Astoria: The Holders of Power Saga

This is a marvelous game with a great story and many twists and turns. Some puzzles. Some things that made me laugh. I highly recommend this game.

I was looking for a game that evokes the same feelings of the NES RPGs of yore, and, for my money, Astoria is pretty close to hitting the mark. The writing isn't anything special -- standard fantasy adventure fare, really -- and the level designs, spritework, music, and character designs all range from forgettably average to good. Based on what I've said so far, you might be wondering why I gave the game a positive review. There's so much RPG Maker garbage on Steam that it's hard to find even [i]average[/i] writing -- so, when I do find something that isn't complete garbage, I think it's worth pointing out. Astoria feels like a game that could have been released by a bunch of sleep-deprived, cigarette-smoking Japanese programmers in the early '90s, which is exactly what I was looking for. More importantly, my impression is that Astoria was made by someone who cared about their game, even if their vision wasn't particularly inspired or unique. And, frankly, the level of care on display is what renders Astoria a cut above. If the game is on sale, and you like classic NES-style RPGs, give it a try.

I enjoyed this game. I was looking for typical RPG fare with familiar mechanics and many hours of story for a small price, and Astoria ticked the box. Mostly, the game is similar to others of its kind. Some highlights are: - You can choose which spells you teach to which character. This makes a change from levelling up and being automatically assigned new abilities. You have a certain number of spell-slots so you can choose your tactics, but the slots are generous enough that you don't need to alter your spells for every single fight. - Although various characters move in and out of the party, there are never more than six under your control, and you can have up to six people in battle. This means you never have to choose which characters are in the active party... a relief for those of us who hate making decisions! - There is a range of achievements, nearly all of which can be gained by following a walkthrough. - At the time of writing, a very good, spoiler-free walkthrough is available. Check the Steam guides page. - There are some puzzles (optional, if I remember correctly) and two "stealth" sections, which add variety. If you enjoy stealth games, this will be fun. If you don't (and I don't), it's easy and short enough that it shouldn't bother you. A couple of downsides: - While the story is good, a lot of the game involves fighting through large dungeons of repetitive enemies. It would be nice to have more focus on narrative and fewer encounters. - I liked the characters but would have enjoyed finding out more about their backstories, e.g. discovering a few intriguing family secrets, or visiting the places they came from rather than just being told about them. Personally, I had minimal problems with bugs. The game uses some standard RPG Maker character portraits etc., so you'll have seen some of the artwork before, but that didn't bother me. There's nothing hugely groundbreaking about this game, but the price is excellent for many hours of enjoyable play. If you enjoyed Astoria and are after something similar, take a look at Forever Home and Einlanzer.

