Asterigos: Curse of the Stars

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I think it’s finally happened, folks – I think we’ve turned the corner on Souls games, at least from a criticism perspective. “Games journalists call everything the Souls of [genre]” was a cute observation until everyone started making it. When the journalists themselves start making the joke, it’s jumped the shark. Anyway, Souls-style games have become a permanent fixture of the gaming landscape, joining other faddish subgenres like open-world adventures, so noting that something is Soulsy is losing a bit of the punch it once had.

Sometimes, however, you get a Soulsy game that’s a little more Soulsy than others. Given that 2022 is the year of Elden Ring that’s understandable. That’s how you end up with games like Asterigos: Curse of the Stars, a colorful and cartoony take on grimdark hardcore action-RPGs.

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Hilda’s having some family troubles. Specifically, her Dad appears to have vanished into a mysterious cursed city along with the rest of his unit. Since he doesn’t seem to be coming back anytime soon, it’s up to Hilda to gear up in true one-woman army fashion and make her way into Aphes, battling magical and monstrous foes along the way. She might even manage to get a handle on Asterigos, the curse that infests and permeates everything in the city, and discover how to make things right again.

Asterigos is…well, it’s Souls! It’s got that classic third-person perspective, stamina bar, dodge rolling, you know how these games go. This is definitely something more of a Souls-lite game, with a significantly smaller selection of weapons – essentially six classes, with numerous variants in each class – and a stronger focus on plot, but longtime fans of this sort of game will feel like they’re at home here. You’ll explore the various mazelike districts of Aphes, search for treasure and lore and do your best to survive. We’ve seen this before, but it’s a formula that works.

On the other hand, while it’d very much like to be a Souls game, Asterigos clearly took a little more from the aesthetics and impression of the series and a little less from the actual gameplay. Combat is simultaneously too floaty and too rigid, with little impact on many of your attacks regardless of which pair of the six available weapons you wield and a sense of stickiness in your animations. On the other hand, a little more attention could have been paid to the balance between the various armaments.

Bracelets, which are nominally used to sling around a ball of damaging magic, are actually notable for their unlimited supply of deadly mines. Slap a few of those things down and watch as enemies gleefully charge right into their doom. There’s other goofy options that can lead you to cheesy victory as well, but the bracelet-mines in particular were notable for just how comically effective they tended to be.

That works well when it comes to regular enemies, but boss battles are another story entirely. Asterigos’ bosses are plenty mean and they’ll laugh at your mine-spamming tactics before smacking you for a healthy chunk of your life bar. When it comes to healing up, meanwhile, you’ve got a stack of Bloodborne-style health potions that you’ll go through far too quickly when it comes down to it…and like in Bloodborne you’ll have to farm up some more when you run out.

While bosses are impressive from a graphical and mechanical standpoint, the battles themselves tend to be a bit frustrating. Customizing your character via stat points and a fancy rotating skill tree can help, but you’re still bound to come up against a wall or two. At least you can unlock neato special attacks, like converting the bracelets’ magic into ethereal weaponry.

“Impressive from a graphical standpoint” actually speaks to quite a bit of Asterigos. When I was showing it off to friends they referred to it as “Pixar Souls,” which sounds about right. Characters are marvelously expressive, environments are gorgeous and, as mentioned, boss battles are absolutely stunning. There’s not much to complain about when it comes to Asterigos’ presentation – if anything, the sole issue I had might be that not every line is voice-acted, which feels a little lacking given the solid performances that are present.

Given its budget-friendly price and ambitions, Asterigos: Curse of the Stars is an easy recommendation. Souls-style games aren’t the easiest thing in the world to make, but Acme Gamestudio certainly did their homework and the results are something worth playing through at least once. Souls players are used to frustration (they kind of expect it), and pushing through here leads to quite the experience.