Last year developer tinyBuild introduced us to their highly ambitious and extraordinarily good Souls-lite action RPG, Asterigos: Curse of The Stars. With an expansive, labyrinthine world, challenging combat, deep lore, a heavy focus on storytelling and a plethora of bosses (some of whom I didn’t even know existed until I took a gander at the games trophy list), Asterigos was one of my favourite games from last year. So when I heard that the game was receiving a DLC expansion, I was more than eager to dive back into the city of Aphes.
Just on the off chance that you may have missed out on Asterigos (Our review of which you can read here: https://invisioncommunity.co.uk/asterigos-curse-of-the-stars-playstation-review/), the game is set in the fictional city of Aphes. You play as Hilda, the young daughter of the Northwind Legions commander, and a Northwind Legion trainee, who goes in search of her father in the mysterious city of Aphes when no word is heard from the Legion after they’d embarked on a mission to the city. Aphes is under a magical curse that has rendered its inhabitants immortal and for 1000 years they’ve stagnated, trapped in the city with no hope of breaking the curse. Until you come along that is.
Call of The Paragons DLC takes place within the game’s main campaign, with you able to access the content just before you head into the game’s finale. You can access the DLC through the game’s new game plus mode but for my run, I loaded up the save I had just before starting up the game’s final cinematic.
Call of The Paragons DLC takes you deeper into Aphes lore, by tasking you with defeating or replaying certain memories related to the cities ancient heroes. The DLC packages seven new boss fights in a new setting, a new outfit and a weapon modification system for you to gear up with.
Sadly, what it doesn’t do is add a significant story or quest line for you to undertake. Considering the strength of the main campaign’s story and writing, this feels like a missed opportunity. Sure, there’s a fair amount of lore for you to read through about the Paragons you’re about to face and the myths that helped to shape Aphes, but it’s no substitute for an actual quest line.
Another issue this creates is that it doesn’t highlight the DLC as being active, or what you’re supposed to do in-game to find the boss fights. A series of statues that you pray to with no results during the main campaign now transport you to the boss arenas, something I found out quite by accident. With the statues scattered around Aphes, and assuming you don’t remember where they were, you’re either going to have to consult an online guide or start exploring the game’s areas again to find them.
As for the fights themselves, they’re some of the best boss battles in the game. While the bosses themselves are high-powered, hefty health bar fights similar to the main campaign, tinyBuild has incorporated extra mechanics into the fights that help them stand out significantly. Whether you’re fighting a series of soldiers to take down a malfunctioning Colossus, or engaging in a series of tests that soldiers would undergo, such as avoiding bulls, before fighting a Centurion with those training mechanics at play at the same time, Call of The Paragons does a great job of making each fight distinct and challenging. So much so that I wish these mechanics had been employed in the main campaign proper.
How challenging the fights are will depend on how high your character level is. I took them on at level 49 and fairly breezed through most of them, as I had with the main campaign’s final bosses. So if you’re looking for a challenge, you’ll want to tackle them on the New Game + mode. That said, the final fight, which you can only access after defeating the other bosses, really did test me. It also added some small platforming sections that felt out of place for the game.
Each boss defeated opens up a new weapon mod and skin for your weapons. Apart from making the weapons look really snazzy, they add extra effects, usually higher attack power at the cost of, usually, stamina. And the extra Paragon outfit is one of the game’s best and is available as soon as you purchase the DLC.
Call of The Paragon’s biggest problem though is time. Essentially, unless you’re severely underpowered or braving running through Aphes without the use of a guide, Call of The Paragons can be completed in about an hour to an hour and a half.
With some great boss mechanics, Call of The Paragons extends the Asterigos saga just that little bit longer. However, as much as I enjoyed diving back into Asterigos’s world, I’m not sure, outside of the die-hard fans, whether or not it’s worth the nine-pound price of admission for such a short amount of time. If you happen to fall into that die-hard category, you’ll find some new scenarios to love with a final fight that will test your skills.
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