Astoria: The Holders of Power Saga Reviews

I can't recommend this game less, it is the worst type of game, a frustrating trap, that all but requires you to follow a 77 page walkthrough. I have 18 hour in to this game. I thought the game play was decent and the story promising, but a little flat after the first few hours. The big problem was the save traps (saving in an untenable position). Now some of these are prefaced in the game. Some are not. Characters will go in and out of your party, resulting in situation where you are vastly underpowered for certain encounters. Some encounters require the exact correct strategy, requiring you to save/load after every battle, or worse, load an old save and lose significant playtime. It wasnt clear whether I had all the appropriate part members at any one time. Battle wise, I was often left with one real damage dealer, one healer and a guy that just did things. There was no variation in that and little customizability to fix that in itemization. There are battles that are definitely too strong for you the first time you see the bad guy, but the game is quite unclear on when you should go back, or if you would make it back to those locations and only sometimes warns against strong battles. Battles also leave little room for error. Rez poations leave a character with a precarious 1 HP, and are not prioritized in speed so you can be stuck in a situation with one character down and two others one of whom is a healer but acts first. So you use your healer to rez and you mr other character to add some small nominal value of heal item HP, only to watch the Rez'd character get struck down. This review is largely written in frustration of my last 3 hours of game play, but then again a game shouldnt be that frustrating.

Astoria: The Holders of Power is a commercial RPG made by GoldenUnicornGaming, using RPG Maker VX Ace. Being a commercial game I will be judging it on a higher standard than I do most RPG Maker indie games. The low-down is this: Astoria is a game fraught with issues that stop it from becoming a gem. It has some good ideas but the negative outweighs the positive, sadly. The biggest of these issues is the large amount of default assets in the game. Now, when I say assets, I do not mean the RTP graphics or sounds. Indeed, anyone who knows me knows that I like RTP and I encourage its use. Yes, even commercially. So what do I mean when I say that the biggest issue is its use of default assets? Why, only the laziest of excercises when it comes to creating a game - the constant use of sample maps. For those who do not know of what I speak, some of the engines in the RPG Maker series came with a series of maps pre-installed for examples of how to use the tiles. It was expected that people would learn through looking at these maps in a more kinetic way. Astoria makes use of these maps, albeit with some minor editing here and there, which is, in a word, lazy. Especially as the developer has proven that they are capable of making some decent maps themselves, though they may suffer from being a bit too over-detailed. It's one of the biggest things that I look out for when it comes to commercially-made RPG Maker games and something I notice straight away when playing a game. And it's a pity that this game does this because, apart from that, it's a pretty decent game. Should it be highly rated? Hell no. Is it an average RPG with basic controls, story and gameplay? Yes. That is not a bad thing, but it is sad to see that what could have been a pretty good game fall to being lazy. But let's break this down a bit more, shall we? Story-wise the game is pretty good. There's a few spelling and grammar errors here and there, but the writing is quite solid and tells the tale of a group of people who are trying to stop an evil from taking over the land... and the consequences of failing. The start was a bit rocky but it soon picked up and the characters and story did a good job of keeping me playing. There were some tropes, but a lot of thought and care obviously went in to crafting interesting characters involved in interesting goings-on. The gameplay was a bit of a mixed bag. You won't find anything really revolutionary going on - it's pretty much a bog-standard jRPG in how it handles things. Battles aren't too different to the typical genre, nothing really stands out, but it also doesn't do a bad job of fitting the pieces together to make a fairly coherent whole that wasn't boring, at least. Battles kept you on your toes most of the time, providing perhaps a bit too much challenge. Trash mobs didn't give you much in the way of experience and if they got lucky, could wipe your party easily, especially in some dungeons where the amount of enemies outweighed your ability to handle them. I found myself having to leave in order to stay at an inn and rest up fairly often, as well as replenish supplies at least once or twice most dungeons, especially once past the early game. This led to some issues. See, one of the balancing issues in this game revolved around money - you couldn't get enough. You'd try to grind up some levels and gold in order to get enough money to gird your loins and rest at an inn, but when enemies are doing so much damage that you have to heal all the time, it gets to be troublesome. At one point I was going back to trash mobs from the area before just to get enough money to buy some healing items... and those mobs weren't giving much in the way of gold, but I had little choice as they were the only ones I could reliably kill without worry that I'd be getting a game over after a battle or two. On top of that, there were some dungeons where you could get screwed over big time - you would get locked into the dungeons (with no logical reason, story-wise) and be stuck with only the goods you brought in with you. One dungeon I had to do three times because I kept dying at a boss. Each do-over I would grind for more money on mobs that paid a pittance just to get another potion added to the stockpile, just so I could last a bit longer in the locked dungeon. It made no sense when it would have been easy to just allow you to leave and come back (even thought that's annoying in and of itself to have to do) but that was not an option. The game was relatively bug free, thankfully, though at one point I remember getting a crash that puzzled me. I can't recall the details exactly, but it was around the time of the fist big town getting taken over and I got stuck in an event which when interacted with, crashed the game. I wish I'd taken a note so I could tell you more about it. Sound... was there. It wasn't anything I could recall, really, and nothing was memorable. It existed. Graphics was something I touched on before but will do so again. I will say that there was some effort made to try and make the sample maps used look a little more spiced up, however this presented another issue - the over-use of decoration tiles. Sometimes you couldn't see where you were going due to the sheer amount of decoration tiles used all over the place. A few times I got stuck in dungeons because I couldn't figure out where I was supposed to go... thanks to decoration tiles making the way forward impossible to discern. There were just too many. And this is the other issue - take away the decoration tiles and maps were bland empty rooms full of big space and nothingness. The decoration tiles were used as a bandaid fix to try and hide that mapping just wasn't all that great. It was serviceable enough and there were some areas that legitimately looked pretty good, but the overuse of certain tiles just made it into a jumble of colour instead of enhancing the map and guiding the players' eye as it should have done. And let's not start on the complete mix and match of the various graphical styles used in the game. There are very few people who can do the old "I'll use this and this together and they'll look good because I'm editing them to fit each other" thing, and this game is not one of them. Honestly, I do NOT recommend people play the game. Not only is the developer lazy, but they are also a cheat who tried to boost their game's image on other sites by making alternate accounts and posting high-scoring reviews under them. This is, quite frankly, despicable and I suggest that if you have a hankering for good RPGs of longer length, that you try searching google for RPG Maker websites where you can find better games for free... that don't try to cheat the system. But if you're super hurting for an okay game and want to stock up games for when your internet goes out and have a tiny bit of cash on hand and it's on sale... maybe get it? Or you could go to those sites I mentioned earlier that have thousands of much better games for free. That's also an option.

