Astral Flux

Genre: Action-Platformer / Roguelike

Players: 1

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Review:

Astral Flux is an Action-Platformer with Roguelike elements released on PC in 2022 and ported to Nintendo Switch in 2024. This game puts players in the role of a traveler in space who needs to stop off at multiple planets to resupply.

This works out to players running, jumping, dashing, melee attacking, and shooting their way through their way through randomly-generated levels, trying to hit three switches to unlock a boss room, fighting said boss to get access to the room beyond, and then high-tailing it back to your ship before you run out of oxygen. Along the way, you may run across randomly-generated upgrades that in theory should make every run especially different. That is how Roguelikes tend to work, after all.

Astral Flux gets the Action-Platformer elements of the game right, with this game playing like a more versatile take on the classic Spelunky, complete with destructible environments. In fact, I would go as far as to say that your ability to use unlimited projectile ammo and air-dash makes the Action-Platforming even better than what was in Spelunky since you have more control over your attacks and movement.

On the other hand, Astral Flux does not see as much success with its Roguelike elements, with these upgrades not coming often enough, and rarely being anything truly game-changing. In addition, I found the constantly-draining oxygen meter to be frustrating, robbing players of the ability to fully explore these randomized levels to actually find these upgrades in the first place.

When it comes to presentation, Astral Flux makes use of some decent pixel art visuals backed by a subdued synthesized soundtrack that works well for the game’s themes of exploring strange alien worlds, though I can’t say there was anything I felt was truly extraordinary or memorable here.

Overall, I liked Astral Flux, but I definitely feel like only one side of the gameplay truly “clicked” here. The Action-Platformer stuff works well… but the Roguelike elements aren’t as pronounced or interesting enough to live up to what this game is aiming for. The result is a game that’s enjoyable, but feels like it’s lacking something significant it needs to be truly whole.

tl;dr – Astral Flux is an Action-Platformer with Roguelike elements that has players exploring through randomized planets before their oxygen depletes. This game gets the Action-Platformer stuff right, but doesn’t fare so well with its Roguelike elements, resulting in a game that’s enjoyable, but still feels somewhat lacking.

Grade: C+

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