Asterigos: Curse of the Stars is the new action RPG from tinybuildgames and Acme Game Studio. It’s releasing next month, but I had the pleasure of checking out the demo on Steam. It is inspired by Greek and Roman mythology, and is a beautiful combination of Immortals: Fenix Rising and Kena: Bridge of Spirits utilizing the same type of “cartoony”animation. Many of you may be used to dying over and over in these type of games while looking for the perfect strategy. What you may not be used to, however, are beautiful sparks of originality that allows a game to stand on a pedestal amongst its peers. This is where Asterigos comes in.
From the jump, Asterigos seems as your typical action RPG. You jump and roll out of the way while meticulously striking your enemy, pop a potion or two (or more) and make your way against the same baddies over and over. In Asterigos: Curse of the Stars, we are also fortunate enough to have variable difficulty options and, most importantly, keep all of our loot when we succumb to our enemies. That’s right, no back tracking for items or lost XP here. For those of you who take the “Stealth is optional for this mission” advice lightly (as we all have done) and simply go on a rampage, my advice to you is to 100% not do that.
Asterigos has an amazingly incredible and original story to tell, and it makes sure you have to play the right way to get it. Killing an enemy you are not supposed to during a mission which is supposed to have a peaceful outcome will have negative consequences. Not only will your story change in the game, but also your character Hilda. Rapid spree kills akin to something like Assassin’s Creed will have you miss out on aspects of the story which would make clearer your intended outcome.
Like many action RPG’s, the combat is very fluid. There was surprisingly more variety in the attacks and character animations than I expected there to be. Even still, as a nature of the beast the combat did become repetitive after a while. The good news is that it takes much longer than your standard title in the genre. You could go straight through playing exactly how your in game journal says you should. Of course, you may always decide to full ham and massacre everything in sight. The choice is yours, but the variations in the story setup make for what will surely be a great game with high replay value due to the ramifications of your choices. Asterigos: Curse of the Stars may not launch until October 11 on Steam, Xbox and PlayStation, but it already is setting itself apart from the rest of the genre. Stay tuned for our full review upon launch.
Check out some of the official gameplay below.
