Backlog Review: Astor: Blade of the Monolith (Switch)

A fun experience that mixes some elements from classic games but comes up just a bit short, overall.

By Caleb Fink. Posted 01/28/2025 10:51 Comment on this     ShareThis
The Final Grade
B-
Impressive
grade/score info
1up
1-Up Mushroom for...
The aesthetic and environments felt cohesive and well executed. Narration during cutscenes was a nice addition
1up
Poison Mushroom for...
Gameplay feels a bit unfocused, some mechanics felt severely underutilized

Welcome to another Backlog Review, where we take a look at an older game that fans might have sitting waiting to be played or are still considering giving a purchase. This time we’re looking at Astor: Blade of the Monolith.


Where do you find yourself if you cross The Legend of Zelda with God of War, all while keeping in mind the game is being made by an indie developer? Well, I find myself playing Astor: Blade of the Monolith, an action RPG developed by C2 Game Studio. Inspiration from both of these games showed up heavily in Astor during my playthrough and this was evident both in Astor’s greatest strengths and in its weaknesses. This leads to a game that feels enjoyable to play, but sometimes struggles to find its own identity.

What I have found is that the game excels in the places you can see what makes it unique. Immediately, you notice the visuals are one of these areas. Astor keeps a consistent style throughout each of the areas of the game, while changing up the tone and themes dramatically. In early areas of the game, you may find yourself in dark caves with glowing crystals and vibrantly colored villages filled with inhabitants or hilly grassy areas filled with red grass, while the game’s environments change dramatically as you progress to new biomes.

One example of its identity showing strongly is in the characters of Astor’s world, who are made of wood and stone. A story point is made early on in the game as to why this is. This is one area that, I believe, shows the identity of the game well. All of the characters’ faces look like they are made of different elements created naturally in the world around them.

Considering I have gone into the plot and the storyline a bit, this is another area featuring a lot of unique ideas and identity, but falls a little short. As mentioned above, there is a story line here that is different to what I have seen in a lot of games. The way much of the tale is delivered is through narrative voice lines and cinematics that are presented upon entering important areas or new levels. The main character is named Astor and he travels the world with his friend. As you progress through the land of Gliese, where the game is set, additional story points are delivered through Astor’s companion and villager non playable characters through text box dialogue.

Essentially, Astor is given power through a blade he receives early on and he must fight back the enemy forces, the Hiltsik. Through this, he learns where his people came from and the backstory of the world unfurls before him. The idea of his people being created from elements like wood and stone is intriguing, but it feels as though the storyline could have been delved into a bit deeper and fleshed out to show more even more history. Most of the narrative goes into the backstory of Astor’s people, but it feels as if there could be more story told for many of the individual main characters.

The biggest area where I feel this game struggles with identity is in its gameplay. What kind of game is Astor trying to be? I see Zelda in its enemies, temples, and puzzles, but there are not enough innovative puzzles for it to feel completely satisfying for me. The puzzles I did enjoy were ones that stuck to the identity established with the story, such as a wood and stone mask puzzle early on, but that puzzle still lacked depth and complexity.

I also see God of War in the orbs you collect from enemies that are used to purchase the melee and ranged combos that you can fight enemies with. There is pretty good variety in the attacks that you can do and it feels fun to fight as you unlock more and more abilities with the various weapons throughout the game, but it feels somewhat mindless to fight most enemies. I didn’t feel the need to play it safe, as I could avoid attacks easily and defeat most enemies without using a lot of my stronger abilities. Once I upgraded the ranged weapon, I could usually stand a good distance away and demolish the enemies’ health bars without even touching them.

One mechanic that I found interesting and caught my attention when it was explained early on is entering the spirit world. By pressing a button, you can change dimensions, allowing you to use platforms or enter areas you might not have been able to in the overworld. This feels like such a great mechanic and that is why I got excited about it. Unfortunately, it also became the mechanic that disappointed me the most. It feels as if the developers intended to make it a bigger part of the game, but forgot about it when they started adding more mechanics. Throughout Astor, I kept wishing the developers incorporated the spirit world platforming and hidden areas into more puzzles and levels. Every time I ran into a simple spirit world challenge, I would think to myself, “Oh yeah! I forgot that mechanic was in this game.” Once again, it would be an overly simple puzzle that left me wanting.

Once again, I still enjoyed Astor: Blade of the Monolith’s combat and gameplay. Given the small team that it was made by, they have done a nice job delivering an entertaining experience. It just falls short by trying to be too many things in its gameplay and not having enough depth in its story to deliver the best experience possible. So, it is not that Astor is a bad game. It just feels like the developers kept having moments where they wanted to add another and another feature, until individual features were not incorporated enough to feel worth being there. With more attention to storyline and fewer, but more utilized mechanics, Astor could have been great.


Nintendojo was provided a copy of this game for review by a third party, though that does not affect our recommendation. For every review, Nintendojo uses a standard criteria.

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Log In 0 points Log in or register to grow your Ninja Score while interacting with our site.
Nintendojo's RSS Feeds

All Updates Podcast
News Comments
Like and follow usFacebookTwitter Friend Code Exchange + Game with Us Join the Team!