I'm going ahead and recommend this game. It was fun, considering the very low cost. The story was good, though clichee, and I got to meet all the characters from Forever Home again. Consider having Forever Home first, even though it came later, I knew right away who the good and bad guy were. Either way. Instead of praising all the "good" things, I'm just going to go ahead and write down everything I didn't like: - Encounters on world map. So many encounters on the world map. - Running away must be calculated by a coin toss. No matter early area or later game areas, you will fail running away. I'm not going to say there is no item, that helps with encounters, but I will go ahead and say I didn't find one. It has to be somewhat mandatory. Encounters are very bad. - No way of safe travel to avoid the very annoying encounters on the world map - Much backtracking (without a mean to easy travel) and oh so many encounters - Only one blacksmith for your rare monster drops in the entire world - Terrible direction giving, as per usual - Worst stealth mini game ever happening in any RPGM game - Bosses become obsolete a few hours in. Random encounters (oh god, there are so many) pose a higher threat, considering you will fail running away and eat a lot of damage. - Unescapable dungeons with no support, gives the opportunity to be stuck. Even though there were some heal all hp/mp in the early dungeons, you'll never find one in the later dungeons. You will have tons of MP and MP regen items as you play, even though that is no excuse for the design. - Towns are so far apart, having many, many, many encounters between them, making it hard to find a save haven when you have taken a hard hit (from failing to run away) - Bosses spam heals. So so many heals. Imagine this most you can tolerate, and take that times 5. Most bosses get 2 turns, some 3. And they will use them all to heal. I still remember the cat solo battle, where you kinda had to sap his mana and then laugh at him as he hit you very lightly. - No new game+ - A far cry from the 35+ hours from the store page. I have 30 on record. My final save state gave less than 20 hours. Next point probably kinda explains the difference for some parts - Crashes. So, so, so many crashes. I slowly start getting the impression this game goes quantity. Not quite over quality, since everything I don't list here is good or ok, but still quantity. So. much. quantity - No world map. Like how? Why? There has to be a world map. Especially in this vast, mostly empty map - Digging points for the shovel were hard to find. By the end I had the expression there was only ever one point. But there is an archievement that implies otherwise. Game says it is hinted at by sound, which is a terrible idea. I never noticed anything, and I am one to look in the corners of most places. Unless there are encounters. And oh god, there were so many! - Petra. I'd like to let this stand, but I'd also like to elaborate: Petra gets "growth" throughout the game. She leaves for training throughout the game many, many, many times. Like the encounters but that remove five and that's how often she will leave you. For her efforts, and your struggles for not having her, she gets 6MP and one skill. Will she be useful? At times. But I tell you: At the final boss she did 200 damage a turn. With criticals. And the boss had 15k hp. Thank god he was the only one not spamming heals. - Dead ends. I don't want to hint at wasted potential, since this was still quite enjoyable, but after what I wasted my time with before (I won't tell you that Shattered Hourglass is super bad and a waste of time right here), this was quite the step up from the not mentioned game.

Apart from the "sneaking" challenge, which the dev kindly helped me with, I thoroughly enjoyed this game. Good value for a 30 hour playtime too :)

Edit : my god! finally found the answer. stupid walkthrough for not telling we must talk to pink hair woman after talk to rickard. Now i will give this game A Big Thumbs up

Too linear and not so many secrets but not bad ^^

This is a huge and amazing game. The story is great and the ending is wonderful. It's very focused on fighting and I had to do quite a bit of grinding (sigh!) to level up and get money, I liked the idea of choosing which magical skills to equip in different areas. I really enjoyed the individual challenges which the Cat and Petra had to go through. The characters are unusual and interesting. Even after playing 67 hours I didn't get all the Achievements. I am missing 5 monsters from the Bestiary and I know that 3 of those were in a place I couldn't go back to. I'll definitely play again at some point in the future. Thanks Golden Unicorn for a fantastic game.

个人觉得这部作品在steam的冒险类rpgmaker游戏中可以归为最好的那一批 战斗爽快，探索要素很多，地牢设计的也很好 剧情是常见的打败魔王拯救世界，游戏剧情中各种族联合部队不断从东向西推进直至抵达魔王城，原本应该守护碎片但却野心膨胀的4个权力持有者与魔王结盟，这些都让我联想到了指环王，足够有趣，也足够有史诗感。 这么好的游戏居然只卖11块，非常建议入手

Gaste bastante plata en juegos triple A esperando volver a sentirme como en la epoca dorada de los JRPG, tengo que decir, que ninguno me convenció No puedo creer que las mayores joya del año, al menos por el momento sean indies, pero tengo que decir que estoy muy conforme! Entre esto y el Chained Echoes, estoy de poquito recuperando la Fe. Es un juego hecho en RPG MAKER, asi que es comprensible que no tengan muchas expectativas, pero la historia, el balance, y por sobre todo LA CANTIDAD DE CONTENIDO ADICIONAL al margen de la historia es excelente. Honestamente, siento que le robe al creador por lo poco que lo pague. Espero con muchas ganas ver mas trabajos de esta gente, y por sobre todo, espero que lleguen a manejar un buen presupuesto, pero sin perder de vista la calidad con la que se nota que quieren trabajar.