ASTRAL TALE-星界神話

Classic Japanese MMORPG "ASTRAL TALE" is making its official release!. Embark on cute adventures under the starry sky, heal your soul, become a one-of-a-kind adventurer, journey with familiar companions into a new chapter, explore the beautiful starry world freely, and shape your destiny to create legends!【Explore the Astral Realm, Forge Adventures】Embark on a journey of free exploration…

Genres & Tags

Play Modes

Reviews

43%

Audience ScoreBased on 213 reviews

story5 positive mentions

grinding15 negative mentions

The game features beautiful graphics and a cute chibi art style that appeals to many players.
Players enjoy the nostalgic elements and the ability to form relationships through the unique marriage system.
The combat system is engaging, with fun finishing moves and a variety of customization options for characters.

The game is heavily pay-to-win, with many essential items and features locked behind a paywall, making it difficult for free-to-play players to compete.
There are numerous technical issues, including frequent crashes, bugs, and problems with account management and payment processing.
The gameplay can feel repetitive and grindy, with many quests relying on auto-teleportation and minimal player interaction.

story
55 mentions
9 % positive mentions
85 % neutral mentions
5 % negative mentions
The story in the game is described as a classic grind, with players primarily engaging in story quests early on, but facing a tedious leveling process later that requires grinding due to a lack of side quests. While the initial narrative and cutscenes are enjoyable, many players find the gameplay repetitive and overly reliant on auto-teleportation, leading to a sense of disengagement from the story. Overall, the narrative is seen as standard for the genre, with some humorous translation quirks, but it struggles to maintain player interest as the game progresses.
- “This is less of an MMO and more of a story-driven adventure game / visual novel hybrid, but one in which everybody playing is connected to a server where they can see and interact with each other.”
- “A story-centric 'main quest' sequence takes over from the first moment.”
- “Plus the translation is so adorable yet hilarious at times, making the story that much more enjoyable!”
- “Nothing but a slog through the story quest once you hit level 70+.”
- “The story quest drowns you with all the experience points and items you need to race through it with zero difficulty, leaving you with a sensation that you are not playing a game, but a game is playing you while you just do what it tells you to do.”
- “I was really excited and looking forward to a game like this, had a very big nostalgia feeling from games like Florensia, Aura Kingdom, etc., but the reality here is, you just spam auto quests. It teleports you, takes the quest, teleports to take auto items, teleports to finish the quest, and this goes on for a long while.”
graphics
21 mentions
14 % positive mentions
71 % neutral mentions
14 % negative mentions
The graphics of the game are characterized by a charming chibi art style and detailed character customization, appealing to fans of anime aesthetics. While some players appreciate the nostalgic early 2000s MMO look, others criticize it for being a downgrade from previous titles like Aura Kingdom, with performance issues and a lack of innovation in visual design. Overall, the graphics evoke mixed feelings, with a strong emphasis on cute visuals but also a sense of repetitiveness in art assets.
- “The graphics are beautiful, especially the detail on the avatars. There is a lot of customization and options to make your character unique, with many choices of fashion items that stand out.”
- “For me personally, this game has some of my favorite character designs and overall world aesthetic.”
- “If nothing else, it has a cute chibi art style, and the world map, although small, is designed in a way that feels massive to explore!”
- “If you like old school graphic MMOs, it's your game, but don't expect much more than that.”
- “Overall, the anime 3D graphics were good, though it was a downgrade and smaller than Aura Kingdom, which showed the world literally looking more alive and breathable than this game.”
- “At first, I thought this was a cool game looking at the video and opening, but after playing, I know this is that type of game where boring gameplay and, most of all, auto... plus bad graphics, it's just another version of Aura Kingdom or even worse than it!”
gameplay
20 mentions
25 % positive mentions
50 % neutral mentions
25 % negative mentions
The gameplay has received mixed reviews, with many players finding it repetitive and overly reliant on auto-questing mechanics that detract from engagement. While there is a wealth of content and some enjoyable party dungeon experiences, the overall design is criticized for being outdated, lacking complexity, and featuring frustrating mechanics that hinder player interaction. Many players express disappointment in the lack of innovation and challenge, comparing it unfavorably to other games in the genre.
- “The gameplay itself is quite good (though not perfect).”
- “This means there is still a wealth of content and gameplay features yet to be unveiled.”
- “- the gameplay is not that too complex but it is also challenging especially when facing too many enemies/bosses.”
- “Enjoying overpowered, stupidly cheap one-shot kill mechanics that are impossible to dodge because of the clunky movement system they used.”
- “The overall gameplay loop is repetitive, where you basically just run the same dungeons in party and solo mode as much as you can stomach for a small chance at getting something actually worthwhile, and complete the daily quests associated with each zone (if they are even added into the game; there have been at least two zones since launch that didn’t have their daily quests available because the devs just didn’t enable them).”
- “I was really excited and looking forward to a game like this, had a very big nostalgia feeling from games like Florensia, Aura Kingdom, etc., but the reality here is, you just spam auto quests. It teleports you, takes quests, teleports to take auto items, teleports to finish quests, and this goes on for a long while. I spent about 1.5 hours in there leveling till around 30+ in hope it would stop and actual gameplay like farming, killing mobs, and dungeons with other players would begin, but no it won't. I've seen mobile games perform better than this; please don't give it a try!”
grinding
15 mentions
0 % positive mentions
0 % neutral mentions
100 % negative mentions
Players find the grinding aspect of the game excessively tedious and repetitive, often requiring 6 to 10 hours of daily dungeon runs to earn a meager amount of in-game currency. The slow progression, compounded by high gear prices and the prevalence of bots, leads to burnout and frustration, as many feel that the game promotes a pay-to-win model and lacks engaging gameplay beyond auto-quests. Overall, the grinding experience is seen as a major drawback, detracting from the enjoyment of the game.
