Asterigos: Curse of the Stars

Last year's Humbling Soulslike Bundle would've been quite the deal if I hadn't already played/had half the games in it. But even with containing mere 3 wishlisted items it was still worth the asking price. The first game from this little soulslike block on my backlog the bundle formed was -- chosen arbitrarily (and because its name is kind of similar to the previous game I played and the names looked satisfying on the list like that) -- Asterigos: Curse of the Stars.

An all right, (mostly) Ancient Greece -inspired soulslike

There's a considerable amount of Immortals Fenyx Rising going on with the premise of Asterigos. There are the colorful visuals and the protagonist being likewise a red-headed young warrior woman with a need prove herself to others. The game was inspired by Greek mythology as well, although this one is set in a world more of its own. I had probably at some point checked where the developer, Acme Gamestudio, was from but I had forgotten -- the Chinese names in the end credits roll was unexpected.

The protagonist herself, Hilda, is from a northern tribe that is more Viking-inspired than Greek. She arrives to the city of Aphes that is affected by the eponymous Asterigos curse. Hilda is following a group of other Northwind Legion soldiers whom were sent to the city before her and hadn't been heard about ever since.

The curse causes the city's denizens to live indefinitely. They however do need to consume stardust -- mined from underground -- or a horrible pain starts driving them insane. Some have found an alternative solution: undergoing a ritual and transforming into a hybrid animal form.

I'm not sure about the plausibility of the curse having been in place for hundreds of years. It's like things have been in stasis and mostly contained within Aphes, yet people can still die and the situation in the city seems kind of volatile and probably has been so for who knows how long. I suppose the key characters having persisted since the curse's origin is explained by them having magical means -- like how Hilda's necklace resurrects her at a Conduit (bonfire). There are no children present but they apparently do exist.

By happenstance, a once-in-a-millennium event, Trinity Night, is approaching, offering an opportunity for a faction to undo the curse bestowed upon the city on the previous Night. Hilda joins this faction of Adherents. Their leader's name, Minerva, bothered me due to being Roman instead of Greek-inspired like most of the game. It's a bit like how one of the AIs in Horizon Zero Dawn is Minerva when the rest have Greek names. It's as if developers are loath to use Athena for some indiscernible reason. I suppose there is a mix of Roman stuff otherwise as well in Asterigos, though -- like the scutum shields.

For a soulslike, Asterigos has an unexpected amount of dialogue. It's comparable to a classic RPG in how much there is of it. The main dialogue options and all memory echoes are voiced -- and even just those are a lot. You'll be listening to/reading a whole lot of yapping if you go through it all without skipping.

The genre's too typical process to unlock endings

The game has two endings. The more challenging one to reach requires 8/10 conditions to be fulfilled. Three of them are simply picking the correct dialogue options at certain points in the story and one of those is in the final stretch of the game. Thus, if you go there with 7/10 done, you can make a save just before it to experience both endings by having to replay only a little bit of the game.

Video game levels will eventually become familiar but sometimes that takes awhile and the lack of a map doesn't help. I had trouble finding back to various NPC doors to continue or finish a quest. You can use a special item to drop a marker that will show up through walls provided you're close enough. They help a bit but you still kind of have to remember in which part of the game something was and the city streets can look so similar.

If you're actually planning to get every achievement in fewer than 2 full runs, you also need to remember to sacrifice one of your trinket slots before hitting level 21 for a ring whose sole function is preventing experience gain: 'Limit-breaking' requires you to beat the game at 20 or lower. A completionist run ends with you at level 60+ but being capped at 20 is not that bad if you play on Story difficulty.

Selectable difficulty

I did a thorough run on Medium difficulty and a rushed one on Story afterwards. Medium was the correct amount of challenge for me: it was quite possible to perish but I could beat a boss fight on the first try despite getting hit by a big, unexpected attack or two.

The game started to get a bit harder once I got to Glittering Deeps. Some enemies there can surprise you with heavy-hitting moves and at times you have to fight a bunch at once, all the while there's a real possibility to fall into a chasm.

