Astalon: Tears Of The Earth

I went in expecting another nostalgic 8-bit checkbox exercise and came out somewhere around twenty hours later having played one of the most thoughtfully constructed Metroidvanias in years. What LABS Works built here is a rogue-lite Metroidvania wrapped around a three-character party system, and the way those two ideas interlock is what sets it apart from the crowded field it sits in. The tower at the center of the game - the Tower of Serpents - is a large, interconnected maze stuffed with secrets. You control Arias the sword-fighter, Kyuli the rogue with a bow and a wall-jump, and Algus the mage whose spells can pass through walls and trigger distant switches. None of them can do everything alone, which is the whole point. Early on, swapping between them requires finding a campfire; later you unlock the ability to cycle through the party on the fly. Each character plays genuinely differently, and figuring out which one to bring into a section - and managing a single shared health pool across all three - creates a low-key tactical layer that most action platformers simply do not have. When you die, which you will, you end up before Epimetheus, the Titan of Death whose soul-pact with Algus is the narrative engine of the whole thing. Here you spend collected orbs on stat upgrades, passive abilities, and character-specific skills. Death never resets your knowledge of the tower, and the permanent upgrades mean each run pushes further. It is a clean loop. The secrets are where this game really earns its reputation. Exploration rewards genuine curiosity - hidden rooms sit behind suspicious textures, puzzles gate optional upgrades, and the map holds optional areas that a first-time player will almost certainly miss. There is a Boss Rush mode, a Black Knight mode letting you play as the game's antagonist, and even a Monster Mode where you take on the role of a tower gargoyle. That is a lot of replay-incentive for an indie priced below most AAA launch-day DLC packs. Where it stumbles is worth being honest about. Backtracking is endemic. Because only one character can be active at a time and you can only swap at campfires early on, you will frequently reach a wall jump or a barrier-slashing puzzle, realize you have the wrong character, and trudge back to the last campfire. The map can also be genuinely cryptic about what you have already cleared versus what you have merely passed through. Some players will find the old-school opacity charming; others will hit the back third of the game and start feeling the friction. Enemy collision detection has some rough edges too, with occasional moments where foes connect from spots that feel unfair. None of these issues are dealbreakers, but patience for old-school vagueness is a real prerequisite. The pixel art leans into an authentic NES palette - you can toggle between visual filters to dial the fuzziness up or down - and the chiptune soundtrack is strong enough that it does not wear thin even after repeated deaths in the same room. PC Gamer named it the best Metroidvania of 2021, and that assessment holds up. If you have any tolerance for the genre and enjoy games that reward time spent reading the environment rather than following a waypoint, this one is built for you. Alex, Scout Team