Astonishia Story (PlayStation Portable, 2006)

Astonishia is not an entirely bad game just not a very good one. You begin the story as Lloyd, a knight from the Palmira state, who is assigned along with his commander Lance to deliver the Staff of Cainan back to the royal family. The platoon is later ambushed by Francis, a knight from Ferarin, who wipes out everyone in Lance's platoon exept for Lloyd and makes off with the staff. The Griffon seal on Francis' cape is the only clue Lloyd has as to how to find him and when Lloyd finally awakes he sets off on a journey to recover the staff.
The game lasts only about 20 hours and makes almost no sense because when it was translated from Korean to English most of the text was mistranslated. So now you are pretty much lost in a game that has a weird story that makes no sense. The game is also rushed and you can miss out on certain events because you are not able to go back to places that you might have visited before. Combine that with the mistranslation of the game and you will find yourself lost in what to do next.
Astonishia also uses a turned-based battle system that many will grow tired of quickly. The battle system is messed up because at the end of each battle bonus points are rewarded to whichever character did the most damage. This means that stronger characters will level up quicker and that the weaker ones will remain weak.
All of this combined with the weird story makes Astonishia a game to avoid. I can only recommend this game to those who are really desperate for an RPG for their PSP;otherwise, don't set your sights this low and go for something better like the Legend of Heroes series.

great game loads resonably fast. If you have version 1.5 PSP it only takes 200 MB to back it up. Backing up the game to memory card will make it load alot faster. Gameplay is very similar to Final Fantasy series. many characters join your party through out the game. It maybe required to keep notes as there is no journal in the game and you may forget what a character tells you or where you have to go. The game will not allow you to go back through a cave you came from if your mission means for you to go else where so it helps you stay on track if you do forget your mission. all and all its a great game that takes a good amount of time to complete.

If you love old school games like Chrono Trigger, combined with the a well balanced storyline, then Astonishia Story is worth considering picking up. I just got the game today myself but from the game play and style, I really enjoy it. So many games throw as many complicated CGI graphics at you or special effects to attract you to the game and fall short when it comes to actual gameplay. This game keeps it simple but doesn't fall short of it's mark. Sometimes simple is better when it comes to a 2D environment RPG platform game. My only complaint is that the game itself isn't overly long, but a lot of RPG games aren't. The character classes were nice but simple, but the attacks were nicely done. Monsters aren't very challenging but the bosses could get very hard to beat at times. Hope this review helps, and enjoy.

i thought it was a game for adults, but it turned out to be a game more for a kid.... other than that... the point of purchase and recieving the game happened very quickly... would buy from them again.... but would like more detailed description of the games...

I thought the game was fun...it was similar to and reminded me of an updated version of the old Zelda I used to play on Nintendo--with much better graphics, of course. It is a nice adventure and not extremely complex like some of the role playing games can be.