Astral Takers - PS5 Review

Astral Takers by developer Vanguard and publisher Kemco—PS5 review written by Richard with a copy provided by the publisher.

 
Estimated reading time: 10 minutes

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Hello and welcome! Today we’ve got another Kemco/Vanguard title for you: Astral Takers! You up for some old-school RPG action? Ready to explore a world fraught with peril and interpersonal challenges? Well, look no further than Astral Takers! 

If the title Astral Takers seems somewhat familiar to you, you may be thinking of a title I reviewed a while back called Dragon Takers. Yes, the games are related, no I won’t say how because of spoilers, but I would suggest playing Dragon Takers first if you care about potential plot spoilers, and if you care about that sort of thing. Astral Takers can still be played as a standalone however, so no worries if you aren’t picking up Dragon Takers.

In Astral Takers we follow the adventures of Revyse, Fio, and Aurora, a trio that developed when Revyse discovered Aurora who had lost her memories and Fio decides to help out. Plots will be uncovered, villains will be defeated, and the secrets hidden behind Aurora’s identity shall be revealed! You will visit many locations in a linear progression through the world while fighting random enemy encounters and tough boss battles (maybe).

I will tell you right now that Astral Takers is very generic and very cliché. Is that a bad thing? Well, no, not really, but it doesn’t really set itself apart in any way that matters either. This also extends to adventure and combat, not just the storyline. Towns you visit are fairly generic, and you can expect the standard fantasy RPG tropes to come alive. Like I said, not exactly a bad thing, but certainly doesn’t stand out from the crowd.

Combat will occur either when scripted for boss fights or as random encounters when you’re on the world map or in a dungeon. Upon getting into a fight, we start up the old turn-based RPG gameplay. A little bit off from the common style, in Astral Takers you determine all your actions at the start of combat and then characters take action, rather than only when their turn comes up. Higher speed stats mean your turn will be sooner in the turn order.

Taking from Dragon Takers, enemies will have elemental and type weaknesses to exploit, which you can take a peek at in the turn order, and enemies of a single type get grouped. Grouped enemies cannot be targeted individually, but can be hit with attacks that hit a group of enemies or when performing a single target action on a group enemy will be decided in the group for you. It’s a little annoying when you want to focus down a single enemy in a group but the game has your damage split between the enemies.

Unlike Dragon Takers, there isn’t an interesting skill assimilation mechanic, so everything you get is based on your own progression, whether it’s from leveling when you get enough exp or from plot progression. Thankfully the game is pretty easy to farm exp in, as you can hang around a heal point, which are plentiful, and wander back and forth for a bit. With an auto battle function that’s usually good at “nuke the enemies ASAP”, you can build up levels fast if you are having a tough time.

One of the interesting background lore pieces is that Revyse is a summoner. Whenever he finds an echostone, he can bring it to a summoning circle to summon a heroic figure, thus expanding your party roster. While you still need to equip your extended party, they can be swapped in and out pretty much at will, allowing you to get the most out of their skills. Have an enemy that’s immune to magic attacks? Swap your mage out for a physical damage unit. Enemies dodge magic? Get more melee units. Pretty handy really. Worst case you can use some of their skills outside of battle to return to a dungeon entrance or to heal party members.

There is, unfortunately, a decently big complaint. This is the same complaint I had with Dragon Takers and has not been improved in Astral Takers, but the menuing system is arse.  Navigating menus is somewhat unintuitive, equipping gear when you aren’t buying direct from a shop is a nuisance, the gear in your inventory is automatically sorted by type not by recently acquired so you could lose stuff you’ve picked up in your infinite pockets, and good lord is the border around your selection incredibly tough to see. While certainly not game breaking to any degree, it is incredibly frustrating.

As for the graphics and soundtrack, I have to say they’re pretty good. The soundtrack is pretty much what was heard from Dragon Takers, so if you’ve played that be prepared. Also the enemy sprites will actually move in combat and ally characters during cutscenes will move a bit and express themselves. It isn’t anything next gen, but it is pretty decent. I mean, it is a phone game port, so you can’t really expect too much, although there are a few improvements that would be nice to see.

On a plus side, Astral Takers is very lenient about allowing you to save. Pretty much as long as you aren’t in combat or a cutscene you can save wherever you want. It’s really handy if you don’t particularly have the time to commit to an extended period of playing. The game also autosaves a lot so losing a lot of progress is basically a non issue, which is also really nice. Couple that with being able to swap out party members really easily and there are a lot of nice aspects to Astral Takers.

Overall Astral Takers is a pretty generic RPG but certainly not a bad one. While the storyline may be a little generic and the gameplay rather traditional, there’s something to be said for that nostalgic feeling it brings to mind. While Astral Takers may not be for everybody, and won’t really offer anything new to the genre, it has a solid base that makes it pretty entertaining.

Score: 7 / 10