PSP - Astonishia Story

Format
PSP
Publisher
Ubisoft
Developer
Sonnori
Country of origin
Korea
Release date
2006
Genre
RPG

Astonishia Story

By David Rasmussen
23rd Dec 06

Is it me or does the PSP seem to crank out more than it’s share of beginner friendly games?
A so called game that is supposed to appeal to many, the game in fact does anything but as it’s simplistic gameplay, unappealing storyline and lacking characters may only find synch with newbie players and not much else. Anyway any game that spells out it’s wide appeal on the opening “page” as you first put the UMD into the PSP and it comes up for selection is just screaming about it’s insecurities.

And insecure it is as it’s opening Anime style sequence has absolutely nothing to do with the game itself, a game with a simple turn based combat, not too inspired story and… oh, and a illregular on again and off again mean streak against the video gaming industry and RPG games.

A humor that either says the game creators have a bug up their rears against the video game industry, or just a poor sense of overall humor, at times you’ll find yourself confronted with a lot of weird video game related humor here and there (just not consistently as you’ll have to go through town after town carefully just to find each “humor” as it won’t always come to you).
Amongst the humor…

- A guy hanging out in your hometown who claimed to have come looking for a good game to buy (Valkryie Profile : Lenneth maybe) only to find them all sold out… isn’t that always the case!
- The mysterious short lived character “Mr. Password” who appears maybe twice (I haven’t finished the game yet) and is annoying. The second time he appears as a disembodied “chia pet” head who demands to be fed money… weirdo.
- NPC characters sometimes complain that they’ve given you their memorized lines and have nothing else to tell you or something to that regard.

Basically it’s inconceived lowbrow humor that does nothing for the storyline, and oh what a storyline.
You are charged with protecting this important religious artifact but it is stolen within the first hour of the game (and all your comrades who were protecting it were slain except for you). From there you quest to find it… only to be completely diverted from said quest as you pick up allies and then a new quest to find different artifacts and do other things… which sucks because the farther you go into the game the more you lose direction in the game, and the more you gain characters you couldn’t care less about.
You do have a female who enters a few hours in who might be a love interest, but that doesn’t seem to really go much of anywhere. Add to that another romance between a Shaolin Monk type character and a former enemy female (a subuccus type female with batwings) that also doesn’t really develop and this elfgirl who drops in halfway in who seems to just add an archer character but little depth to the team-up in terms of story and we have lots of nothing here. I wish the group was better developed, and the story that came from it was… well… intersting. That and I wish I actually cared about my characters I’m controlling but that too I don’t care about because they’re not worth caring about either. What a downer.

As for the story elements you better search towns hard, and fight as many monsters as possible because you’ll find that the game constantly seals off areas behind you as you progress, shutting off story elements and the ability to get items/equipment as you pass beyond certain parts of the story. This makes backtracking impossible as the story refuses to let you backtrack, meaning you have to work above and beyond in order to scratch up the money in order to buy your stuff from town to town. Also certain elements of the story are only briefly available (do the wrong thing and that availability will pass quickly).
That sucks as the game seems in a bit of a hurry to push you through this underwhelming game, and has no desire to give you any freeroaming ability as you must follow it’s pace and not backtrack once.

Finally the combat. While it is different, using the game mechanics of Arc the Lad : Twilight of the Spirits turn based system (in a style) over such mechanics used in other RPGs like the Champion of Norrath style or the Final Fantasy turn based style, which is nice, it is also incredibly easy. So easy, the game as a whole, in fact that this game doesn’t even bother to give you a tutorial as it figures you’ll have no need for it since the game mechanics is so easy (all relying on a simple one button push system). This is nice if you are a newbie to the RPG thing, ala with the game mechanics for Legend of Heroes II, but if you are a die hard long term gamer looking for a good game then… well… this ain’t for you.

Not even the game’s graphic engine is a saving grace, as for a game that is the best handheld system out there right now it’s as if Astonishia Story was an illegitimate child of the SuperNES! The graphics is way below what you should be seeing on a PSP game, and add to that the rest of the flaws this game has and you can do better… but, well, now that you can find it on the bargain bin for $10 (how I found it) you’ll be paying for this game what it’s worth… $10 or so. Never pay full price for this game.
Breakdown time now.

Astonishia Story Breakdown
This is quick, so let’s not linger on this for long. There is a lot about this game that lacks, and the only way I can recommend this simple easy player game is if you can find it for $10 or less in a bargain bin.
And that is all I need to say about this game. Don’t lose hope, though! Find Valkryie Profile : Lenneth (because all the Final Fantasy games went on the Nintendo DS this year!) because there is none better for your christmas tree than this one and only PSP RPG in 2006 from the fine people over at SquareEnix. (Next on my list is Dungeon Siege : Throne of Agony also for the PSP). Nuff said.

-- David Rasmussen 23rd Dec 06

PSP Astonishia Story Images