Seraphims of Astraeus

Before I begin my review, I want to put in a pre-review note for those of you looking at the game or the mecha genre for the first time: While I will say the game isn't what people are expecting yet, the single dev working on this is working their ass off to get things going as fast as they can. There is a lot of promise in this game that I haven't seen since the Gundam MMO franchises died out in North America. I'm part of the mecha genre gaming community that have been looking for the revival of the genre the way it was back when Armored Core, Exsteel, and Gundam used to stand tall as our champions in North America. I know Ayphverus can do it and his community are going to pour their hearts into helping him speed things along. ___________________________________________________________ To start off, the game is in an early access state so bugs up to a certain point are not being penalized. I will also be leaving notes about bugs being addressed by the dev according to their discord. Game Process and Appearance: The graphics are not quite up to par with the big AAA games or ones from bigger studios, but they don't disappoint for sure. The core design of the mechs had some thought put into them, any Gundam fan would be pleased. The music feels like a throwback to the times of Armored Core and the older Gundam games and sets the mood well for the game play. The environments need a bit more fleshing out but they are functional at least. As for how the game process holds while playing, while I've experienced a number of long load times and occasional freezes during loading, but this game works on my laptop smoothly which means it can run on low-end machines. Movement and combat: For an early access game at the state this one in is, I'm surprised to see the controls as reactive and comfortable to use as they are. I get very quick responses from input and I'm not having to stretch my fingers to use everything. The weapon functionality and bullet physics are in good shape and there isn't any noticeable displacement in the shots that are fired. Movement is fast-paced and nimble in terms of lateral movement, but the vertical ascension is a bit slow and lateral movement tends to overtake it easily when lateral boosting. A tweak to the lateral boost and "jump" functions are the only thing I see that needs to be done for now. Multiplayer: While I haven't had issues with getting multiplayer to connect and load up, there have been people bringing it up in the discord and on some of the steam reviews. I've talked to Ayph about it and he's working on getting it back up and running. Story: Practically none as of now, but still early access Overall: I'd recommend this game because of the progress its made for the time it's been in development and the potential it has to become something truly great.