Asterigos Curse of Stars is the latest in a long line of titles that has looked at the Dark Souls formula and tried to find an angle to go at it. How successful is it? It depends on what you are looking for.
Asterigos follows the story of Hilda, a young warrior in search of her father and his troop who have disappeared into the mysterious and magical city of Aphes. The plot thickens as she encounters some of the citizens, purple skinned and full of machinations.
Hilda is controlled in 3rd person and has a light and heavy attacks, a block, specials, and a dodge. As she progresses through the city she will take on soldiers, thieves, heavies, sorcerers, archers, werewolves and a whole menagerie of big bosses. Defeated enemies deliver XP and drop ‘Stardust’ (Asterigos’s currency) as Hilda levels up she will get two different types of points that can be used to upgrade either her stats or placed into a skill tree that unlocks special abilities for Hilda’s collection of weapons. The weapons – sword and shield, war hammer, bracers, and the like – can be mixed and matched to create a fighting style that suits the player.
The map itself is huge, with each section of the area having multiple routes through to the boss. The backdrops are varied – sewers, treetop huts, palatial Greco-Roman towns – each one given the look of a kids animated TV show such as The Clone Wars. Littered throughout the world are plenty of things to read that give more insight into Aphes and its inhabitants, someone had a field day with the narrative direction.
There is a lot of content here for those that want to get stuck in, alongside the main quest there are plenty of side quests and side areas to explore. As Hilda gets new skills it allows for her to cut new paths through previously inaccessible areas/
The problem is that the core of Asterigos does not understand what makes a Dark Souls game. The first is that combat is punishing but fair, and the second is that each moment of delightful discovery is tempered by the risk that it entails.
Asterigos’s combat is sluggish and opponents are frequently hard to read. The developers seem to know this so provides the player with tools like an incantation that makes Hilda impervious to damage, and shield bashes that allow her to block and attack simultaneously. This meant that I felt no wiser as to how to beat most enemies “cleanly” more than 20 hours into the game and instead relied entirely on the crutches built in. Asterigos has a bonfire system where resting respawns all enemies, there are pricey consumables that can be used to return to the safety of the central hub so as to upgrade Hilda’s weapons. However, less than halfway through the game, the player gets the ability to fast travel to any bonfire making the consumables pointless.
I also found the boss encounters underwhelming. On the medium difficulty I resorted to chugging potions and powering through the fights. If I got beaten I would just grind enemies for more XP and there never felt like much of a knack to them.
I never felt at risk when exploring Aphes either, after the difficult first couple of hours Asterigos ends up simply being a series of checkpoints that don’t evoke much wonder either.
That is where I part ways with Asterigos – I think others will find things to enjoy and the accommodations for the clumsy combat means that people invested in the story and exploration will have a good time. I just found that this was a game that dressed in Dark Souls clothing while secretly it was closer to Kingdom Hearts.
Conclusion
Asterigos is a solid debut with a huge world. It just stumbles when it comes to its core combat.
This game was reviewed based on Xbox One review code, using an Xbox Series S|X console. All of the opinions and insights here are subject to that version. Game provided by publisher.
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