Astalon: Tears of the Earth

Genre: Metroidvania

Players: 1

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Review:

Astalon: Tears of the Earth is a Metroidvania with some strong Roguelike elements released on multiple platforms in 2021, including Nintendo Switch. This game puts players in the role of three heroes who enter a mysterious tower that seems to be the source of a poison seeping into the water supply and killing the people of their village.

The presentation here is wonderful, making use of 8-bit-style pixel art visuals and a chiptune soundtrack to evoke nostalgia for the best days of the Nintendo Entertainment System era of videogames. The character designs are interesting and evocative of the same sort of dark and violent yet slightly cartoonish vibe given off by games like the early Castlevania titles, yet this game is certainly its own thing. I have to make it a point to note this game’s chiptune soundtrack by Matt Kap is really excellent, and while I can’t link to any of the game’s music directly, I recommend you to give it a listen on the creator’s own website – in particular, check out This Cursed Tower (AKA Stage 1), Dark Serenity, Blood and Stone (AKA Gorgon), and Arteries for a few good examples.

As much as I love this game’s retro-style presentation, the gameplay is possibly even better. Firstly, this game does some really clever things with its three-character system, with players swapping between Arias the fighter, Kyuli the rogue, and Algus the wizard. Arias’ sword is the only thing that can cut through some barriers, but his short reach at the game’s outset doesn’t do him any favors. Kyuli has a wall jump that can get her to places the others can’t reach, and her bow and arrow has the best range, but her firing speed is terribly slow. Algus’ magic has more reach than Arias but not as much as Kyuli, and it can pass through walls and activate some switches.

These three characters share a life bar, but not stats, and as the game progresses they will become even more distinct from one another as some of the abilities they’ll gain will be character-specific. A significant part of the game is swapping between characters to get to points on the map that only one of them can access, but the game does something really clever with this mechanic by making it so the player can only swap characters at certain points on the map. This combines with some really clever level design to make it so that some areas will have you moving through it as one character, backtracking to it as another character, and finally accessing it with the third character to get to a new spot.

This may seem tedious, but the game is fairly generous with how it sprinkles spots where players can swap from one character to another, and it’s smart about giving players ways to open up access to places after moving through areas to make for easier backtracking.

That’s not to say this game is a cakewalk, though. Far from it – this is a very challenging game, and players will find themselves dying a lot. This is where the game’s Roguelike mechanic comes into play, as Algus has formed a pact with Epimetheus, the “Titan of Death”, who will not only revive you, but also give you an opportunity to permanently upgrade your characters. This mechanic takes some of the edge off of this game’s frustrating difficulty, as each death is also an opportunity to buff up your group for a better chance at your next run. I will say that I found the pricing of these upgrades to be a bit steep, making for slower progression than I’d like, but I suppose one could argue that this is all the more incentive for players not to depend too heavily on the upgrades and instead focus on getting better at the game itself.

While the high difficulty may not appeal to everyone, Astalon: Tears of the Earth is an outstanding Metroidvania that fans of the genre should absolutely get their hands on – the clever things it does with its character-swapping mechanic, its superb level design, and its outstanding retro-styled presentation all make for a great package that’s an absolute delight, despite its punishing challenge level.

tl;dr – Astalon is a retro-style Metroidvania with a great presentation, a fantastic chiptune soundtrack, a clever character-swapping mechanic, wonderful level design, and some nice Roguelike elements. The high challenge level may put off some players, but overall this is a delightful entry in the genre that fans of this sort of game would do well to play.

Grade: A-

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This game has been nominated for one or more of eShopperReviews 2021 Game Awards:

Runner-Up: Best Metroidvania

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