No video for this one- Twitch was having network issues and I couldn’t get a stable connection for more than 5 seconds before it cut out again.
But don’t worry, you didn’t miss much. I don’t have a clue what happened at pretty much any point of my time with it.
Ostensibly, Astebreed is a game I should enjoy. A visceral, fast-paced shooter with lots of enemies and even more explosions, plus screen-filling bosses to humiliate. And, yes, it’s probably quite a spectacle to watch, but…
Watching is all I was doing. I just held down the Shoot button, and the Sword button, and the game just… played itself around me. The sword destroys enemy projectiles and takes down pretty much all foes in one swing, so all I had to do was just sit in the middle of the screen watching my robot-guy flail around like a lunatic while everything exploded all around him. This was interspersed with utterly baffling anime cutscenes which seemed to cram an entire series’ worth of shonen into 12 seconds; one such cutscene saw a reunion, a betrayal, a redemption, and a declaration of vengeance, all within 5 stills.
Fin or Bin:
It all coalesces into a completely baffling soup of explosions and melodrama and at no point did I feel like I was in control or even really necessary. It felt like I could tape down the Shoot and Sword buttons and go make myself a cup of tea, and come back to a completed game- the benefit of which being I get to skip all the hammy theatrics, and also have a cup of tea. It doesn’t really count as a fin if the game finished itself, does it? I had good hopes for Astebreed, but into the Bin it goes.
(Steam)