ASTLIBRA Revision [Review]
Image: KEIZO / WhisperGames
ASTLIBRA Revision, developed by one-man studio KEIZO over 14 years, is a true feat. The game is a side-scrolling action RPG about selfishness and selflessness, friendship and lost love, and time travel shenanigans. The unnamed protagonist, left orphaned and with amnesia after demons destroy his town, survives in the frontier wilderness with his companion, a talking crow named Karon. Once he grows to adulthood, he and the crow journey into the world to find other people, and most importantly learn about the protagonist’s past.
After finding a mysterious artifact called the Scales of Astraea, the hero ends up in a castle town where he joins a guild—a heroes-for-hire group—at the local pub. His adventures with the guild helping people and killing demons, along with the discovery that the Scales enable time travel, lead to the slow unlocking of the hero’s memories as he’s unwillingly and later willingly thrown through time. He’s told that using the Scales for selfish reasons will lead to disaster, but what will he do when confronted with impossible choices?
Image: KEIZO / WhisperGames
ASTLIBRA Revision reminded me of the criminally underrated The Legend of Zelda II. With Zelda II, Nintendo planted the seed for side-scrolling action RPGs; ASTLIBRA is the lush tree that sprouted from that seed. It gets rid of the overworld map in favor of an episodic structure (the concept of episodes even further established by credits and theme song rolling after each), keeping its focus tightly on side-scrolling combat action and exploration of towns populated by characters you can interact with. The game isn’t doing anything revolutionary. It just does what it was built to do very, very well.
Combat starts off simple, but you gain new basic abilities as the game progresses that allow for interesting combos and variation. This is complemented by a magic system with increasingly more powerful elemental offense, defense, and support spells, cast with ST points that build as you strike enemies with your weapon, encouraging a healthy mix of physical and magic combat. On top of this you can modify your character build with flexible Karon skills that grant bonuses or new special abilities. The combat goes beyond brute force button mashing, as the further along you get, the more important it is to block, dodge, and exploit elemental weaknesses. The game does a great job of training the player before it starts throwing giant bosses or hordes of enemies all at once into its battles.
Image: KEIZO / WhisperGames
The game’s crafting system felt a little grindy, as you need to gather enemy item drops in order to get new weapons and other gear. Every weapon or piece of equipment costs money as well as a set of raw items, and sometimes these items can be frustratingly rare. The more powerful equipables are made from blueprints that are also random drops. Getting a new piece of gear always feels great, though, because of power boosts or the prospect of earning new skills. Each has its own experience gauge, and maxing it out grants the player either skill points or new Karon skills. Each weapon, shield, and armor also has a unique sprite to change the appearance of the player character.
ASTLIBRA has a two tier leveling system. Gaining a level grants points you can spend to boost individual stats. However, independent of normal leveling, defeating enemies grants Force points, used to unlock squares on the sprawling Growth map. Each square grants stat boosts, gear, or spells. The Growth system made me feel like I was constantly growing more powerful and made combat very addictive.
Level design is straightforward, with progress generally only blocked by environmental or item based puzzles. Some solutions are a bit obtuse, but the game does provide hints in the form of dialogue usually. Maybe I sometimes wasn’t paying enough attention. I ended up searching for some solutions online. Part of this may also be because things in the environment that require items to be used are often unmarked, and you must manually select an item from your inventory and use it in the right place. For example, getting a key doesn’t automatically open doors that were locked. You have to stand in front of the door, select the key from inventory, and use it.
Image: KEIZO / WhisperGames
I found the story compelling with interesting twists, though the writing can be uneven and often too wordy. I can tell that some of this is due to issues with localization, but not all of it. For example, game’s prologue is very long and the game even warns you about it. Why not improve the prologue’s pacing rather than give us a warning? Before the game starts, it also encourages you to play the included demo first to learn its systems. I recommend against this because the game itself will introduce them organically. The demo was just confusing and overwhelming.
The game’s music is uneven. It seems to be taken mostly from royalty free sources and it doesn’t always mesh consistently. Likewise, the game’s art is a mishmash of styles that can sometimes be ugly. A personal pet peeve of mine in the art is that textures are often tiled by being mirrored rather than using edge blending, creating some odd seams in a lot of the environments of the game. I got over these issues of presentation very quickly since the gameplay itself is so much fun.
As the game went on, I found myself more and more invested. I started doing all the optional arena battle challenges and seeking out every piece of equipment. I’m on the final episode of the main story, but my understanding is that a major post-game epilogue was added to the Revision version of ASTLIBRA that expands the story further. I can’t wait to get to that point.
If not for some issues with its writing and presentation, ASTLIBRA Revision would be a perfect action RPG. I love this game and I hope it gets the attention it deserves. Go buy it!
ASTLIBRA Revision came out November 16, 2023 on Nintendo Switch, and has been available for PC on Steam.
