Asterigos: Curse of the Stars Review

Review code provided by tinyBuild, cheers folks!

I played the game on the Xbox Series X.

I remember when I booted up Elden Ring and played it for the first time, that feeling of being in a really tight, highly polished, and impressively crafted *Souls game from the creators of that particular genre. A thought poked at my mind, sharply: What if Souls-ish, but built with accessibility and a different take on the genre game existed. What would that look like?

Flash forward till now, and my time with Asterigos: Curse of the Stars from Acme Gamestudio which if you’re a person short or time, who needs to know if it’s worth it without reading on: YES, yes, it is. Read on if you want to find out why I think so.

Acme and publisher tinyBuild took a big chance leaping into a genre that has a bunch of *Souls-like games in there already, many with varying degrees of success. They all share similar DNA though, and they don’t do much to whip up that formula into the heady taste of success – now I’m not saying that Asterigos is perfect, it’s not. However, what it is, is fun and accessible with a quality which is often not found in many games like this from indie developers.

In short, I love this game, not enough to say it’s a must buy, but enough to recommend it to anyone who might want to get their teeth into a *Souls style game, but are often put off by the difficulty and the lack of accessibility.

Here comes Hilde!

I won’t be doing story spoilers, or much of the story at all, it’s not something I like to cover in a review or dwell on beyond a few basic things. I feel everyone absorbs and engages with story in their own way, and like marmite and Nutella – not together mind, it’s all an acquired taste.  Enter the hero of the tale, Hilde, a totally self-sufficient and capable young woman who is on a search for her missing father, and the members of the Northwind Legion. 

Hilde has a plethora of weapons, and she’s already proficient in how to use all of them. The sword & shield, the staff, the hammer, the spear, the bracelets. So, you’re not going to be collecting weapons and gear in this one, you’re going to be collecting skills and talents, and basically rounding out Hilde as you level her up. 

Basic Levelling but Accessible

Each level comes with attribute and talent points you can spend, at first the talent wheel is small, but it will expand and you’ll have a range of things to use. Some perks on that talent tree give you bonuses, but also give you a detriment to go along with it. Careful balance is required here to ensure you buy what you need, rather than what you want. You can choose to activate these perks and so on as you want, and switch them on/off so it’s not like you’ll break a build by buying the wrong talent.

You can also respect your talent and attribute points, so it’s all good!

XP is not lost when you die, and you only lose 10% of the game’s money (Stardust) when you do, which is easy to earn back.

Again, accessible is the watch-word for this one!

To Battle and Adventure

Asterigos allows for three difficulty levels, one is more story and narrative focussed than the standard, allowing you to make a lot of mistakes and even battle the bosses without much thought on a character build, or which of the two weapon sets you’re going to use at the time.

Yep, you can equip two types of weapons. I went sword & shield plus staff for that long range magic feel. X is the first weapon, Y is the second, and there’s combos that trigger as well. 

There are also a few accessibility options and so forth, which more games should add. I am going to start calling this one a Souls-lite as well, because it’s the feel of Souls will some interesting changes to the formula.

1. Stamina only drains via blocks and dodges, not weapon attacks, so you can become more aggressive and try out different battle tricks.

2. No XP loss on death, just currency (and it’s only 10%) as previously mentioned.

3. Decent save system, pretty much a save anywhere, though it will put you back to a Conduit.

Exploration in the game is done without an in-game map at all, you’re on your own, and you’re going to need to remember where you have been. There’s plenty of places to explore in this Greco-Roman inspired setting and City of Aphes, and plenty to find. From the things you’ll need to improve your arsenal and so on, to extra currency and more. I’m not going to say exactly what’s there, but it’s worth looking at every nook and cranny in the game.

It's very old school in this regard, and may put some people off. Not me, I came through Zork, and the original Gold Box D&D games where making your own maps was the one thing you needed to do to save your sanity – Eye of the Beholder anyone!

The areas are interesting, the level design might appear a little empty/bland at first, but as you progress there’s more and more detail and the city is excellent. Big thumbs up to the level designers who have created an interesting and fun place to explore.

Gameplay Loop

Like an onion, the game has layers and they open up the further you get. The gameplay loop of moving around the city might be tedious for some, because fast travel options only open up much later in the game. For the most part though, it’s not a huge slog to get to where you want to go and short-cuts are plentiful throughout. So, the loop of kill thing, get resources, and rest at Conduits (like bonfires) to respawn enemies and get XP is a satisfying and fun one, just like *Souls.

The enemies are well done, their variety increases as you move through the city, and some of them have a decent array of moves. There’s nothing innovative or brilliant about the main enemies, or many the 22 bosses in the game, but what is there is well done and that’s all I really want to see. Not every game has to push out the boat or re-invent and improve the wheel as it were.

Combat is decent, the moves are responsive and Hilde’s array of tricks grows as you level up and choose various skills in that rather decent wheel of skills. The combat AI for the enemies works most of the time, sometime they’ll get caught on things and you can zap them from a distance. This is rare. 

The long/short of it: combat works, it’s fun, engaging and I had a great time with it.

The down-side is the camera, as per usual, in these third person action-RPG adventures heavy with combat. It sometimes likes to hide you, or your enemies, or swing into walls and block the view when in battle. It’s a minor thing, but something worth mentioning since it happens very rarely and not all the time.

Greco-Romanesque Fantasy

I want to praise the graphics here, and especially the game running smoothly without a frame-rate hitch or issue for me on the Series X. It looks nice, and the characters have a good level of detail to them. The environments themselves get better once you enter the main city, and there’s some splendid vistas to play around in. It’s a shame there’s no Photo Mode but hey, maybe in an update!

The voice work and music are worthy of praise, and the game isn’t fully voiced, the important dialogues are and the various key moments are excellently done. There’s a lot of energy here and quality in the performances.

Animations in the game are another high point, especially Hilde who writes in her journal when you encounter an important thing, place, or point of interest. The journal itself is a work of art, and the fact you translate it by tapping a button is absolutely genius and I love that. YMMV however.

The Music of the Stars

I want to draw attention to the soundtrack for the game, which is great, sweeping, and fits the mood/gameplay really well. It backs down, and then swells when there’s action to be had and each key location has a musical theme which matches it very well.

Cons of the Stars?

As for cons, I’ve said a few back there in the text. Sometimes the combat camera loses Hilde or the enemies, there’s a couple of times it crashed too, but nothing game-breaking there. I did have one game-breaker/progression stopper early on, fortunately a reload of the save fixed it. 

All in all, this is a nice package, and a decent price for a pretty solid 20+ hour game with New Game Plus included – I can’t grumble at that at all!

I say definitely give it a go if you always wanted to play *Souls, but were put off by the game’s rep.

As my favourite 2000AD character Nemesis the Warlock would say, “Credo!”