Balancing on the verge of a masterpiece. Astlibra Revision

Assessment 10/10 or “masterpiece” in the game industry is an emotional thing. There is no generally accepted “golden section” from the world of video games, which is not surprising, because the game needs to be balanced by two bowls: one with the plot (narrative) part;The second – with the gameplay. When someone puts 10/10 games such as The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom or Elden Ring, the gameplay clearly outweighed for this person. If 10/10 receives Disco Elysium or Planescape: Torment, then here the scales with the plot turned out to be harder.

Most games are trying to balance on these scales. Astlibra does the same, but only Astlibra is not a majority at all. This is what Hidden Gem is called. Indi-game, which has no advertising and which, according to various sources on the Internet, or 14, or 16 years created one person. As a result, several musicians and artists helped him, but the plot and gameplay – the merit of only a person under a pseudonym Keizo. It is because of people who helped in the development of Astlibra, I learned about the game. When I collected information for a series of materials on the games of Vanillaware studio, I came across an indie project, where the artist took part Shigatake (The very author of the game Kumatanchi ). Given that this indie project looks like the crown genre Vanillaware (That is 2D explosion), I could not pass by.

There will be no spoilers, and indeed the plot I will touch only in passing. However, in my opinion, Astlibra is the game that you need to try yourself. Therefore, if you like metroids, if you do not mind a large amount of text in the game (And the text in English) And you are not embarrassed by all sorts of anime cliche in the spirit of the episode, where the heroes go to hot sources to spy on the girls, although something dramatic happened a couple of minutes ago-try Astlibra, do not spoil yourself the slightest part of the game. And gameplay discoveries, and the plot, and even the design of monsters and locations is better to see in the stream of the plot, because the game surprises. And do not look for guides, because it can display some points on the plot. In the game you can get all Achivka for one passage, so do not worry that you have not found something.

In Steam there is a demo version of the game where you can feel a gameplay component. In the demo, combat gameplay is fully shown, and on it you can draw conclusions precisely according to the pressing of buttons. This is not quite the same as in the game itself, because the development of the character is transmitted in the full version, and in the demo you are thrown in the face of almost all of the affordable arsenal at once, which is why you can get confused. But the author of the game strongly recommends trying the demo before buying. And such sincerity bribed me – more often in Steam you see how the authors only ask the viviller to add the game, subscribe and all that so. Immediately, the author calls to try free demo before buying.

So, I will not retell the plot, but, as I already mentioned, the game seems amazing to me, and I recommend trying it without the slightest spoilers. Further, similar micro-spools (relating to the structure of the game and its gameplay capabilities) nevertheless they can slip.

Gameplay bowl

Astlibra can be divided into two equivalent components. Gameplay (2D-explosion) and the plot (the volume of the text with a solid visual novel). Astlibra gameplay resembles a metroide, with the only difference. In the metro -vital we are given a large one for research and holistic/seamless world. In Astlibra, the plot and locations are divided into chapters. And if all chapters are connected plot, then this is how gaming locations are directly separate places that gameplay, within the framework. That is, you cannot go from the location in chapter 4 to the location from the second chapter – there is no such connection between them.

But in the metro-vocation, we usually get a new ability, click some button/pull the lever and go further along a single large area. If you leave left -handed up the brackets, then Astlibra is quite reminiscent of a metroide. Over time, the character receives new abilities and artifacts that allow you to go where it did not work out before, and if at the beginning of the game there was a single jump in the arsenal, then at the end you can even make a triple with slowed gravity of the fall.

