Astyanax is a side scrolling game set in the land of Remilia. It is a very Japanese oriented game with its use of anime cutscenes, character designs and use of music.
What is a unique little feature in this game is that you have a charge meter for your weapon. If you hold down the button to attack you do more damage as opposed to the weak shit that your character does when you swing fast.
As far as story goes, what I was able to gather was that voices came from the dark and your character, Astyanax, was sent to stop the evil of something. Along your quest you meet fairies who give you more power/spells and shit, so upgrades are always good.
Visuals:
The graphics in this game aren’t so bad with some pretty detailed sprites and worlds, but beyond that, everything is pretty damn bland. The enemies seem uninspired [some are just floating blobs] and their animations are tiring. It loses its appeal really fucking fast.
Audio:
As stated in the Overview, the music in this game is a very Japanese/anime sounding compilation and, depending if you like that stuff, has its ups and downs. Personally I did not care for it nor did I really care for the sound effects. They were murder on the ears and I was more than happy to end this game upon my rapid deaths.
Completion:
First things first: This game has fucking RESPAWNING ENEMIES. That’s one of the goddamned things I hate the most is when you think you killed something, only to jump, get killed by the thing you previously killed. BAH.
Anyways, on my first life I managed to get killed by my peeve when an enemy I previously bested decided it would be OK to respawn and fly in to me thus knocking me into a chasm. I had barely even gotten a feel for the controls of this game when this shit happened.
Death 2 happened at the boss who was in the shape of a pig-dragon thing who was being piloted by a knight on his back. It was here where peeve number two reared its head by Astyanax restarted you at the beginning of the fucking level.
Death 3 was the same as the second one. End of fucking story.