Currently Playing on Twitch
I'm currently in the midst of playing Astalon: Tears of the Earth on Twitch! It's a Metroidvania roguelite where three heroes are exploring a tower full of enemies, including fierce bosses known as Gorgons, in an attempt to remove poisons from their water source and save their village. However, one of the heroes seems to have an ulterior motive, and he's made a deal with the devil to see it through...
Estimated progress: 95% done
Zeph's thoughts: I'm really enjoying this game so far! You play as the aforementioned three heroes throughout the game, and each of them plays a bit differently. You have a close-range fighter who attacks quickly, a long-range archer who attacks slowly, and a magic user who exists betweeen those two extremes. The layout of the game forces you to switch between the characters to advance through the tower, as there are barriers, switches, and other hazards that can only be navigated by a specific character. However... each of your characters share the same HP pool. If you're about to die, you can't just switch characters to prolong your life. There are candles throughout the tower that you can break for a guaranteed health restore, but they're a one-time use (unless you pay money at the shop to restore them).
The early parts of the game are pretty forgiving in terms of enemy damage and environmental hazards, but the difficulty increases steadily as you progress through the game. Fortunately, every time you die, you have the opportunity to upgrade your character - however, this is where one of my complaints comes into play. Since the characters share an HP pool, increasing that benefits each of the characters. However, when it comes to raising other statistics (attack, defense, attack speed), each character has to be upgraded individually. This can create a bit of an issue where, if you've neglected upgrades for a specific character and then you're forced to use them, they may be underpowered - and if you don't have the money to upgrade them, you'll have to either struggle through, or return to an earlier area of the tower and grind out some money to upgade them accordingly. Fortunately...
Money is relatively easy to come by in the game. The money takes the form of "life orbs", which you trade to a demonic entity that will empower you in return. Initially, you have to run around collecting these orbs when they drop from defeated enemies, but an early upgrade will draw them into you, making the process of earning money incredibly easier. Add into that another upgrade that increases your chances of getting more money from defeated enemies, as well as some hidden places in the tower that provide you with a stacking multiplier to the money you get for that run, and it isn't too difficult to save up money for upgrades. But it's very likely that you're going to find a character that you enjoy playing and focus most of your upgrades on them, initially.
As you explore the tower, you'll find places blocked off by a variety of obstacles. Some of these require you to find specific relics to bypass them as you play; others are locked doors that require a key. There are three types of keys throughout the game - white, blue, and red. Red keys appear to be extremely rare - ten hours into the game, I've only found two so far, and a door that will need a third. There are far more white and blue keys available. The nice thing about the game is that it's been relatively welcoming to exploration. Early in the game, I found an underground area that needed a blue key. As I climbed the tower along the "main" path, I found a blue key, and a corresponding door - instead of opening it, I returned to the underground area and began exploring that instead. I eventually hit a dead end, but the game made sure to provide me with a replacement blue key so I could continue along the main path. In playing, I haven't yet seen a situation where it seems like someone could softlock themselves from incorrect key usage. It might be annoying to have to hunt down a key you need, but it's doable!
Boss fights have been (to me) a bit of a breeze so far. I died to the first boss, but haven't tasted dirt against any of the others since then. If you pump upgrades into characters' attack values and can discern boss attack patterns quickly, you can burst them down in a relatively short amount of time. The actual boss designs and fights have been fun, though, with each boss having (for the most part) different attacks and mechanics, and needing a different strategy to combat them.
I've spent a lot of time exploring the tower and trying to map out every single area possible, but I think I'm nearing the end of the game. I'm always a little sad when that happens, because I'm enjoying the game so much, but every good game has an end! I anticipate finishing this one up within the next two streams or so.
2/15/26 Update: Well, I beat the game today! I got the achievements for 100% map completion, 100% relics, and 100% upgrades for one of the characters. I have to get all the upgrades for all the other characters, as well as finish out the bestiary, but I anticipate doing those things off stream since it'll be rather tedious and boring.
There's also a couple of new game modes that unlocked that I might try out - a boss rush mode, and a mode where you're playing as one of the villains of the game! I might do a one-shot stream for the latter option - I spent a bit of time playing as him and enjoyed it, and I think it'd be a pretty quick run since he comes with a bunch of upgrades already equipped.
But now that I'm just about done with Astalon, I'll need to find my next game to stream. I'm thinking it'll be one that I've been waiting to play for quite a while - Hollow Knight: Silksong.