Another Astlibra from the metroid is distinguished by a huge emphasis on the plot. I can’t call myself a fan of metroids, but from the couple dozens of games of the genre that I played, I do not remember such a scenario volume. Whether the gameplay suffered because of this? No, although there are weak moments: in the metro-vocation with an emphasis on the battles, the hitboxes are made better, the interface may seem overloaded … only in Astlibra dozens of weapons with their own speed and a strike range, and part of the interface works in the spirit of the chips from Nier: automata, that is, something can be disconnected by disconnecting the appropriate passive of the Gero (see the health of the enemy, for example). This is not the level when the gameplay should be tolerated for the plot. The game is not without minuses, but in my eyes they were lost behind the pluses. The main gameplay plus is pumping.

She is here, to put it mildly, multifaceted. There is a classic increase in the level when obtaining a certain amount of experience – for each level they get, give 5 points that can be spent on raising physical attack, defense, health, stamines (In fact, this is Mana), damage from magic, good luck, dexterity and adaptation. The amount of experience and money depends on good luck, the speed of impact depends on dexterity (The same parameter is affected by the weight of the weapon (yes, and this is here)), and adaptation is associated with resistance to status effects and plus increases the volume of light hero. Well, that is, a period of time is growing, which the hero can breathe under water. Sometimes used objects – cards that increase one of the characteristics (The characteristic is indicated on the map). It is impossible to restore pumping, because in the game there are as many as two options to reset the pumping – potion and using some blue artifact, available, for example, in stores.

The second pumping occurs due to multi -colored spheres. Each enemy is associated with one of the six elements (Fire, water, earth, air, darkness and light) and after the death of the enemies, balls corresponding to the elements fall out. They are already spent on another pumping, marked in the menu as Grow. This tab with a scale resembles pumping from Path of Exile, but in Astlibra this pumping is linear – that is, this entire scale is still at the end to a dead end.

Revision inscription on the screen is made using pumped bumps. Dozens and hundreds of bitten cells

In fact, the pumping of Grow is not limited. The dead end ends with endless blocks with an increase in the six main stats of the character. And the more you activate these blocks, the higher the price of the increase. Each open block in the Grow tab most often gives an increase in the characteristics of the character, but only here you can open new active skills (Magic, in fact), and sometimes weapons or green crystals come across in blocks.

The same crystals are sometimes found at levels, and this milkywinscasino.co.uk/ is also a kind of pumping, already from the Karon tab. We have a satellite-warrior named Caron, and he is able to use magic (Those active skills from the tab Grow) and strengthen our hero passively (Skills from the tab Karon). Passive skills are sometimes found as a treasure at the level, but most of it opens after you increase the possession of weapons, armor or shield to maximum.

Yes, each item of equipment is also pumped over time, and when it reaches a maximum, we are either given one green crystal or a passive skill for which crystals will be needed. The exclusion from this rule is accessories, such as rings, wigs, boots, medals and a lot more. Accessories do not swing, but over time you can increase the slots under them and pull on yourself two pairs of boots with two wigs and … a lollipop.

If you put on the subject of equipment that opened the skill, then the skill will work for free. But if you have found a stronger weapon and stronger armor, and the passive is still relevant for you, then you can manually activate it for green crystals. Passivopian 96 pieces (8 thematic pages, each for 12 skills), and they are one of the main jewelry of gameplay, because it is the passives that make this very gameplay a customizable and flexible. There is everything: from an increase in the hithboxes of the weapon to the possibility of casting magic due to health. From the ability to wear a two -handed sword in one hand to a triple increase in damage due to death from one bite of the enemy. From a double jump to getting a chance for free use of learks and other consumables.

And there are also scales. As you pass, there will be more and more bowls on the scales, and on each bowl you can put one subject. Each item has a passive property that will strengthen the character if the subject is on the scales. Ideally, on the scales there should be a full balance – so you get a complete strengthening. This does not speak anywhere in the game, but there is a Japanese wiki in Astlibra where it is said that each unit of the advantage reduces 10% efficiency of Batf.

In addition to weight, you still need to look so that the amplification does not intersect. Here you put on one bowl of scales an object for plus to physical damage and damage from magic, well, the other – plus to the speed of attack and physical damage. As a result, the advantages of the damage to each other delete and there is a bonus to magic and speed. Fortunately, there is a gradation of strengthening and an epic strengthening of the attack does not cross the intensification of the usual attack, but complements it.

