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Astebreed (PS4) Status: Finished playing I started playing this game on Tuesday 7 July, 2020 // I stopped playing this game on: Thursday 9 July, 2020
Current opinion of this game
No comment, yet.
July 9, 2020 07:08:42 PM
Finished it (easy mode) earlier today and uh... the game's story still doesn't make much sense to me. Once I finished it (only 6 missions) I bunch of stuff unlocked that was really interesting to look at. (a) The game's credits are really informal - I was quite surprised. A lot of handles rather than "legal names". And the the dev team (Edelweiss) was really small - maybe 10 people including the audio/music people. (b) There's a bunch of artwork related to a comic convention - I think it might have been teasers prior to launch (2015?) or thereabouts. (c) It was interesting to look at storyboards for the game's cut-scenes...there's quite a few of them (and quite long too). (d) There's a global leaderboard with scores that go way back (5 years was the oldest I saw), though there was at least one score posted in 2020. I was surprised by this. Also, most of the scores where from Japan. (e) I went back and played the first mission on "normal" just to see how much different the game would be. My "cheesy" strategy of holding down all the combat/weapon related buttons still worked - though I had to dodge a bit more around read-colored enemy attacks, these can't be destroyed with the sword. I couldn't be bothered to play through the other missions, but my sense is that the difficulty won't pick up (although the cheese strategy still would work?) until higher levels of difficulty that probably unlock?
July 8, 2020 02:18:09 PM
Oh no, it's a space shooter! I'm usually pretty terrible at these, I don't have the patience or time to remember all the patterns and such and, I also find these games incredibly overwhelming. I'm not sure why I picked this up (Limited Run physical copy), but I thought I'd give it a try and perhaps learn something about the genre. I must have played about 90 minutes or so. I watched all the cutscenes and such, and I don't really understand the story. I think it's about some aliens that invaded from another part of the universe, but we're humans and we're fighting back. But there is some special tech - for these flying mechs with swords and guns, and I think there are two sisters who control two of these special alien mechs - but one sister turned bad? Oh, and their dad died, but I'm playing as his son? I don't think it matters much and I'm not sure if the characters/world is from some licensed property or such? (I don't think so, based on the lack of other company branding as far as I recall) What I did find interested is that there are two main control modes - and the console one is the secondary (less preferred?). It seems like the main one is (from?) the PC version of the game? I had always imagined that Japanese shooter games were primarily an arcade thing, with ports and versions then appearing on PC and console. I now get the sense that I'm wrong - and that perhaps the main "home" for these kinds of games is the PC? Which also makes me wonder - are they played with keyboard? Mouse and keyboard? I don't think they'd go with gamepad. The other thing I'm curious about is, given that it's a Limited Run edition I'm playing, and they tend to focus on indie games, is this game an Indie game in the "western" sense of the term? Obviously the term indie has changed over the years - but I mean in the "experimental"/"artistic" sense of the word rather than just the "niche audience"/"small company" sense that is also used. So, in Japan - in what context is this game understood and perceived? I also have no idea if this game is a "classic" or "acclaimed" title in Japan (even if niche).... Here in the US, I think these kinds of shooter games are a small niche audience kind of thing - and there isn't much of a local scene for these kinds of games? (I think!) Anyways, playing this has led me to think a bit more about the business side of things as well as the differences in local play cultures and game preferences.... (which are both personal as well as culturally informed/created).

Astebreed (PS4)