Can anyone give me a rundown?

[Goldenkitten]

Normally as a fan of EVR and the genre as a whole I'd just pick this up without a second thought. Unfortunately I'm running more than a bit short on extra cash for gaming this last month and need to be careful.

With that in mind can anyone give me a rundown of this? Is it close in style to EVR (I can see the videos but a first-hand account would be welcome)? Does it have good replayability (unlockables, extra bosses, etc.) or is it mostly just beat it once or twice and you've seen it all? General opinions on quality?

I know a lot of people would tell me "Just buy it" but until my next paycheck I probably only have enough for this or another game in its price range. So if this is a 2-3 hour "beat and never play it again" style game I'd rather hold off. But if it's got some extended content I'd be fine picking it up.

Thanks for your help!

[Minmataro]

I just streamed like 25 minutes of it if u are curious. No this is not a plug for my channel lol. I use twitch to show friends gameplay before they buy stuff.

http://www.twitch.tv/zero7181/b/533744377

fast forward the first couple of minutes.

No this isnt pro gameplay this is just me looking at the first two levels as a newb.

fyi not the greatest quality i did it on a whim.

[velvetrose]

The game has 3 difficulty modes, Easy, Normal, and Hard unlocks after beating normal. It lets you choose to start with the alternate mech after beating each mode, and it also has a lot of gallery unlockables. The game is on the short side since it only has 6 chapters (levels), so it can be beaten in one sitting quite easily. The replayability of the game comes enitirely from score runs and trying to beat it w/o using any conintues on hard mode. All this is pretty much what I expect when purchasing a shmup though.

The gameplay itself however is amazing, probably the most fun I've had playing an indie shmup. The sword mechanics are really what make this game awesome. Your sword can do 1 or 2 quick attacks that don't slow down your movement, or you can mash the button to perform a flashy looking combo that slows down your movement and has a recovery time afterward. The sword also has a very fast dash attack move where you are invincible during the dash, so it can be used to dodge/destroy streams of bullets while also attacking distant enemies.

The sword attacks can destroy all but the red bullets, destroying them helps to fill up your super gauge very quickly. Thich means the better you are at destroying the torrents of bullets the more special moves you can spam. The sword has 3 special moves, an AOE spin attack that gives you a damage absorbing shield for a couple seconds after, a multi lock on attack that dashes to and attacks everything you are locked on to, and a single target full lock on attack that does a very powerful and very stylish multi hit combo attack to a single target.

It's a bit hard to describe the gameplay since it plays so much different than a typical shmup, I'd say it plays more like a fast paced action game than a standard bullet hell shmup (it plays a bit like sin and punishment 2). The way I found myself defeating most of the bosses is by using lock on attacks to chip away health while focusing on destroying and dodging bullets to quickly fill up the super gauge to unleash the most powerful special attack over and over (easier said than done).

The scoring system promotes the use of all your weapons, you use normal and lock on shots to destory smaller enemies to build up the multiplier. However the multipler only comes into effect when you destroy things with the sword, so you use the sword on larger enemies to take advantage of the multiplier. Everytime enemies are destroyed with the sword though it will drop the multiplier down by 1, so you can't just keep spamming the sword attacks once your hit max multiplier if you want to maximize your score. The multipler is also doubled if your shield is not damaged or regenerating.

TLDR: The gameplay and visuals are awesome, and while I personally love the game and think it was worth the price, if you aren't into replaying games to perfect your skills and score then you won't get much gameplay time out of this title.

[Goldenkitten]

Thanks that helps. And nah I'm used to replaying games in this genre, that's nothing new. I had just wondered if there was any incentive to do so. For instance some do unlockables, others do persistent upgrades, and sometimes it's just the fun of beating your own score (though in this latter case the gameplay needs to be really strong).

So I knew the game wouldn't be long, I had just wondered if it was even WORTH replaying since I've been burned by this genre as often as I've found a game I love. That said given the fact that this looks like its own unique product while having some of the same aesthetic stylings of EVR I imagine I'd like it just fine.

Thanks for the "review".

[velvetrose]

Forgot to mention a run through of hard mode w/o using continues is about 30 minutes, and there is a lot of in game achievments even though it doesn't have steam achievments sadly.

[Drake]

I think it's probably safe to say that if you enjoyed EVR you will enjoy Astebreed. There's a fair bit of crossover between the mechanics in use. And in general I'd say it's a big step up from EVR in terms of gameplay. If you like polishing your skills and chasing scores this is easy to recommend.

[Goldenkitten]

Thanks folks. I guess I'll pick it up since I did enjoy EVR and the genre in general. So if it's a more refined EVR I imagine I'll get a good bit of play out of it.

[velvetrose]

Here's a run through of hard mode if anyone is interested. Sorry about the poor quality I was just gonna show my friend the game real quick and it turned into a whole run lol.

http://www.hitbox.tv/video/149661

[Mr. Stimpson]

Originally posted by Goldenkitten:

Is it close in style to EVR (I can see the videos but a first-hand account would be welcome)?

Yes. It's slightly more in depth this time around though. The inclusion of melee with the super recharge system and the new lock on system (radius locks on slowly, cone locks on faster) makes the game more complex/in-depth (imo, ofc).

Originally posted by Goldenkitten:

Does it have good replayability (unlockables, extra bosses, etc.) or is it mostly just beat it once or twice and you've seen it all?

There's unlockables for each mode, a model viewer, a story codex and score (ofc). For me, there's more than enough. But I'm someone that can put 20+ hours into a bare-bones bullethell just to get to the point that I can do 1CC/no-damage runs on insane difficulty. So I'm somewhat easy to please :)

Originally posted by Goldenkitten:

General opinions on quality?

If you mean visual quality, yes, it has a very good range of visual options that change how the game looks.

If you mean the general quality of the product, I feel that this is one of the highest production quality shooters I've ever played.

[Goldenkitten]

Thanks. That helps too.

And yeah the question about unlockables and such was more to cover my bases. I've put a good deal of time into some very base ones as well; Danmaku Unlimited 2 being the most recent one, but god knows how much time I've put into Blue Wish Resurrection. At the same time I've had some standard ones like the Gundemonium games which never really pulled me in.

So to help me decide I figured I'd question if there were extras to perhaps give a slightly higher incentive to play through it beyond the core gameplay.

But since everyone seems to be agreeing it's an improved EVR with some new mechanics I think it will be fine (for me) either way.

[Village Idiot]

I just bit the bullet and bought it.

Pros:
-Really, really, REALLY good
-Beautiful graphics
-Great music
-Feels like I'm playing a SHUMP version of Zone of the Enders
-I actually like the characters
-Japanese audio
-Estina is awesome

Cons:
-Really, really short. You can beat the whole game in about an hour
-Lack of auto-fire (you have to hold down either shot buttons to do the homing laser). Really aches your hands after 20 minutes or so.
-Subtitles only. Not that its a bad thing, but due to the fast gameplay, you won't have time to even read the dialog and you'll likely have to watch a playthrough if you want to understand the story

If you like shumps and bullet hell, get this game.

Just note that its really short, but a lot of shumps can be beaten in about an hour anyways.

Personally, it was worth the sale price of $15 to me. If you want to save money though, note that the summer sale is only a month or two away and it'll probably drop to $5-10.

If you're using a controller (and why aren't you?), make sure to bind the Sword attack to one of the shoulder buttons.

[Goldenkitten]

A controller for a shooter? God no :P.

But yeah I already picked it up. Thanks for the review though, I mostly agree with what you said.