When I was younger, I grew up watching anime, and I loved( and still do). Animes that had mechas on them, and I loved watching Mazinger Z ( the original anime) and seeing Koji Kabuto pilot Mazinger was so cool that it lighted up my love for that anime genre. Then came Gundam Wing and many others all the way to new ones like Gurren Lagan and Darling in the Franxx. I mention mecha anime because if you have watched any of them, you see that mechas can work in a shoot em up genre. Gundam Wing for example is a anime where the gundams use weapons like swords, scythes, but also ballistic weapons like missiles and beams. This is the vibe I feel when playing Astebreed on the Nintendo Switch. Now, you might say “cool analogy dude, but this game had released around 2014! You are right; however, like I have mentioned several times: I don’t own a PS4, nor am a PC gamer. For me, this is a fresh experience.
Astebreed’s story is pretty straightforward: You are a pilot named Roy and are given a task by your superior officer (one that made your life turn around) to save the galaxy from a huge alien invasion( yep). This task is only possible piloting the Xbreed–that it has to be pointed out–only you can pilot. The central CPU is one of the twin daughters of your diseased superior officer (he dies in the prologue, and in his last breath appoints Roy as the last hope). She considers herself more machine than human, and as much as I would love to explain further…I can’t because of spoilers. Due to the small dialogue boxes that appeared during your campaign, you have to either pay attention to them or die while reading them. The game is not English dubbed (I don’t care as I am used to see Japanese anime with subs), so I think that making the boxes a little larger would help in the long run to understand better the story. I feel that is important to know what happened, since the game is a bit on the short side. It’s only six stages long (you could say twelve if you play in original mode first and then arrange mode), and with everything happening on screen (bullets flying, explosions, the occasional special attack), it’s hard to pay attention to the the story itself.
In the game´s mechanics, you can see that the developers left no stone untouched to bring a truly astonishing experience,. You have three types of attacks: Bullet, Sword, and Homing. Bullet type is your standard attack used to efficiently sweep to the hordes of small enemies. However, it deals no damage to bigger enemies. The Sword is you melee action (feels like a Gundam). Holding down the button performs a combo attack, which is useful for taking down bigger enemies and can also do a powerful thrust attack (also is worth noting that some enemy bullets can be destroyed with either attack). With the Homing attack, you can lock on into enemies (there is a limit of lock-ons), releasing the attack button has missiles of light that do constant damage to the locked on enemies. There are two ways to lock on, one using the right stick to lock on to as many enemies possible and other creating a lock on zone around your mecha. Any enemy that enters that field gets locked on.
Besides the aforementioned, there are two cool mechanics added: the shield Score and EX Attack, the shield score gives your mecha additional time to regain health, the higher the shield bonus the faster it regens, and the Ex Attack like the name implies is a powerful wide area attack useful for sweeping enemies in one hit. As you attack, the yellow gauge fills out little by little. Once it is full, you can unleash it (the shield bonus plays a role here also because the higher the bonus, the faster the gauge fills). There are also advanced Ex Attack. If you use it in combination with the Homing attack(look the tutorial to learn all techniques), it adds more to your diverse firepower.
Graphically, Astebreed is astounding. Honestly, you will think that this is a AAA game instead of an indie. The mecha are so well detailed that makes me wish there was scale model of it for sale. The explosions, the different areas, and enemies are amazingly done. Their animations are well made and polished. The yellowish glow the Xbreed has when the EX Attack gauge is full looks so cool (like a super saiyan mecha). The music is really awesome. It gives this tThe universe is doomed if I don’t do something” vibe, and I really liked it. Even if it feels a little on the short side, I really liked my time with Astebreed.
Bottom Line: Astebreed is a new breed in the shmup genre. With great graphics and music, overall is a really fun game. However, it suffers due to lack of content. If you are a fan of shmups, this game is right up your alley, or if you are new to the genre and need something that won’t overwhelm, you Astebreed is for you.
A Review code was provided for this review.