Astor: Blade of the Monolith [Review]
Action RPG Astor: Blade of the Monolith is visually appealing but ultimately forgettable.
Astor: Blade of the Monolith. Credit: tinyBuild / Versus Evil / C2 Game Studio
C2 Game Studio’s Astor: Blade of the Monolith is an action RPG with combat inspired by Bayonetta, Devil May Cry, and Zelda. The game’s character and environmental design stands out, but the gameplay proves repetitive and uninteresting, with added frustration from some design choices.
Astor is exploring some ruins with his friend, when he finds a strange object that imbues him with a blade and battle skills. He returns to a town of his people, the Diokek, and finds out he’s the chosen one of prophesy, destined to find the secrets of the Creators and save his people from their enemies, the Hiltsik. He sets off to find a series of artifacts across his planet, Gliese, fighting hordes of Hiltsik and helping other Diokek along the way.
Astor: Blade of the Monolith. Credit: tinyBuild / Versus Evil / C2 Game Studio
Gameplay is split over a series of levels to which Astor teleports from a central town base. Levels are mostly linear, with a handful of sidequests that might take you a little off the beaten path. There’s little in the way of puzzles; levels are designed as a series of combat gauntlets, particularly the “dungeon” sections that culminate in a boss. These dungeon level layouts are uninteresting since they’re really just set up to be interconnected open spaces to facilitate the combat. Many of the rooms end up feeling large and empty.
Combat is Souls-lite, a very simplified, non-punishing version of the Souls formula you’d expect of parries, blocks, weak strikes, and strong strikes, with some simple combos. There are four weapons you’ll discover, each with upgradable strength and unlockable combo moves. Combat gets dull quickly, partially because of its simplistic nature but also because the game doesn’t have enough enemy variety. Bosses were not particularly challenging.
Astor: Blade of the Monolith. Credit: tinyBuild / Versus Evil / C2 Game Studio
Astor is able to summon some constructs, including a spider mount, a large stone he can drop on enemies, and a robotic drone to help fight. I found myself rarely using the combat constructs; they felt superfluous and unnecessary. I soon forgot I even had them available.
I found the game’s camera frustrating and unintuitive. It would sometimes rotate when I didn’t want it to, moving around the character in a way that didn’t feel natural when I’d make a turn. You can lock onto enemies during combat, but the mechanic feels useless because Astor himself won’t lock into facing them—only the camera itself does. It’s especially troublesome early on, when Astor can only block and parry in a single direction. Soon you gain a spherical shield that makes the problem moot, but it feels like a solution added to make up for lackluster camera design.
Astor: Blade of the Monolith. Credit: tinyBuild / Versus Evil / C2 Game Studio
Astor drowns immediately when landing in water, which results in a lengthy animation before you’re placed back on the shore. The camera moves into the water and aims up at Astor’s body, and to make things worse, the camera is aimed up at the same angle when you respawn rather than being placed behind Astor so you can get moving again. It made the few platforming sections where you could fall into water or lava unnecessarily frustrating, just because of the delays and inconveniences introduced by the camera and animation choices.
The game’s saving grace is its art. Despite the forgettable story and characters, the look of the world and its inhabitants stands out. The game is bright, using bold, unearthly colors in its environments. I wish the levels were designed more interestingly to take greater advantage of the team’s artistic prowess.
Astor: Blade of the Monolith. Credit: tinyBuild / Versus Evil / C2 Game Studio
Astor: Blade of the Monolith is perhaps best suited for younger players who might enjoy its simplified ARPG combat mechanics more. For me, the game was too repetitive and ultimately uninteresting. I’d like to see the C2 team get a little more ambitious with gameplay design on their next title.
Astor: Blade of the Monolith is available now for PC (Steam / Epic / GOG), Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4/5, and Nintendo Switch.
Overall Score: 6/10
Played on: Xbox Series X