Great value for the money. For the asking price, this game has more than enough game play! It took me 48 hours of gameplay to complete the game and uncover all the secrets (I at least believe so...). The game does not have too much grinding, so it keeps you engaged by allowing the story to progress at all times. On the other hand, you may need to do some monster hunting at times if you want to grab the best and most expensive gear at the times and to get enough strength to kill all the bonus monsters. The story was interesting but nothing really special. It includes all the typical elements: world in danger, you get a group of people that play the heroes that ultimately kill the most evil boss and save the world. Of course the adventure includes making many new friends, predictable love story, and lonely avengers that need others' help but at times take matters into their own hands because it's "my revenge". While the story could be of much higher standard, it is good enough and logical to keep the player in throughout the game. The gameplay is for the most part typical old-school RPG gameplay you would expect from RPGMaker based games, including various locations and a world map. Interestingly, only the world map has random encounters and the enemies are based on the region and terrain. Other locations only have encounters with visible enemies, making it possible to avoid some battles altogether, or to safely retrace your steps in order to go back to safe place to rest and restore the party health. One very interesting element were a couple of assassination missions where you need to stealthily infiltrate locations, avoid being detected by the enemies, and assassinate your targets. Some locations also include light puzzles that are for the most part easy to solve, and some puzzles in the game require wits or combining knowledge from all around the game world. These large puzzles typically reward the player with some of the most powerful weapons or spells, making them worthwhile to pursue. Music in the game gets quite repetitive, but it is not annoying (YMMV). Sound effects are indicative of reactions but nothing special. There aren't really any environmental sounds, the only effects are related to menu choices or battle actions. At the time I played the game through it had already received several updates that fixed many bugs other players had reported. I only noticed a few occassions where ending a battle didn't work and the developer seems to be interested in fixing those. Other than those minor cases of the same non-game breaking bug, the technical execution of the game felt flawless. So if you are after some classic RPG games but are weighing the options of tons of RPGMaker games on Steam, I would definitely recommend Astoria. Many of those games only have few hours worth of game play or otherwise seem like they were hastily put together with minimal effort. On the contrary, while ATHOPS appears to have quite much of the base RPGMaker content, the world and story really have seen some love and the game shows right from the start that it is seriously aimed to be a good game.

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.

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.

