Astalon: Tears of the Earth
Uphold your pact with the Titan of Death, Epimetheus! Fight, climb and solve your way through a twisted tower as three unique adventurers, on a mission to save their village from impending doom!
Astalon: Tears of the Earth is a fantasy, exploration and metroidvania game
developed by LABS Works
and published by DANGEN Entertainment.
Released on June 03rd 2021 is available on Windows, MacOS and Linux
in 10 languages: English, French, German, Japanese, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Korean, Russian, Ukrainian and Spanish - Latin America.
It has received 1,094 reviews of which 998 were positive and 96 were negative resulting in a rating of 8.6 out of 10. š
The game is currently priced at 19.50ā¬ on Steam.
The Steam community has classified Astalon: Tears of the Earth into these genres:
Media & Screenshots
Get an in-depth look at Astalon: Tears of the Earth through various videos and screenshots.
Requirements
These are the minimum specifications needed to play the game. For the best experience, we recommend that you verify them.
Windows
- OS *: Windows 7, 8, 8.1, 10 x64
- Processor: Intel Core2 Duo E4500 (2 * 2200) or higher
- Memory: 512 MB RAM
- Graphics: GeForce 9600 GT (512 MB) or higher
- Storage: 600 MB available space
MacOS
- OS: Mac OS X 10.11 or higher
- Processor: Intel Core2 Duo E4500 (2 * 2200) or higher
- Memory: 512 MB RAM
- Storage: 600 MB available space
Linux
- Processor: 1.8 GHz Dual-Core or higher
- Memory: 512 MB RAM
- Storage: 600 MB available space
Reviews
Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.
Very good game. One issue I found with it is that I quickly realized that the optimal strategy is to just dump all my orbs into one character and primarily play as them. Distributing your orbs between characters is just not smart. And that to some extent defeats the goal of having these three characters each with their own strengths and weaknesses that you want to switch between for different circumstances.
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What a weirdly paced emotional rollercoaster of a game that was. Astalon starts off pretty strong. The striking NES-coded visuals with their matte color-palette of beautiful orange and blue tones, the boppinā chip tune music and vintage yet charming story presentation hyped me up pretty instantly. Within the first couple of minutes of gameplay, the game lays down the basic formula for the entire playtime. That formula is a creative mix of traditional metroidvania, puzzle elements and rogue-lite progression. As a player, you can switch between 3+ characters all with different abilities, slightly different move set and attack modes; itās the old and well-established divide into warrior, archer and sorcerer that you can choose from. You progress through a dark tower, motivated by a simple plot of saving your home village from the evil gorgons who have poisoned the waters and overrun the lands with tyranny and terror. Itās a neat setup that is anything but original but was enough for me to spark my curiosity. The first hours that followed irritated the hell out of me. I love the search-action genre and I count games like Symphony of the Night (SOTN) among my absolute favorites. I do prefer the more modern takes on the genre with game elements introduced by Super Metroid and SOTN. However, I do not discriminate against more traditional vania-likes that usually present themselves as more linear but also unforgiving or outright brutal. I expected Astalon to be a modern search-action game with all the āprogressā made in the last decades, offering quality-of-life features like save-points, level-ups, teleporters and an open level structure. I thought that the 8-bit look of the game was purely an aesthetic choice that wouldnāt extend to game mechanics. The thing is, all of these features I just mentioned are in the game but somehow, Astalon still feels super archaic in its design at times. Most of my frustration with this game comes down to the lack of features the map provided, at least initially. This is one of the most rudimentary maps Iāve ever seen in a search-action game. Save-points are marked, as are teleporters and elevators. The rest is for you to figure out and ā most importantly ā memorize. You do unlock more features for the map as the game progresses, like items and key locations, but even then, the map remains rather basic. There is one little nitpick that I need to point out because it bothers me so much. As is usual in this genre, there are secret passageways between rooms, like hidden openings in a wall. Once you find one, the map does not update . Naturally, when you check the map later you see a solid separation between rooms where there is actually a secret path you already unlocked, not a fan of this. In general, the game just expects you to keep a lot of information in mind or to take notes on your own for later reference. As you keep playing, there will be a plethora of small and not-so-small secrets in pretty much every room youāll have to keep track of. So many times would I re-enter a room looking for an item that was supposedly hidden there only to find out that I couldnāt access it at the time. The game doesnāt allow you to put your own markers on the map which would have been greatly appreciated. The backtracking in general is a real pain in the butt, especially at the beginning. Within the first 4 to 5 hours of playtime, I felt like I made little to no progress. This game has rogue-lite elements and is designed