To be perfectly honest, I’m not a big fan of the “Metroidvania” genre. I’ve reviewed plenty of these games during my time with Try Hard Guides, and they can certainly be exciting, interesting games deserving of their audience. However, I feel as though many miss the mark. Often, the best Metroidvania titles use familiar-to-a-fault, untouched gameplay mechanics as a delivery device for interesting stories and phenomenal art styles, and if you want me to indulge in your title, it usually has to deliver on both. In my opinion, Awaken: Astral Blade does neither.

Awaken: Astral Blade tells the story of Tania, a cyborg weapon developed by her “father” and sent to investigate a missing research team on the Horace Islands, an archipelago corrupted by a strange energy that’s turning the local fauna into mutated monsters. As Tania fights her way across the islands, she gradually uncovers the history of the land and grapples with her identity, wondering just how human she deserves to be.

The story is nothing special, held back by several major issues, the main one being a lack of interest in telling its own story.

I struggle to recount the exact plot. The writing is kind of all over the place, doing a pretty bad job of introducing the setting and characters, and has a bizarre sense of pacing. The most interesting aspect is Tania’s struggle with her identity—a pretty generic, albeit engaging, aspect of cyborg-character storytelling. However, the game fails to commit the time or attention needed to really expand on the subject in a satisfying way, kind of just scratching the surface before quickly moving on. It leaves you feeling like your plate was prematurely taken away at a restaurant after a substantial wait.

On top of this, I really can’t recommend playing with the English dub enabled. The voice performance can be pretty stilted and lifeless, overall diminishing what little interest I had in the story. It didn’t take long for me to lose interest altogether, and while switching back to the Chinese dub helped, the text still felt a little awkward, leaving me pretty uninvested.

If anything might save your interest, it would be the combat, which admittedly isn’t even that exciting on its own. It’s mechanically simple, with a handful of special moves activated by pressing a key at the end of a combo string and different weapons serving to change things up a bit. While not super exciting to play, per se, it is always satisfying to see the skills pulled off, as they’re highly animated and punchy in a way that can make up for their repetitiveness.

A repetition that is less forgivable is the game’s frequent reuse of its enemies, leading to combat that can quickly feel the same. It’s a little shocking that the game doesn’t feature a wider variety, as the foes themselves are nothing special to look at, generally having uninteresting designs and being so lightly animated that I was reminded of puppet-style animation from old Flash cartoons.

The boss fights do mix up the formula a bit, especially those with multiple phases. I found that while they weren’t incredibly difficult, they had enough complexity that it might take a try or two to learn their attack patterns. After that, you should be able to clear them without breaking too much of a sweat. While I’m all about boss fights, Awaken: Astral Blade hardly has the most cinematic fights, so I don’t mind them being pretty short and sweet once you get the moves down.

I generally dislike backtracking in Metroidvanias, but even I would say the pathing in Awaken: Astral Blade feels a little simple, rarely requiring you to deviate too far from a straightforward path or really think about where you’re going.

If platforming is your thing, I don’t think this game will scratch that itch, either. Generally speaking, the platforming felt basic to a fault, with obstacles that felt more like distractions than, well, obstacles. The game isn’t inventive in its platforming; however, the occasional puzzle does present itself and requires a little thought.

My final criticism is a subjective one. I mentioned above that it takes a good story and great art to get me interested in a Metroidvania title. As we already know, Awaken: Astral Blade doesn’t have an exciting or engaging story, and I also found the art severely lacking.

Something about it just feels lifeless. The character designs feel generic, and overall, the game lacks a unique stylization or oomph factor to separate it from many other Eastern Metroidvania titles. Tania herself manages to look like a distinctly different character, depending on whether you’re looking at her model, her portrait, or the game’s store page art. Overall, the game’s art lacks originality, style, or anything that really caught my eye.

A subjective point, once again, and I’m sure someone out there would disagree, but personally, I just couldn’t get into it.

Try Hard Guides received a PC review code for this game. Find more detailed looks at popular and upcoming titles on our Game Reviews page! Awaken: Astral Blade is available on Steam and PlayStation.