I have MANY games vying for my attention. This one keeps calling me back to it. RPGMaker scorecard Character Art: 7/10 There are still some assets you've seen in other games but, they aren't the same fat-jawed red-head and blue-haired-drama character panels. Map Geography: 8/10 This isn't scrabbled together by an idiot or minimalized by a lazy-ass. They put some thought into each map and dungeon. Objectives aren't quite clear all the time and you are sometimes forced to dick around til you find the place you need to go. Encounters: 9/10 A ton of variety, a bestiary but still not completely custom enemies. Dialogue: 10/10 Well written. Story: 9/10 There's a good deal of depth but the individual motivations and some of the reactions to events aren't fleshed out. Some shit that would really change a person is just like, "well ok..lets go about our merry way now!" Combat: 7/10 Not terribly creative/ not terrible/ Characters have unique strengths. Grind: 6/10 Grinding makes it easier but it's not necessary. Bugs: 9/10 Minor slowing of framerate on the worldmap occassionally Solid B grade. Granted, most RPGmaker games on steam would get an D or F. I highly recommend this game if you like RPGMaker games. Newcomers to the subgenre are lucky if they start with this one.

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.

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.

Astoria is a wonderful Epic RPG with a very interesting storyline and fun combat mechanics. Although the developer modestly says it's a 35+ hour RPG I played 106 hours and had a blast of a time. The 106 hours is for a single playthrough where I patiently did all the sidequest and every single achievement in the game. I am still highly enthusiastic about the game, and might played it again, but choosing to "build" my heroes differently. There are many interesting things about this game which make it stands out. For example, it is just not forceful fighting all the way. There are also the stealth type missions, where you play a single assassin who accomplish various goals under the cover of darkness. Your party of regular NPC will also be joined by various other interesting NPCs that are event and story driven. This makes the fight interesting as you need to adapt your fighting mechanics to accomodate the skills and strengths of the other temporary team members that join you. The side quests and achievements are also varied and different. These include digging for treasures in the ground, walking on special invisible squares to trigger events like mermaids blessing, fighting epic monsters to get various weapons and armor enhancements, killing dragon hordes to get powerups for your team, finding unique relics and gears, cleansing shrines and searching for virtues of semi-godlike dead heroes. There are so many things to do in this game, and they are seemlessly intertwined into the storyline so that there are never dull moments. This is what drives me to play 1 more hour and 1 more hour until I reached 106 hours. This is actually a kickstarter game which is already funded by many backers who are impressed by the quality of the game. Hence, this game is selling at a ridiculously low price of $4.99 on steam because the cost of this game is already "paid for" by previous backers and supporters. I had such a great time playing this game that I will definately buy and play the next game from this developer, whenever he comes up with one. I highly recommend this game.

Pros: * Many games choose between random encounters and touch encounters. This game opted for random encounters on the world map and one-time touch encounters in dungeons. The former allows players to grind if they need to while the latter makes it less of a hassle to fully explore dungeons. * I find the Dispel effect interesting, since it basically forces you to make a choice if your character has both good and bad statuses. Should they get rid of all their effects and recast the good ones later, or just endure it? * I like how most of the human bosses aren't insanely durable damage sponges with high HP and instead use other tactics to make up for their lack of boss constitution. It feels more realistic for them to be only somewhat more durable than the average party member while being less durable than huge hulking beast and demon bosses. * The story is horrifying at times without being too cynical and hopeless. Cons * The villains don't have much motive, backstory, or personality beyond being greedy and sadistic. The exception is the always-second-best traitor, who seems to have some regrets about his actions, but is too selfish and cowardly to own up to them. Though I do admit the human ones do an effective job at angering the player as much as possible. * The final boss feels somewhat underwhelming compared to previous bosses due to how it only moves once per round if it uses a spell. * Stunlocking (or weblocking from the spider enemies) from some enemies feels cheap, especially when the stun effect lasts for several turns * The money drops are pretty low, even for a JRPG. Tips * Many story dungeons will lock you in once you enter, including the final one. Get used to carrying a lot of MP potions and using multiple save slots. * Many of these story dungeons also can't be revisited, which means you should be extra thorough in looting and killing everything. Dungeon enemies tend to drop more EXP and gold, so killing them all is recommended unless you're severely lacking in items. * Once you enter a friendly pirate's base, immediately buy the Magic Shovel. I don't think there's another opportunity to get it. * In general, mobs containing human enemies will drop more gold. * At the very least, you should complete the Chaos Lords sidequest to get a weapon that everything in the final dungeon is weak to. * If a boss is fond of spamming multi-hit normal attacks, have Nolan use his taunt and counter buffs. * Defeat all challenger bosses as soon as they appear. After some story events, they'll disappear and you won't be able to add them to your inventory. * Be sure to do complete the initial part of the bestiary and talk to the NPC who is interested in it so you can get the remaining pages. * The special gear in Bardstown just aren't worth it. They're too expensive and they'll become obsolete in the endgame.