we have the occasional bizarre crash when using the "restart game" feature, but this can't actually destroy one of your runs, so I can look past it (also my computer is an ancient piece of garbage that was old even when I got it in 2008 and I can't even properly play this on max settings)
   
   This is also a short game, but if you're into arcade games this should not be an issue; arcade design is not about artificially creating "pacing" by stopping the action to force you to solve physics "puzzles" or pushing a block over a switch, which can be an issue with otherwise-great games. There is no exploration and no grinding; the game's world is not your oyster. Good arcade design is about pure non-stop gameplay bliss, a barrage of creative enemy formations and set-pieces that will stay with you for years. It is not about offering the player the illusion that they are forging their own path, but about creating a pre-set obstacle course and then giving you a very wide variety of ways of making your way through it and grading them based on their inventiveness. Replayability comes in the form of beating all the modes with all the mechs, 1CCing hard more and improving your global score.… Expand

   • 2 of 3 users found this helpful
2. FalconX

   Nov 30, 2014

   10

   I like to play arcade style shmups and they seldom release on PC (or if they do they come with a low console-quality resolution). This game isI like to play arcade style shmups and they seldom release on PC (or if they do they come with a low console-quality resolution). This game is fun and looks great. It isn't difficult to get from stage to stage, but the game does offers enough challenge for score chasing that drives you to re-play for a perfect run.… Expand

   • 0 of 0 users found this helpful
4. praxisseizure

   Jul 1, 2014

   9

   I love shmups to death This is in the uncanny valley of great shmups. It's great! But it falls just a bit short of being glorious. BenchingI love shmups to death This is in the uncanny valley of great shmups. It's great! But it falls just a bit short of being glorious. Benching against Ikaruga (one of the best shmups of all time) Astebreed takes a lot from its spiritual predecessors and delivers a solid drop kick to the face of arcade space blasting. Think the beauty of Ikaruga, camera of Einhander and some of the mechanics of Radiant Silvergun with even more in store all wrapped up in a crazy fluid and chaotic package. Oh and it has a better, more fleshed out story than any of the aforementioned.
   
   First and foremost, it's a blast, literally, such enjoyable mayhem. It's easy to feel like a badass saving humanity. Story is good. Has some EVA aspects (… Expand

   • 4 of 7 users found this helpful
5. GRANITsalvo

   Jan 1, 2015

   8

   A very good casual SHUMP. The graphics are great, the configuration options highlight what I love about Japanese games; missing a few keyA very good casual SHUMP. The graphics are great, the configuration options highlight what I love about Japanese games; missing a few key resolutions, but up to 4k scale, full button rebinding, and an audio config menu that puts US games to shame. All localized to English.
   I said casual, because it is trying to be more cinematic and therefore more forgiving since the focus is moved more away from bullethell and more towards the storyline that they seem to have put a good effort into. It's a SHUMP for couch play and those that are just getting into the genre.
   Good music (nothing really memorable,though), manga cutscenes that can be skipped, and good subtitled voiceacting make this an enjoyable game.
   
   $14 is a great price, and on sale, it is a steal.… Expand

   • 0 of 0 users found this helpful
6. anggadaz

   Aug 8, 2014

   8

   the game grafis is very good, the storyline is good. The character is like ne*n g*nesis ev*ngelion. This not bad, the game is too short finishthe game grafis is very good, the storyline is good. The character is like ne*n g*nesis ev*ngelion. This not bad, the game is too short finish the game and bored if you playing again.… Expand

   • 5 of 6 users found this helpful
7. portmanjohnny

   Jul 22, 2014

   8

   really very good game...enjoy while playing this game, and graphics also awesome.my score is eight out of ten and physics mechanism also veryreally very good game...enjoy while playing this game, and graphics also awesome.my score is eight out of ten and physics mechanism also very good in this game...really very enjoyable game .http://catmarioonline.net/… Expand

   • 3 of 5 users found this helpful
8. budwheizzah

   Oct 14, 2014

   4

   Truly bland and ordinary shmup with questionable mechanics including the boring" feels like you're not even controlling the gunfire"Truly bland and ordinary shmup with questionable mechanics including the boring" feels like you're not even controlling the gunfire" drag-reticule-across-the-screen aim. Full of annoying incomprehensible non-translated dialogue - the back and forth banter is unbearable. A sub par game with extremely misleading reviews and an overall disappointing purchase. Metacritic ought to investigate how this ordinary 4/10 made it on the top of their ranks for a bit. Inexplicable.… Expand

   • 4 of 10 users found this helpful

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