I am sure that from the outside all this sounds terribly difficult. And that’s why I believe that the demo does not quite competently shows the true essence of the game. After all, in fact, the game slowly throws you up opportunities with which you gradually get acquainted and understand how and what works. For example, on the scales at the beginning of the game and there is really nothing to put, and there will be no 10 out of 96 among Karon’s skills. Over time, opportunities will open, and the player will understand what he needs and what is not. I played and realized that you want to emphasize your damage to magic? Accordingly, you gain magic karon sorts and focus not so much on health as on an old. You feel courageous and do not want to hide behind the shield? You pump the speed of attack and physical damage, ignore all the skills for the shield and try to leave only on the evasion.

Yes, there is a one -handed weapon and a shield, but there is a two -handed one who can no longer defend. When you have a shield, you can hide and take a hide. With a two -handed hope only for evasion, and the evasion here with reloading (in the area of ​​a couple of seconds). The shield has strength. As soon as the shield breaks, the shelter button will not be available for a few seconds. After these seconds, the shield is safe and sound again and you can take hide again.

Active skills (That is, magic) also make a gameplay flexible. There are several spells for each element, including a banal directed damage, the call of the spirit of the elements or the temporary buff of the characteristics of the hero. For each element, you choose one spell, that is, you will not be able to inflict the damage to air, and call the air spirit, and increase the speed for yourself.

By default, the use of magic puts the game for a pause, as it requires clicking the combination of buttons. But this can be disabled. Or choose a high difficulty where there are no pauses

I need to choose what exactly you need now. But I liked the fact that there are no situations where one of the elements can be completely useless. Here is an example – in front of you is a fiery boss, which means that spells with damage with fire on it hit it very weakly. But this does not mean that all the fiery magic in this battle is not needed, because there is a spell of a damage to the hero, and already from this to the boss in no way protect himself.

All add to this the fact that each weapon has its own size (That is, the radius of the impact) and weight (That is, the speed of impact). And there are not only swords, axes and hammers, but also purely magical stoves with a certain element. And the same swords of toppers are also with reference to spontaneous damage. It can visually play the game and seems weaker than modern metroids and 2D explosions, but in its gameplay variability it can compete with many more successful representatives of the genre. And, of course, all this complements the plot.

A bowl with a plot

Amnesia, memory loss-this topic for the video game is so super-clicked that Videogamedunky in an 11-minute video made a whole compilation of “amnesia” plots. But still, the narrative capabilities of amnesia for a video game protagonist are important, because this is perhaps one of two possible ways to make the player as well as identifying himself with the hero (The second I consider the creation of a character and showing life from the diapers, in the spirit Fallout 3). To identify yourself with an already held adult hero is more difficult. The idealist is hardly imbued with a materialist hero and vice versa, therefore, we usually follow such characters as in movie heroes-without trying to become them, but trying to empathize with what is happening to them. Or not to empathize if we don’t like how the character is spelled out.

But a kind of character-clean sheet gives many opportunities. In a linear game, this makes it possible to show how the character came to his views, and in a role -playing game you can even try to be in a fictional world, if the scriptwriters allow this. In Astlibra, amnesia is unusual. It is not needed to show the hero’s memory restore, and indeed our past is secondary here. The loss of memory is important here so that the player, in the guise of the protagonist, knows the world from scratch and surprised with him.

The narrative in the game is integral, but is served in the format “Procedure”. The plot is divided into chapters, and each chapter has its own local story, which takes place in a separate territory. At the same time, this story plays an important role for a holistic plot, and the area where adventures took place is part of a full -fledged game world. Just not a seamless world, which I already mentioned in the discussion of the “metro -ostvo” Astlibra.

