Awaken Astral Blade Review (PlayStation 5)

by Jim Smale · Published October 28, 2024 · Updated October 25, 2024

Awaken Astral Blade Review, Weave your own story in this dark fairy tale. In the mysterious ancient ruins, you will adventure with Tania to reveal her origins and fate. Is there any chance of survival in the darkest and most desperate place? Slain your foes with a wide range of combos: from fastest to slowest. Parry enemy attacks to gain an advantage, use Quick Rise ability to get back into the fight and dash into enemies while they’re attacking to slow the world around you and gain damage immunity. Combos and Skills will also help you to break through hordes of enemies and defeat bosses.

Awaken Astral Blade Review Pros:

Decent graphics.
6.84GB download size.
Platinum trophy.
Can remap the controls.
Metroidvania platformer gameplay.
3 save slots.
Three game difficulties – story, normal, and hardcore.
Strong voice work.
Exclusive Playstation outfit.
In-game cutscenes and interactions.
You can fast-forward and skip interactions.
Tutorial pop-ups as you play.
Healthbar system and you eat fruit and food to replenish.
2D game world with 3D animated backgrounds.
End of combat breakdown with a rank etc.
Full combo system complete with special abilities and finishers.
Typical familiar hack-and-slash combat.
Air combos and dashing is possible not just for fighting but for navigating the world aswel.
The map uncovers as you explore and fills in with points of interest.
Rest areas can be found and used to save, replenish health, and spend upgrade points. When hitting the rest area you get a full completion counter breakdown.
Two skill trees to unlock new abilities and upgrades – combat, and passive trees.
Find and equip new gear to add buffs or abilities to your character.
You can see enemy health bars.
Aether is the currency that is in the world, drops from enemies, and is used in the skill tree.
Boss and mini-boss encounters.
The world is vast and has many secrets and alternate routes through the world.
Beat bosses to unlock new abilities.
You can place your own map markers on the mini-map.
Basic camera control to look around and below you.
It is very satisfying when you nail these cool combos as they look fantastic.
Red Aether plants allow you to quickly cut them up and get Aether, it shows your DPS but they are timed.
Puzzle elements are sprinkled across the game world.
Unlock shortcuts in the map.
Fortify Essence is a rare pickup that lets you choose whether you want more health recovery or more health option uses.
Find and read lore/diary entries.
Enemies will respawn back over time so you can Farm Aether and level up.
Brutal yet satisfying finishing moves and more powerful and glamorous ultimate moves.
A beautiful-looking world.

Awaken Astral Blade Review Cons:

Hardcore difficulty has to be unlocked after playing through on normal.
No real game settings.
The game doesn’t offer any accessibility options.
Transitions between screens are immediate and sudden, you notice as they love to put Aether right by the transition and you will nearly always miss them.
Tutorials are not that in-depth and don’t give you all the information.
It takes a while for the game to get up to speed.
Early on you miss a lot of stuff as you struggle to learn what is a platform and what is a scenic piece.
Voice work frequency soon disappears and is only at key points in the story.
Boss fights can feel cheap at times.
The menus are a tad fiddly especially when in a rush.
Combat can get very reflex-heavy.