around you dying a lot and starting again from the very beginning. It is rather forgiving as you basically keep all the progress made. The map-sections you visited remain uncovered, you keep all the items and even the crystals that function as currency to obtain upgrades for your characters. Still, in the early hours, I died really easily from environmental traps or the occasional over-the-top room filled with way too many enemies. So, I ran through the same set of rooms over and over and over again feeling like losing my mind. Elevators and teleporters are sparse and even in the later stages of the game, it usually takes a while to get where you want. I nearly dropped the game here as it felt more like a chore than a pleasure. But something kept me coming back. For when you do make progress in Astalon, it feels significant, it feels rewarding. I got a rush of adrenalin whenever I found a shortcut or an elevator. My mind was racing with all the new ways to interact with the world upon unlocking a special ability that enabled me to access new areas. Itās that old-school design philosophy of restricting the player so much that every little success feels like a huge milestone. You may hate that or you may love it but I definitely get the appeal. Bosses are a mixed bag. The first major boss kicked my butt so hard, I thought Iād never defeat that guy. Going back to previous areas and leveling up my characters helped a lot though and I finally got the better of him. Every other boss that followed was a walk in the park. I would go so far as to say that bosses get successively easier as you play which is not what I expected. I pretty much spammed the final boss to death without any kind of strategy or tactical maneuver in a few seconds. The pacing is just weird like that. You spend the first 5 hours barely making any progress and hitting a rock wall with the first boss only to blast through the second half of the game like bulldozer and getting super overpowered; itās one of the weirdest difficulty curves in the genre. There is a lot to love about Astalon. On an audiovisual level, the game is pure bliss. The little animations are really cute, the campfire chats between the characters are super charming and once the game clicks, you donāt want to put it down until youāve seen it through to the end. But there is just as much irritating stuff and weird game design decisions to be found here. The map is just a pain to deal with, backtracking is way too emphasized in the first half of the game, bosses are rather simplistic, the story doesnāt do anything special and the game throws unlockable characters at you at a time when youāre almost done with the game which is likeā¦ why? I would still absolutely recommend getting this if youāre at all interested in the genre and are fine with some esoteric game design choices. It surely isnāt for everyone but believe me, if you give this game a proper chance and donāt drop it within the first couple of hours (and I donāt condemn you if you do), you will find a lovely little gem of an indie title underneath the rubble.
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I rarely go for a 100% achievements completion for games, but I did for Astalon! An axcellent metroidvania with retro style pixel art (with big selection of filters if you desire to use them) and music. The core gameplay is simple - you have a jump button, an attack button and a special ability button. However, the depth of platforming and exploring the levels comes from switching between multiple characters. There are slight roguelite elements, in a sense that when you die you get a chance to spend accumulated currency on permanent and temporary upgrades. In theory the game can be completed without dying once, and subsequently with no upgrades, if you're a god gamer. Dying sends you back to the beginning of the game. However, as you play, you'll unlock shortcuts, fast travel points, and more traversal options for your characters, making backtracking easy and fun. There are lots of secrets to find as well as 3 additional game modes after you beat the game. Astalon is definitely worth its price! It's a blast of a game!
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Overall a very good game, nice visual style, dope music, fun exploration, solid controls, etc.. Not without its flaws, notably most of the upgrades are very vague about what they do and how they work. Honestly one of the things that made me uncomfortable about this was its core mechanic of death not being final; I'm hard wired to feel that dying is failure, so I want to grind healing instead of respawning with full health. It's a weird position the game puts you in. One thing in particular I have to praise about it, your wizard character Algus feels like a legendary figure; in most games magic feels mundane, in this it feels SPECIAL, like Gandalf type of special.
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This game is 100% a hidden gem. A wonderful call back to the old snes graphics, but with interesting metroidvania style gameplay, with an almost rogue like twist in it. I truly enjoyed this game.
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Last Updates
| Steam data | 19 November 2024 18:01 |
|---|---|
| SteamSpy data | 21 January 2025 02:38 |
| Steam price | 23 January 2025 12:28 |
| Steam reviews | 21 January 2025 21:50 |
Online players
5
Developer
LABS Works
Publisher
DANGEN Entertainment
Release
03 Jun 2021
Platforms
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