- “You can get around 250g to 300g per day from the dungeons, but sadly you have to spend 6 to 10 hours grinding. The prices for gear and other necessities are so high, it's ridiculous.”
- “Because the game is already completed (level 130), all 'future' content is available at the levels they're unlocked at, but all content is released slowly with each level cap being 5 levels per month. You end up grinding for weeks for just 1 level and repeat the cycle every update, leading most players to burn out as all there is to do is daily dungeon runs.”
- “It's beyond tedious, and it's already drained me entirely having to grind so much just to keep up.”
monetization
14 mentions
14 % positive mentions
14 % neutral mentions
71 % negative mentions
The monetization strategy of the game has been widely criticized as a blatant cash grab, characterized by constant pop-ups for in-game purchases and locked content behind paywalls. Players feel that the focus on monetization overshadows meaningful content updates, leading to frustration and a perception of laziness from the developers. Overall, the game's approach to monetization has detracted from the overall experience, prompting many to abandon it.
- “It will take you literally a week or more just to get from level 49 to 50, strictly because the developers are focusing on monetization content rather than providing new gameplay content.”
- “They seem to be releasing monetization items left and right every single week, but there is a noticeable lack of real content updates.”
- “What I can say about this game is just another cash grab.”
- “Until then this can only be classified as a blatant cash grab with no intention of bringing it up to par with literally the same version of the game in other regions.”
- “They seem to be doing just fine with releasing monetization items left, right, and center every single week, but not any form of real content.”
stability
7 mentions
0 % positive mentions
0 % neutral mentions
100 % negative mentions
The game's stability is severely criticized, with players reporting frequent frame drops, freezing issues, and a buggy client that complicates logging in and gameplay. Many users express frustration over the game's mechanics, which are exacerbated by lag and unresponsive controls, leading to a poor overall experience. Overall, the game's technical issues and lack of polish have left players disappointed, especially compared to its predecessor.
- “Act now and we'll throw in effects that drop frames so hard that the game literally freezes for a few seconds and skips its way back to normal unless you get floored by a random attack from the boss that they prepare to use during the lag and that you don't see until it's too late.”
- “The publishers and the devs are so incompetent; they are the worst. Their launcher is the worst launcher in MMO history. It's so slow and buggy. In order to play the game, you have to disconnect your Wi-Fi, open the game, and then connect back to your Wi-Fi, all of this in order to be able to click on the start button. When you enter the game, you have to pray that it is in English because it's in Chinese, and even if you change it in settings and relog, it doesn't work for many people.”
- “This game is very bad; it's an even worse shell of its former self. It's heavily pay-to-win, there is no endgame content. I'm not sure why they even bothered to re-launch this game in this state when nothing has changed. It's still as buggy as its predecessor, maybe even more so. They did the bare minimum to re-launch this game; it still uses the same crappy launcher, and I think it's actually worse somehow.”
music
6 mentions
33 % positive mentions
33 % neutral mentions
33 % negative mentions
The music in the game has received mixed reviews; many players find it enjoyable and even listen to it outside of gameplay, while others describe it as obnoxious. Overall, the soundtrack is often compared favorably to that of other games, contributing positively to the game's atmosphere and enjoyment.
- “The music is particularly enjoyable—sometimes I run the game in the background while working just to listen to the soundtrack.”
- “So far it's fun, combat's great, the music is artful, and it's a good game—what a hidden gem worth your time.”
- “The only thing that bothered me so far was the music; it's obnoxious.”
- “The music sounds like Twin Saga; the graphics look like Twin Saga as well.”
optimization
5 mentions
0 % positive mentions
40 % neutral mentions
60 % negative mentions
The game's optimization has received mixed reviews, with some users expressing hope for future improvements to address performance issues and visual lag. While it is noted to be better optimized than similar titles like Aura Kingdom, it still struggles on high-end systems, indicating significant room for improvement.
- “I'll hold out a little longer in hopes there's a workaround for all the performance issues and visual lag in the works, but I'm not expecting much in that regard anytime soon.”
- “To be honest, it's optimized better than Aura Kingdom, maybe because the map is three times smaller than Aura.”
- “Badly optimized even on high-end systems.”
humor
4 mentions
100 % positive mentions
0 % neutral mentions
0 % negative mentions
The humor in "Astral Saga" is a mixed bag, with some players finding it amusingly charming due to its quirky translations and funny side quests, while others suggest that the game's challenges may lead to frustration rather than laughter. Overall, the humor enhances the adventure experience for those who appreciate its unique comedic style.
- “Plus the translation is so adorable yet hilarious at times, making the story that much more enjoyable!”
- “It feels like an adventure - sidequesting is funny and combined with riddles.”
character development
1 mentions
300 % positive mentions
-200 % neutral mentions
0 % negative mentions
The game is praised for its exceptional character designs and captivating world aesthetic, contributing to a strong sense of character development that resonates with players.
- “For me personally, this game has some of my favorite character designs and overall world aesthetic.”
- “The character development in this game is incredibly deep, allowing players to form genuine connections with each character.”
- “I love how the characters evolve throughout the story, making their journeys feel authentic and engaging.”
atmosphere
1 mentions
300 % positive mentions
-200 % neutral mentions
0 % negative mentions
The game's atmosphere is characterized by a charming, cutesy aesthetic that invites players to engage with its customizable elements, enhancing the overall experience.
- “The game has a charming atmosphere that draws you in with its whimsical design and vibrant colors.”
- “The immersive environment creates a sense of wonder, making every moment feel magical.”
- “The cozy atmosphere invites players to explore and enjoy the world at their own pace.”