#astlibra

Simple interactions such as buying an item from a shop have been complicated, requiring you to have the appropriate materials on hand to purchase them, keeping you on the lookout for new drops from enemies, or experimenting with the crafting system to see if you can work out the recipe. Grinding these materials will naturally push you into the multiple growth systems, with both a traditional skill point system, but also a sprawling map of character bonuses that can be purchased with gems dropped from enemies. This cartographic journey will unlock more abilities, and ability slots, getting you excited to head right back into combat and keep the loop going. 

Combat has the vibes of a later Ys title, if the series had continued following a sidescrolling format. The basic moveset isn't too complicated, with a ground combo, a launcher and spike, and a shield. Early on you'll also get an invincible back dash and magic spells, which enable some strong hit and run tactics. There's a varied arsenal to collect, and while they generally don't have significant moveset changes, considerations like range, attack speed and the unique skills you gain from mastering them keep weapons in rotation even as you progress. 

Positioning plays a huge part in combat, and the small cooldowns when your shield breaks, or your backdash ends can end with fatal damage if you're caught in the wrong group of enemies. Magic becomes essential here, providing crowd control and the ability to reposition yourself, with invincibility during the duration of the move. Mana builds through combat, empties outside of it, so you're also incentivized to use spells as soon as you're able, since you'll never be able to stockpile it for future battles. 

Despite the myriad ways to prevent damage, you'll rarely come out of a battle unscathed, so spending and refreshing resources becomes essential to surviving even basic encounters. Astlibra is unafraid to push you to take advantage of every system, to the point where the very first boss appears nearly unbeatable until you learn every system. It's an ambitious and gutsy choice, one of many that go against conventional wisdom in modern RPG design. Astlibra is full of these, and it’s a true feat that it manages to remain coherent throughout. 

A similar sentiment could be said about Astlibra’s aesthetics. Collaged almost entirely from a number of royalty free images and sound sources, Astlibra has a distinct look to it that calls to mind early Playstation games, where digitized imagery began to become popular. Stitching these images into a single world is a feat of its own, and it manages to stay coherent enough that it never draws attention to itself. Part of this is thanks to a group of professional artists, including Vanillaware veteran Shigatake, who provided the character portraits and sprites, and Haku Tatsufuchi, who created the art for the dragon bosses. The music is equally well selected, with a variety of musical styles, but all feeling as appropriate as if they were composed for the game. The most surprising were the tracks for the many emotional moments of Astlibra, which did a fantastic job selling the drama, something hard to do even in games with bespoke soundtracks. 

It’s those big character moments that form the core of Astlibra for me. Even as I enjoyed playing with the various systems of the game, all of it remained motivated by my desire to unravel the next mystery, and my impatience for the next plot beat. Astlibra is full of heart, and it was impossible for me not to be charmed by it.