Chapters as individual stories are good in themselves. In addition to the fact that they move forward the main plot, what is happening in the chapter itself is able to surprise in places, in places to touched the tears of an emotional person.

The plot in the game takes ten hours. Complete passage to the very end can take 70 hours. It’s not about the sidelines, there are no them, as such, in the game. Although you can collect all the weapons, all objects or win in all tests in the arena.

So, out of these 70 hours, about half I was occupied by reading. The plot is served by text, without voice acting, and there is a lot of text, which is why I consider Astlibra a game at the junction of a 2D Excel and a visual novel. These parts are literally equivalent: I can well imagine how such an action is produced separately, and how such a story is presented within the framework of a visual novel without gameplay. But Keizo managed to do exactly what an amazing combination, to balance on the scales these two components. Although on my personal scales the story in Astlibra still outweighs.

The world of the game is as huge as interesting. The plot is incredibly clinging and, the main thing is surprising. That is why I at the beginning said that I recommend that I do not spoil anything at all. Visual bosses, locations, even the music that you will hear can ruin the impression, and you will no longer be surprised as if you went through the game from scratch. There are a lot of rather sharp emotional moments in the plot. And I’m not even so about drama (And there is a lot of it, and in some places eyes in a wet place), and that the game shows something unexpected in terms of Laura. You play, build some conclusions, imagine in your head what will happen next … But then something happens that you did not expect at all.

The author himself told Reddit that at some point he changed the message that the story was supposed to pass. The original theme is shown at the very beginning of the game, to the main menu. It says: protecting your treasure, you take away the treasure of others. When the scales of fate offer the salvation of one soul, another soul will be on another bowl and will be sacrificed. You are responsible for your choice and must accept the consequences.

This topic has been preserved, but in the game the moment is separately allocated when the author refuses to expand the game universe from this topic. Part after this moment Keizo called the “post-script”, and it takes about 20-30 hours, where there will already be fewer text and more gameplay. Here Astlibra even approaches the “pants”, not a metroide, because a dungeon appears that can be replaced. And in the final of this dungeon the true ending.

With a similar rapture, I followed the plot of 13 sentinels: aegis rim. I’m just thinking myself that if there were no voice acting at 13 sentinels, then I could not have mastered it at all, but in Astlibra I only after passing thought about how cool it would be if the game was also voiced.

In fairness, the game has a couple of voiced sighs, and the titers mention the actors of the voice acting of these sighs

Fortunately, the soundtrack gives the ears. Dramatic melodies, dynamic cuts, calm background music, your anime ending … Damn, there is even a dubstep! If I counted correctly, then in the game about 136 tracks. Yes, I have not remembered most of them, but a dozen with a little will remain in memory next to the tracks of Kayiti Okabe for Nier. For, as in Nier, here the music beat when necessary and where it was necessary, supplementing the overall impression.

In fact, Astlibra in many ways reminded me of the impressions of the first passage of Nier. Specifically – from Nier Gestalt, which I accidentally snapped cheaply in the no longer existing Mediamarkt store, I launched … and got one of my favorite games. Yes, with its shortcomings, inferior to competitors in the policemen of gameplay, but still beautiful in the form in the form that it is. Also this “true ending”, for the sake of which you will have to go through already familiar places, and the starting nucleus of history also seems to be something. Only GG Nier is looking for a daughter or sister (In the version Replicant), and the hero from Astlibra is looking for a girl with whom. This, if anything, is not a spoiler, but a tie from the very start of the game.

For me, this is a game to which the old meme is asking for so – I want to erase my memory in order to pass this masterpiece again. Perhaps someday Keizo will be able to publish a game on a physical medium, and just by that time my memory will begin to fail … every age. By the way, the game is available on Switch, but so far only in digital form. And I really hope that a Russifier will be released for the game, albeit a representative of Whispergames (This is a Chinese game email company) wrote that they have no plans to transfer yet.