- DEVELOPER: KEIZO
- PUBLISHER: WhisperGames
- PLATFORMS: PC, Nintendo Switch
- GENRE: JRPG
- RELEASE DATE: February 13, 2024
- STARTING PRICE: 9,75€
- REVIEWED VERSION: PC
This isn’t a review of Astlibra Revision, this is a review of the game’s first DLC, the The Cave of Phantom Mist. It is an anime styled JRPG, spectacle fighter and roguelike. You travel into deeper levels of the cave battling increasingly stronger monsters with flashy attacks and magic. Gain resources to increase your attributes, and craft better weapons and armor to traverse even deeper and fight stronger enemies.
The DLC takes place after the events of the main game, which is very heavy on storytelling, so if you think you might be interested in playing Aslibra Revision, I would recommend doing so before watching the story section near the end of this review to avoid any potential spoilers.
Visuals
Astlibra Gaiden Cave of the Phantom Cave is entirely 2D and has anime styling, and almost everything looks to be hand drawn, except some of the background elements look like real pictures thrown in there. From what I can tell, many of the visual elements are from pre-existing assets. The tell tale sign being some awkward edges randomly on walls and the ground where it should continue. This is a small complaint, and minor things like this are to be somewhat expected by solo developers.
Some of the monster designs are fairly creative, like the rock elementals or the devils. At the beginning of the game you’ll fighting slimes, and later you’ll come across some monsters that are direct images of real creatures like these giant turtles that look like real-world snapping turtles. The weapon and armor designs are my favorite part of the visuals. There are some really creative looking weapons, but you don’t actually get to see what your armor looks like on your character, you only see the weapon and shield you’re wielding.
Music & Sound Design
Every area in Astlibra Phantom Cave of The Cave Mist has a unique soundtrack. The village is nice and calm, and then when you enter the caves you get a new song for each stage. My favorite is definitely the rock and roll from the lava area.
Some of the sound effects are good, and others leave a little to be desired. There’s a lot of good audible feedback from using consumables and casting magic to know that your button inputs are received, and all the spells have appropriate and satisfying sound effects. The issue for me lies in the normal weapon attacks. Due to the nature of this being a spectacle fighter, your attacks will hit your enemies multiple times to ramp up the combo meter in the top right of the screen. The sound effect is the same every single time no matter what weapon you wield, and got old pretty quickly for me.
Another minor complaint is whenever your character gets hit by an attack, the sound she makes is almost inappropriate. Like imagine you’re playing this game in your room with no headphones, and your parents walk by your bedroom door and hear the sounds coming from your TV. They’d open the door like “Young man what are you doing in here?”
Gameplay Mechanics
As I mentioned before, Astlibra Revision Gaiden Mist Cave of The Cave Phantom is a roguelike, unlike the linear, story-driven RPG of the original game. You start out as the shy baker’s daughter, and the first time you enter the cave you’re armed with nothing but a broom. To progress in the cave you’ll need to find a lever to open the way to the next level. Some levels will have multiple rooms, and you’ll have to look around in each until you find the switch to open the way. It’s always worth checking these rooms even if you’ve already found the lever, because you may stumble upon a room that will give you resources or treasures. It’s also worth trying to fight monsters to level up, as your level will reset when you leave the dungeon. You can reach a maximum level of 10, and the only difference I really noticed was that you get more health the higher level you are.
In typical RPG fashion, you’ll find and craft better equipment as the game goes on. You have slots for a weapon, shield, armor, and two accessory slots. Some weapons are two handed and won’t allow you to wield a shield. Personally, I used a sword and shield for the entire game. I tried two handed weapons but to me they are too slow and lack the defensive option. While wielding a shield, hold the down button to block damage. While doing this, you can press the attack button to do a dash forward and shield back enemies. While blocking, a small meter will appear, and each attack will deplete this meter, but while it is up you will block incoming damage. Better shields will withstand more damage before fully depleting. Accessories offer passive bonuses like stat increases or damage resistances.
Other than experience, monsters will also drop things called Polin, that takes the form of several different colors. You use this kind of currency to upgrade your attributes in the Grow menu while you’re outside of the dungeon. The upgrades sprawl through a vast upgrade tree, and they require Polin of different colors to unlock. If you don’t have enough of a particular color for an upgrade, you can exchange your largest amount of Polin at a rate of 3 to 1, so you’re not completely locked out of that upgrade you want if you have enough Polin of other colors. Polin is pretty plentiful, as you get it from not only killing monsters, you get it from using magic. Each attack magic has a type of Polin that it will generate upon hitting an enemy.
