Astor: Blade of the Monolith

Astor: Blade of the Monolith is the game equivalent of fast food. There are better, more satisfying, and original options out there, but it gets the job done. It’s an attractive, colorful, and pleasant enough action RPG, just don’t expect much more than surface-level enjoyment.

Astor: Blade of the Monolith reflects one of the coolest aspects of video games as a medium with a deep history of iteration. You can take a familiar set of concepts, add new context, and come up with something that stands on its own rather than feeling like a ripoff. Astor does this with an impressive sense of knowledge and understanding of not only Zelda-style exploration, but character action-style combat. The latter is much more niche and specialized, therefore harder to pull off. It’s not quite a bullseye, but gets respectfully close and has me curious about further updates, as well as wh...

Astor: Blade of the Monolith is an evocative and charming hack-and-slash adventure with plenty of bright ideas but sub-par mechanical execution.

Astor: Blade of the Monolith offers an enjoyable action RPG experience with charming visuals and character design. However, with weak combat and a lack of things to see and do in the overworld, it’s an experience that will soon be forgotten.

It's hard to say what Astor: Blade of The Monolith wanted to be. Action-RPG? Open world adventure? Techno-fable? Biting social commentary? Whatever it's ambitions, the end state is a pretty looking piece with little in the way of challenge or narrative depth.