Your carried stardust (souls) is not dropped on the spot upon death like in soulslikes usually. Instead you simply lose a portion permanently -- I think it was like 5 to 10%. Stardust is used for upgrading and buying items: gaining levels happens with regular experience which you never lose. Also unlike in most soulslikes I've played, enemies don't respawn when you use the fast travel system at Conduits (once it becomes available halfway through the game).

There is no recharging healing flask either. Instead you get single-use health potions that you can carry a limited amount -- extra ones looted go into your stash, which you can access via an NPC in the game's hub and later at any Conduit after completing the same NPC's quest. I rarely felt a need to restock because the potions and other items drop from enemies and are found in the environment aplenty. Your inventory is also automatically restocked from the stash if you happen to die.

Hilda gets her whole weapon arsenal in the tutorial of the game. You have two of the six weapons equipped at the same time: each weapon gets 2 buttons on your choice of peripherals to do attacks with. I was in the mood to continue parrying after Astor: Blade of the Monolith. However, parry in Asterigos is exclusive for spear's alt attack and it's quite a lengthy animation. I took an immediate disliking to its lack of snappiness and decided to go daggers instead. Their alt attack is a dodge move -- which is in addition to the base dodge. As the second weapon I chose staff because its alt move is a ranged attack. It's quite useful against bosses and other enemies that are bothersome to fight in melee. Once upgraded and supported by perks, the staff can take out many of the game's enemies before they even get to you.

The perk tree has generic ones in its inner circle and then spreads out to branches for each weapon. It's a bit weird system in how a perk can add a move to your combo chain and then a later perk completely overrides it. Acquired perks can be de/activated at will so you can keep the earlier chain if you so desire. There are also active abilities in the tree. It took me awhile to start utilizing them. Some of them are definitely worth it, like the one that creates an area of effect that increases your damage dealt while you're within it.

Asterigos has fun and varied boss fights. Even the optional Trinity Night bosses are fun, despite being basically just tougher versions of bosses you've already fought, because they have new moves. There is even a boss rush mode -- not sure if it ever becomes accessible on NG but it's definitely there on NG+.

Skip the DLC

The game has one playable-content-including DLC: Call of the Paragons. Unlike with most content DLCs, it doesn't add any achievements. It's also reviewed Mostly Negative (31%) on Steam. Based on my experience, I can say that the rating is justified. You better be prepared for potential frustration if you do buy and attempt it.

The DLC adds trial encounters, accessible via temples throughout the game (past a certain point in the story). One of them, for instance, has you dodge charging bulls, rolling ground, and frost arrow barrages before you get to fight a boss. And of course, you'll have to redo the whole thing if you fall off/die at any point.

The final trial starts with a platforming section, which is not fun when the controller scheme has sprint on LS press. Why is that a thing in soulslikes? (My Xbox 360 controller, which I bought in 2015 for Remember Me, actually wore out enough to become all but unusable while playing this game: it started getting ghost input of RT when pressing about any other button.) The platforming section can fortunately be skipped once beaten to get back into the following boss fight right away.

The fight is an unusual encounter because you don't need to attack anything. You first charge up three obelisks by staying in their proximity and then try to survive until the boss ends itself. What makes the whole ordeal annoying is how the boss keeps constantly throwing various projectiles at you, especially in the final phase. If you get hit by one, it's likely you'll immediately get hit by more -- and then you're dead. The key to the final phase is to keep moving, learning to juke the tornadoes chasing you, and timing your dodge right to pass through the explosion originating from the boss orb.

The trials reward you with trinkets whose worthiness is debatable. Trinkets in general aren't exciting in Asterigos. The main prize from the DLC's trials is getting an option to craft alternative versions of Hilda's weapons. They come with fancier looks and an effect with a cost -- usually higher stamina consumption. For example, one of the dagger variations adds a surprisingly high damage flame trail to dagger dodge move. The DLC also gives you a fancy outfit at the start of the game.

A curious achievement statistic of Asterigos is how quickly the unlock rates drop after the first few. 89.4% have acquired Hilda's weapons in the tutorial, 78.2% have beaten the first mandatory boss, and then only 45.5% have beaten the second one. I guess the hub has been a natural stopping point from where a lot of people haven't continued on due to a reason or another.