Astor: Blade of the Monolith Reviews
Astor: Blade of the Monolith offers an enjoyable action RPG experience with charming visuals and character design. However, with weak combat and a lack of things to see and do in the overworld, it's an experience that will soon be forgotten.
Astor: Blade of the Monolith reflects one of the coolest aspects of video games as a medium with a deep history of iteration. You can take a familiar set of concepts, add new context, and come up with something that stands on its own rather than feeling like a ripoff. Astor does this with an impressive sense of knowledge and understanding of not only Zelda-style exploration, but character action-style combat. The latter is much more niche and specialized, therefore harder to pull off. It’s not quite a bullseye, but gets respectfully close and has me curious about further updates, as well as what this studio does next.
Once you've unlocked a good selection of weapons, finishers, and special attacks, Astor: Blade of the Monolith becomes a pretty enjoyable affair.
While it doesn't rewrite the history books of gaming, Astor: Blade of the Monolith is a solid first outing for C2 Game Studio. The combination of a great combat loop with fantastic visuals is a winner, and although the story is a bit devoid of substance, is still an entertaining tale. This is certainly a game the devs can build upon, with potential shining through.
I came into Astor: Blade of the Monolith with all the hope and promise simply because it was NOT a souls game. I still love it for that, but as much as I enjoyed the bright and colorful vistas, the vivid and detailed graphics and the cute characters; I just can’t get past the clunky feeling of the combat. Late game weapons and abilities make things feel better but never perfect. Despite the combat and the forgettable story, I did have some fun in Astor: Blade of the Monolith at the end of the day; the cuteness of the characters won the day.
Astor: Blade of the Monolith is a great introduction to the Soulslike mechanics that dominate ARPGs right now. I can see it appealing to younger or novice gamers. It’s family-friendly, colorful, and pretty satisfying to play. More hardcore action fans will probably find it too familiar and not quite as polished as their favorites. Overall, Astor: Blade of the Monolith brings together a collection of tried-and-true mechanics in a pretty satisfying way.
Astor: Blade of the Monolith is an action game with a nice combat system, but unfortunately it tends to repeat game situations a little too often during the approximately 15 hours needed to reach the end credits.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Astor: Blade of the Monolith is a decent, old-school action RPG that is enjoyable but could have been more innovative.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Astor: Blade of the Monolith is an excellent game with some fantastic environments, satisfying combat and some classic boss fights. The game almost has it perfect but I want more out of it, more puzzles, more NPCs, more variation and more to sink into.
Astor: Blade of the Monolith is a project that clearly has potential, and it shows that it was developed with dedication, but it feels like more attention was invested in how the game looks rather than how it plays. The combat system and the game mechanics feel a tad archaic and too repetitive. By no means is the game a bad one, but it cannot be called remarkable. It offers fun moments, stylish visuals and an interesting story, but the repetitive gameplay makes it best played in limited doses.
Astor: Blade of the Monolith isn't too different from its counterparts. It suffers from minor and rarely major glitches but is a fun, simple experience at its core.
Review in Arabic | Read full review
I thoroughly enjoyed Astor: Blade of the Monolith. It may not be ground-breaking but what's here will entertain you for many hours.
Astor: Blade of the Monolith is a good gateway to the genre, delivering everything expected in a title with these characteristics. However, much of what could be innovative and strong is not explored, and some design decisions in the Nintendo Switch version could compromise the incredible experience.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
It's hard to say what Astor: Blade of The Monolith wanted to be. Action-RPG? Open world adventure? Techno-fable? Biting social commentary? Whatever it's ambitions, the end state is a pretty looking piece with little in the way of challenge or narrative depth.
Astor: Blade of the Monolith is a lot of fun to play, but the over-familiar gameplay and lacking storytelling can hold it back. And the invisible walls? Get them out of here, it’s 2024. Whilst the combat can lack originality, encounters with enemies are always enjoyable thanks to the diversity of your skillset. The environmental design is solid too, with the wonderful looking locales complemented by some decent platforming and puzzle-solving segments that ensure the world is always a treat to explore. Astor: Blade of the Monolith just doesn’t do enough to make it stand out as an unmissable experience. It’s a good game, sure, but with so many other hack-and-slashing adventures to embark on, it needed to do a bit more to stand out in the crowd.
Astor: Blade of the Monolith delivers an action RPG experience that captivates players from start to finish. The seamless switching between weapons adds a layer of depth to the combat, allowing for strategic and satisfying battles against hordes of enemies. As players uncover the mysteries of Gliese and confront its haunting evil, they are treated to a satisfying conclusion that rewards their perseverance and exploration. I would highly recommend checking this little game out, as you’ll totally get lost in the action and won’t want to put the controller down.
Astor: Blade of the Monolith feels like a game that needed a few more months to cook. While this adventure has potential for improvement, but it’s very difficult to find reasons to recommend it in its current state.
While Astor: Blade of the Monolith is well designed and the characters are colorful, the soundtrack is great but the combat system is easy compared to other Adventure RPGs. It’s a great game with potential that unfortunately feels a little undone in terms of story and character development.
Astor: Blade of the Monolith is shaping up to be an absolutely amazing RPG, aside from that one major flaw with combat. If you can look past the issue at hand, there’s a magical world that’s just waiting to be explored and secrets to discover throughout its rich story, and let’s not forget the mountains of side quests just waiting to be conquered.