Astyanax Review

I have vivid memories of this game’s release and the hype in Nintendo Power. Even today it seems to be a favorite of a number of NES fans, but it just doesn’t deserve it. Astyanax is a well-known platformer that was simultaneously released for home and in the arcades, but in my opinion the generally high esteem it receives is not warranted unless you’re playing the latter. It’s not a bad game, but it’s not great either. If anything, it deserves an average to below average position in the NES-platformer hierarchy.

Graphically, Astyanax, especially for its time, looks pretty good. Nice range of colors and some pretty cool looking environments, but occasionally indistinct masses of somethingrather for enemies. I mean, we’re talking third-party illegal porn release quality on some of these sprites. In addition, there is a fair amount of slow down at certain points, and it really hampers the action. Level four in particular is like moving through sludge in certain locations. Astyanax also has a lot of cool cut scenes and cinematics, though some of them aren’t as polished as others. A few have this rushed, PC-paint feel to them, whereas the rest are beautiful and well-detailed. Some of the animations aren’t too smooth, either. A number consist of two short frames, which leads to choppy movement.

Astyanax also has some pretty solid sound and this is probably it’s strongest point. The music generally fits the theme of the game and sticks in your head. The boss track, for example, is one of the more memorable NES songs I’ve heard. So that’s pretty good overall. The sound effects, however, are lacking. Astyanax’s weapon sounds meek and the majority of the effects aren’t much better. They don’t synch well with the music and there aren’t very many in the first place. You don’t even get a sound when you hit enemies, just the lame, whisk-like brush of your weapon and then an explosion when they die. Is he painting? What in the hell kind of axe-swinging sound is that? At least enemy deaths sound cool, but come on, man, I want to hear some poundage!

So what’s Astyanax all about? Well, you have a basic platformer here, something similar in a way to Castlevania, but mixed with Greek mythology instead of gothic horror. There’s a fairly engaging plot that throws itself off a cliff by including the old ‘save the princess of the whatever’ story, but overall the implementation of myth is kind of novel. Astyanax does the usual attack/jump bit and the game has a weapon system like Castlevania where you upgrade three times. In addition, Astyanax has a limited use of spells. There are only three in all and you start with them automatically; blast, bind, and bolt. The controls are pretty solid, though he seems to jump a little too short at times. So you have a number of levels, some big bosses, and a fairly engaging storyline with an almost twist ending that you probably won’t see coming. Here’s a peek:

So why doesn’t this deserve the ass-kissing it receives? Astyanax isn’t very thorough in the gameplay. The action is pretty flat when it comes down to it and the designers really didn’t do anything new. It’s your basic run, collect, attack, and yawn kind of game. In fact, in terms of how it’s arranged, it’s pretty damn close to Castlevania. Second, the weapon system is poorly balanced. Your starting axe is weak and can get you in a lot of trouble later. In contrast, the most powerful weapon, the sword, pretty much destroys everything it touches, giving this game a really weird difficulty curve. Have the sword and it’s pathetic, but lose it and you’ll be pulling your hair out. Enemies come from all over the place, and often from locations where you can’t see them beforehand. This is extremely irritating on levels with lots of platforms and holes. I always hate when you have to memorize parts of a game because you otherwise have no way of knowing what’s coming until you run through it once and get tossed in a pit or hit a dozen times. Plus, Astyanax’s jumping strike has a bad arc; until you get used to it expect to get hit by a number of flying creatures.

In addition, some of the mini bosses display obvious glitches that you can use to destroy them. Take for example the minotaur. If you continue to hit him in the right corner, he actually appears on the left side of the screen after several blows but doesn’t initially turn around so you can easily kill him, taking no damage. Then there are the big bosses, mainly a show of graphical coolness without any challenge. Save up your magic or have the sword and you can make short work of almost all of them in about three of five button presses. The smallest of enemies in this game ended up being the most challenging because they’re hard to hit or appear out of nowhere when it’s most problematic. And the magic? Well, I don’t mind so much that you only have three spells. What I do mind is you’re rarely able to recharge them after use, so you end up saving them for the bosses. What’s even odder is that the first spell in your set seems to do more damage than the lightning spell, but the latter uses almost all of your power in one strike. I could go on but that’s enough. Astyanax has some charm to it, but several points in the game are highly annoying or are just watered down ideas from better titles.

Astyanax has a fair amount of replay value. I didn’t necessarily mind playing it a few times before I finished it, though level four was damn annoying. The length is pretty par for the course, it’s not too long but not too short, a good, typical run for a platformer. Now, question being, would I come back to this in the future? Maybe, but that’s the best I can do. Astyanax isn’t exactly a game that wowed me to the extent that I’d want to play it again any time soon. Maybe a few decades from now. There’s nothing really too unique about it.

Astyanax is a good example of an average platformer for the NES. It has some cool quirks here and there, but in general the gameplay is pretty stale and typical. Other times it gets plenty annoying. It didn’t really do anything new then so why in the world it receives the attention it does now is beyond me. When it comes down to it, Astyanax is nothing more than a partial Castlevania clone with a bunch of Greek mythology thrown about in a haphazard fashion. It has no lasting value, but it’s not necessarily a game I’d avoid. Just don’t expect to pull it off the shelf every week, maybe even every year.