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Astoria - A Decently Crafted Game with Some Issues

I'd like to precede my review by saying I enjoyed the experience despite some large frustrations. Also a spoiler warning IS in effect.

Battle System: There's not much to say about Astoria's battle system. It didn't take any risks with it and felt very standard. Any RPG gamer should be winning fights immediately. However, there were some extreme issues with balancing.

Game Balance: Very off kilter. Full Potions (The strongest MP restorative) restore a paltry 60 MP. When some characters have a Maxmimum MP value of over 1000, 60 MP per restore does not cut it. Restore Potions, which max out the whole party's HP and MP, are extremely rare to boot.

Herbs are also an issue, capping at 160 HP restored per usage. Absolutely unacceptable when characters have nearly 2000 HP.

Furthermore, several spells have insanely high costs, more than a Full Potion, and their damage doesn't justify a use. Explosion comes to mind, along with several of the multi-target spells.

Bosses: Bosses were a hit or miss. Some bosses felt extremely fun to defeat. Others felt extremely cheap. Radax falls squarely into the former. Scythias, the Troll, Count Luther and more than few others fall into the latter. All of them hit far too hard at a decent level with the best gear, outspeed the party or have a gimmick that is far too wonky to understand.

Mapping: The mapping was good in some areas and very, very poor in others. Example: Calista's house. The book on her table tells the player that a troll's regen is negated by fire. But she's constantly pacing by the door and the entryway is too narrow. There are several instances of this, such as the rest tent in the camp, etc.

Story: The setting was very generic for a good while. The hero journeys to Astoria, is immediately caught up in several events and never really gets what he came for. His parents are killed, his home land are ruined, and he doesn't linger on this for more than few moments. The writing is quite poor all over the place and there's not a lot of real lore or relevant world building. The few exceptions are some tomes on legendary weapons, many of which are outclassed quite quickly.

As for the plot, it becomes very standard fare with a predictable “war against demons” scenario. There was only one interesting twist that I didn't predict, and it was actually relevant information.

Characters: Overall hit or miss I genuinely cared about Ar, the Cat, and Grazz. Nolan felt far too solid and emotionless and Calista didn't have too much importance besides being the “purest of hearts.” It didn't have story relevance and was mentioned too much.

Petra was far too edgy, and her one-track mind of "Revenge! Kill! Avenge! Radaxxxxx!" made her the weakest character by far. Nolan's loss wasn't met with the same level of revenge and more of a “I have no home to return to, so I'll help where I can” was much more reasonable, despite no lingering grief.

Features: Dragons. A lot of games have them, few use them in new, or unique ways. Dragons guarding a horde of treasure is about as old as Beowulf, and this game has them. However, the ability to empower your party with their essence was intriguing.

The bestiary was a nice treat, and it proved essential trying to figure out weaknesses and resistances, but had no major rewards for filling it out.

I enjoyed the duel battles, but some of them boiled down to “Drain an enemy's MP so they can't heal” and they felt monotonous and boring.

The group of rival heroes from the RTP was amazing and one of the more intriguing things for me, as they provided a strong challenge.

Overall: The game has some serious issues with balancing, mapping, and the story was fairly standard. Far too often I found myself asking "Why would you do this to your players?!", and tearing my hair out from the sheer unbalancing of the game. This is a title that was priced reasonably for the experience I provided, and I would recommend it to people who want to experience a standard RPG without paying an arm and a leg.