Astebreed Definitive Edition

in library

4.1/5

( 12 Reviews )

4.1

12 Reviews

English & 2 more

Overall most helpful review

Posted on: August 26, 2014

MischiefMaker

Verified owner

Games: 819 Reviews: 66

Finally, a real shmup on gog!

*IMPORTANT NOTE* Credit-spamming arcade games is like playing a first person shooter with the god cheat on. Of course it's boring and easy if you play it that way. One of the most gorgeous indie shmups to come out of Japan. This is a scrolling shooter where you fly a sword-swinging mech against an army of alien robots because blah blah reasons. The scoring system is straightforward: build up the score multiplier with rapid fire attacks up to 16X, then cash in the multiplier by taking out multiple enemies in a single sword attack. This is a much more forgiving game than arcade-difficult shmups thanks to your Halo-esque regenerating health bar and multiple difficulty settings. I highly recommend this game. Looking forward to more shmups on gog, like Crimzon Clover!

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Posted on: August 26, 2014

DigiTanuki

Verified owner

Games: 743 Reviews: 8

Simply spectacular

Astebreed does everything right. The shooting is satisfying, the visuals are gorgeous, the difficulty curve is spot-on, and it has just the right balance of challenge and forgiveness to keep things interesting but not frustrating. The weakest point is actually the story. It's interesting, but pretty cliche, and it while it touches on themes like transhumanism, it doesn't really dive into them much as it could. There's still far more plot here than most shmups, which is both a good and bad thing. Good because it gives more context to the shooting, and bad because it's really hard to read dialogue subtitles while you're dodging bullets. It's a minor annoyance for me that you can't hold down the fire button to continuously fire, but then that was sacrificed so you could have a (quite useful) charging lock-on attack, so it's not such a big deal. The game's central gimmick is a really cool one: the camera angles change constantly, seamlessly shifting the game between vertical-scrolling shmup, side-scrolling shmup, and 3D behind-the-back (like StarFox) shmup. This works surprisingly well, and it makes the stages feel more dynamic. It's especially cool during the boss fights, when the camera shifts multiple times during the fight, depending on how the boss is attacking you. I whole-heartedly recommend Astebreed, as I thoroughly enjoyed it. And if you like this, I also recommend its spiritual predecessor Ether Vapor, which sadly isn't on GOG as of this writing.

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Posted on: June 16, 2015

TPA5

Verified owner

Games: 321 Reviews: 4

Insane shooting action

Sometimes you just need to get behind the controls of a big mech with a comically over-sized space-sword and obliterate your way through thousands of hapless enemies in spectacular fashion. Astebreed lets you do exactly that. Tight, simple controls, stunning visuals, solid mechanics, and enough baddies to fill an Olympic swimming pool. If Olympic swimming pools were the size of galaxies. There is a story, but if you can read the subtitles while splintering your way through the legions of evil then you must also be able to organize a feather collection while riding a unicycle in a hurricane. I missed most of it because taking your eyes off the screen for more than a fraction of a nano-second is just asking to be atomized by the force of several million missiles being crammed into your face. But honestly who cares? All you need to know is you have a bad-ass mech, and every single killer robot this side of the Andromeda galaxy wants to devour you and crap out the pieces. Good enough for me. The sound is good, nothing to write home about but it does the job. Music is quite good, though honestly it's difficult to pay attention to it when every single synapse in your brain is dedicated to avoiding the geyser of incoming rounds. Several times during game-play I found myself gasping for breath because I had no idea I was holding it in. If that isn't the mark of a good game, I don't know what is. Bottom line: if you like descending into the pits of glorious bullet-laden madness, this is the game for you. PS: Kiss the thumb on your right hand goodbye now, because it WILL become an arthritic claw before you finish the campaign.

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Posted on: February 14, 2019

Redbeard1084

Verified owner

Games: 978 Reviews: 64

...BUT IT'S SO PRETTY!

I do not see how this game gets the ratings it has. It's not that good! The game makes like it has this really advanced mechanics, but then gameplay will most often descend to hold down sword swing and mash raidal homing weapon. You won't get much of a chance to use the dodging and focused homing shots, because you will be swarmed endlessly. Using the Hold&Mash method, I made it to the second to last boss before having to actually think about what I was doing. But it's not all bad, here's some good stuff: -Wonderful graphics! It looks like if Panzer Dragoon and Einhander had a baby. -Ace soundtrack! -Explosions are fun! -It seems to help with anxiety and depression problems just slashing and blowing stuff up. I bet Michael Bay would LOVE this game.

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Posted on: May 27, 2016

j0ekerr

Verified owner

Games: 493 Reviews: 10

Gundam shmup.

It looks great, and it plays great. It's an old school shoot-em-up bullet hell arcade game. However unlike other bullet hell games in which you control a ridiculously fragile magical girl, you can take quite a lot of punishment. Which is good because there's absolutely no way you can avoid all those shots unless you're the kind of person who can play through superhexagon on your first try. The one thing I dislike though, is that the story is being told while you are in the middle of avoiding being blown up by the enemies, in japanese; with subtitles. It's not a big deal though, the story is a pretty standard animesque storyline, and quite troperrific. So you won't miss much.

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