The launch of their Saturn console marks one of Sega’s biggest fumbles of all time. Not only was there very little software available, but arcade ports like Virtua Fighter and Daytona USA were rushed and underwhelming. Worse yet Sega didn’t have a Sonic title for the system during its entire lifespan. Instead they opted to develop several original platformers and side scrollers. One of these such games was Astal, and unfortunately it sold horribly. This is because at the time most developers had moved on to three dimensional graphics, and this was a sprite based side scroller. It wasn’t until only a few years ago that I got the chance to try out Astal, but I found it a little underwhelming to be honest.
This game is a product of the big mascot platformer boom that took the market by force. These armies of cutetsy critters all had one gimmick centered around them, and Astal is no different. What sets this guy apart is his super human strength. Astal can lift and throw objects and some enemies, and this mechanic comes into play on a frequent basis. Additionally this fire haired protagonist can also suck up and blow air at enemies and also has a bird companion that can attack enemies as well as retrieve items. Sega put a fair amount of time into developing this character and his abilities. They had some pretty interesting ideas, and it’s unfortunate that they never had a chance to expand upon them in a sequel.
Astal follows the traditional side scroller formula pretty closely. You walk, run, jump, punch, and throw your way through a series of different levels and your basic goal is just to reach the end of the stage. Enemies populate each level and they come in several different varieties. What’s interesting about this game in particular is that most enemies are airborne, and you must time your jumps and punches to compensate for their attack patterns. Astal features several boss encounters, and these are pretty fun. Bosses are generally huge, and can be tough to tackle. Success is dependent on memorizing their movement patterns and where their attacks land. Visual cues are a big help, and the game is smart about giving you hints in the more difficult encounters.
The game’s biggest problems have to do with its level designs. The stages are extremely simple, and very short. Enemy placement feels random at times, and there are very few times when navigating across pits is challenging at all. The only times I found myself losing a life from falling in this game is when it threw moving platforms at me. To make matters worse every level is really short. I was able to breeze through most of them in less than two minutes, and that’s just not up to snuff for a 32-bit game in my opinion. The level design just plain lacks polish, and with Sega’s high software standards (at the time) I’m surprised Astal wasn’t delayed and worked on more. It definitely could have benefited from a longer development cycle.
With all of that negativity out of the way it’s time to talk about Astal’s graphics. This is an absolutely beautiful game, and it has aged exceptionally well because of its sprite based engine. Astal is extremely colorful with vibrant backgrounds that are highly detailed and very pleasant. Many of these are animated, and most feature some very impressive parallax scrolling. Scenery scrolling in the foreground is still impressive to this day. There are a few issues, but none of them are major problems. The enemy designs feel very phoned in with generic monsters and animals that are very dull in appearance.
Additionally the framerate is naturally low. The game moves very slowly which is a little jarring in comparison to Sonic the Hedgehog and even Mario to be honest. It’s like someone hit the slow motion button. Astal and the enemies could have easily used double the frames of animation and the game would be all the much better for it. I also don’t like how close the camera zooms on the action; the fact that you can’t see far in front of you makes gameplay slightly awkward especially during platforming sequences. These are only minor problems, and Astal as a whole is an absolutely beautiful game.
The soundtrack is a mixed bag. A lot of music hits its mark and adds to the anime atmosphere of this game, but a lot of it is really cheesy. Some of the stage themes are a mix of jazz and synth which makes the game feel aged in my opinion. What’s disappointing is the fact that the Japanese pop intro music is altered in the US release with the vocals being completely removed. I understand that it might be a little confusing for gamers back then if the lyrics weren’t in English, but it’s really unfortunate they had to be completely removed.
What makes this especially weird is the fact that some of Astal’s dialogue samples were re-recorded, and others weren’t. This means Astal speaks both English and Japanese. Story sequences have a few voiced lines in English, but his victory phrase at the end of a stage and a few others are in Japanese. This seems really lazy in my opinion. Why not go entirely one way or the other? It would have been better if the whole thing was left in its original language but subtitled. The rest of the voiced dialogue is super cheesy, and I’m not a big fan. It can be pretty jarring but at least Sega managed to choose a voice actor for Astal that matches the Japanese talent.
Sega really needed a high quality mascot based platformer to headline their system, and unfortunately those shoes are too big for Astal to fill. It’s a decent game that’s still fun to play, but in a time when Nintendo had just recently released Yoshi’s Island on earlier generation hardware it’s not hard to see why this was swept under the rug. Astal just doesn’t have that classic Sega charm, and it’s far too short and suffers from boring designs. It’s still a fun game that I have enjoyed moderately, but it’s far from classic.