Speaking of casting magic, you will unlock spells from the aforementioned Grow menu, to deal different kinds of attacks when you generate enough stamina. Stamina is indicated by the filling bar beneath your health bar, and is generated with normal weapon attacks, encouraging the player to stay engaged. You also gain a brief moment of invincibility while casting, you can see a blue overshield effect over your character, that can be used to dodge attacks of every kind, even the ones you normally couldn’t outright dodge. This interesting mechanic really encourages the player to play much more aggressively instead of staying back, taking jabs whenever it’s safe. Your stamina will deplete rapidly if you don’t use it. Magic abilities range from attacks, to defense, to healing, so it’s important to use them before you lose them.
You’ll also gain access to passive abilities such as a double jump, increased ranged damage, increased stamina generation, among many others by mastering weapons and armor. Mastery means you collect enough experience points while wielding a specific piece of equipment and it will grant a new passive ability. You can’t have all of them at once however, there is a resource called Magic Crystals. You equip these abilities and they take a certain number of crystals, and at any time you can unequip them and get your crystals back to equip something else. This adds a whole additional layer of customization for your individual player experience. Magic crystals are very hard to come by, but it is possible to get more. Some are hidden in the village, and others you earn from the lottery machine in the little magical house you’ll occasionally find in the dungeon. This house spawns randomly, and you’ll find lottery tickets in chests, either in the world or ones that spawn from slain monsters. The lottery does hold other prizes than just Magic Crystals, you can even win additional Accessory Slots.
This game also features the ability to enhance the equipment you already have. So if you like a particular setup and haven’t found something to completely outclass it, you can spend resources to theoretically bring this equipment to the end of the game. I imagine that would be pretty hard to do though, you’re more likely to find a better weapon by chance in the dungeon before you gain enough resources to do so.
Other than the intended dungeon for you to adventure in, there is the coliseum to fight optional bosses for rewards. I don’t actually know for sure, but I have a feeling these guys are easter eggs from the original game. I was only asked to play and review the DLC so I can’t tell you for sure, please let me know in the comments if this is the case. When you beat these bosses you get some blue Magic Stones, very different from the green magic crystals. You spend these bad boys for additional bonuses to your attributes. Personally, I dumped almost every single one into my luck stat so I could get better item and gold drops. It worked out pretty well for me. One time I got 3 weapons in the same room of a level, and got a weapon that I used all the way to the end of the game without enhancing it.
Ending thoughts
I’m a pretty big fan of roguelikes, so I had certain expectations when I started this game. Astlibra Mist of the Phantom Gaiden is a really different kind of roguelike, as it leans heavily into story telling, that’s fine and all, but for me the story wasn’t doing too much for me. It spends a lot of time telling it’s tale when I would have preferred to be fighting monsters.
It also is a grind to get through, this isn’t a game where if you’re a good enough player you can run through it on your first try. I’m a big fan of Dead Cells, because in that game your skill and ability is what determines how successful you are and how far you go, you can make it to the end of the game in one run. Sure, you have to pick up a new weapon now and then, but it never halts the flow of the game. Astlibra however, requires you to return to the village and spend resources to upgrade your skills to get stronger. Personally as a player, I get much more satisfaction from seeing myself improve at the game instead of some numbers going up to determine how much health I have and how much damage I can do. At several points in the game you’ll hit a roadblock where your stats are just too low to move forward. You potentially could try, but your health will be low, equipment and shield won’t offer a lot of defense, and weapon won’t deal a lot of damage, so if you play carefully you could whittle away at enemies until you could progress, but that would still be just as time consuming.
Now, is there anything wrong with the game being designed this way? No not at all, it just doesn’t appeal as much to a player like me, but it might for someone else who prefers to see the number get bigger and see the skill tree fill out over time. So that’s what I have to say on that. If this game seems interesting at all to you, I recommend giving it a try. The original was created by one person over the course of fifteen years, and I’m not sure about the DLC, judging by the release date somewhere around 2 years. This is as indie as it gets people.
English (UK) 
Hrvatski