Astlibra Revision has been taking Steam by storm recently, sitting at 97% positive with over 5000 reviews. It's rare that an indie game comes out of nowhere with so little hype and has such success, and this one seemed to have all the elements I look for in this type of game: flashy, quick combat, a long playtime, perfect controller support, and lots of weapons and skills for different play styles. It also has a demo. Always a good sign when a dev is confident in their game.

I played the demo for about a half hour and saw the credits. It seems to be a slice of various points in the game - you have a bunch of magic at your disposal and weapons and armor to try out that seem to be made for late-game. Combat is hectic but fluid; casting spells is a little unorthodox but intuitive once you get the hang of it. Astlibra plays pretty similarly to the 2D sub-trilogy of Ys games: Origin, Napishtim, and Felghana, some of my favorite games of the past few years. It's a pure sidescroller more than a Metroidvania - there was no backtracking in the demo but I'm not sure how much - if any - there is in the full game.

I couldn't make much of the story from the demo. Reviews seem to indicate that the game is pretty story-heavy with a lot of cutscenes. Personally, in games like this I don't concern myself with the story too much. I fondly call it "anime nonsense" - just a vehicle to move through new environments and new enemies to destroy. That said, a good story is always a plus even if the English translation seems a little iffy.

Astlibra isn't an instant buy for me at its full $25 - but it has instantly shot itself way up my wishlist and if I can grab it on a sale it'll be one of the first games I play. I just have too many games in my collection already, with my current HowLongToBeat backlog sitting at 470 games across a dozen platforms.