[h1] [b]Overview[/b] [/h1]
Astral Traveler is an intergalactic space racing game requiring speedy reflexes and unfaltering coordination. There's 47 sectors, each one a breakneck track with obstacles and sometimes enemies. Retaining your speed is vital so crashing can have devastating consequences. You can boost your speed to ludicrous levels by phasing through pulsars, which are little blue orbs. The phase window is extremely small, and the closer your are to the pulsar the bigger the speed boost. Phase too late and you crash into it, damaging your ship and halting your speed. Accompanying each of the 5 Nebulas (a group of sectors) is an energetic and suitably high tempo electro song, which gives another dose of adrenaline amidst the insanely speedy gameplay.
[h1][b] Components[/b] [/h1]
[b]Visuals[/b] - The game looks quite beautiful despite not having the best graphical quality. Each Nebula hosts a distinct biome, such as the forest area featuring trees and wooden track, and desert area with a cracked dirt path. The visual variety is decent and helps diminish monotony. When travelling at immense speed, visual effects are employed to induce a feeling of speed. The background detail is minimal, but helps give a sense of depth and scope. When travelling at such insane speeds, great graphical detail would be superfluous and squandered anyway. Overall, Astral Traveler has nice and varied visuals.
[b]Audio[/b] - The music of Astral Traveler is suitably intense and the electro sounds coincide with the space nature of the game. While each song is good, there are far too few with there being only a single song per Nebula. With only 5 songs for the whole game, eventually the music loses its appeal and the audio of Astral Traveler falters in consequence. The sound effects are sharp and crisp, but not particularly interesting.
[b]Gameplay[/b] - In this game you have to reach the warp gate in the smallest time possible. To do so requires exploiting pulsars to gain speed while avoiding obstacles. There's a few interesting gameplay mechanics in this game. You manoeuvre a space ship possessing the abilities of jumping, phasing and shooting. Yes, not only does this game involve maintaining high speed and avoiding obstacles, but it also throws combat into the mix. With the combination of phasing through pulsars, jumping over gaps, and gunning down enemies it gets really intense at times. But that's not all, you'll also encounter full 360 degree tracks, translucent platforms, platforming segments requiring insane spin-jumping manoeuvring, and parts where you where you fly through space and squeeze through obstacles.
Progression is handled really well in this game. The difficulty curve and gradual introduction of new unique obstacles is very well done. The next level will always test your skills in a new way, with clever level design or maybe a new enemy like the one that can only be killed by phasing through it's projectiles and thus deflecting it back.
The controls were responsive but felt best on a controller. And while most games punish dying with a long loading screen, Astral Traveler will warp you back into the level before you can blink. You can also restart instantaneously with a single button press which is very convenient. The ship's turning speed does feel too slow at times, especially when there's platforms that only appear at close proximity thus giving very little time to react. Occasionally I felt I just couldn't turn in time to reach a platform at a large angle away from me, but practice and memory serves to overcome it.
With 47 levels with ranks and leaderboards, the game lasts a good deal of time. The insane breakneck racing mixed with space shooting remains fun throughout the entirety of Astral Traveler thanks to its visual variety and new interesting obstacles encountered along the way.
[b]UX[/b] - Despite no tutorial, a quick glance at the keybindings is sufficient. The game is quite easy to pick up and play, but the skill ceiling is high.
[h1][b]Valuation[/b][/h1]
[b]Longevity/replayability[/b] - For me, the big appeal of this game is replaying each stage to achieve an A rank (or hopefully an S rank). The game itself is easy enough to complete, but the real fun and satisfaction comes from perfecting each stage. With 47 increasingly difficult stages, it's no easy task to achieve A rank in all of them, but it's worth replaying them until you do.
[b]Mod Support[/b] - Unfortunately not; though a track editor (and Steam workshop) would be pretty cool.
[b]Is it worth the money?[/b] At this price, it's definitely worth it. There's enough exhilarating gameplay to last you a while and for only $4.99 it's worth it even if you're not typically a fan of such a game.
[h1][b] Highlights [/b] [/h1]
[list]
[*] Good visual variety
[*] Tight gameplay demands super speedy reflexes, but rarely unfair
[*] Gradual introduction of new obstacles keeps the game interesting
[*] Restarting is convenient and instantaneous
[/list]
[h1][b] Downsides [/b] [/h1]
[list]
[*] The music, though good, lacks in quantity
[*] The difficulty is actually pretty easy, but achieving an A rank is a monstrous feat
[*] No split-screen multiplayer
[*] No story or set up, no explanation of why we're speeding through various nebulas
[*] The angle of the path can sometimes obscure upcoming obstacles, leaving too little time to react
[/list]
[h1] [b]Conclusion[/b] [/h1]
Overall, Astral Traveler is good bang for the buck. The decent longevity and replayability potential ensures many hours of enjoyment.
I give this game a 7.5/10
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