There are plenty of franchises that, despite their success and popularity, don’t continue to produce new games. The reasons are too many to name and aren’t always made available to the public. The one positive is the spiritual successor, where someone else can pick up where a beloved franchise left off. Seattle-based Studio Alemni is making its own spiritual successor: Legends of Astravia. While it borrows a bit from Legend of Zelda and Final Fantasy, its primary inspiration is the Golden Sun series. It implements the series’ signature art style, the platform-jumping puzzle solving and the ability to equip elemental items to alter your abilities.
Where Legends of Astravia stands on its own is with its dynamic turn-based combat system. The combat is slower-paced with the option to speed it up or slow it down at will. This allows for your party to make strategic decisions against whatever opponent you happen to be facing. The level of strategy is always fully within your control. You can slow down to plan your attacks, spells or items and then immediately speed the combat back up again as you desire.
Legends of Astravia has one clear advantage over the Golden Sun franchise which is simply being made for modern hardware. The Golden Sun games were all on handheld systems and thus had a limited resolution. Legends of Astravia is launching on PC and will be available in widescreen resolution. This will allow the game to show off a broader scale of animation, character expressions and level design. While the game is still implementing a 16-bit retro art style, it won’t be hampered in any way by any technical limitations.
It will be nice to see something new that is paying homage to Golden Sun. It is a franchise that will always have a special place in the hearts of early Game Boy Advance owners. There is definitely room for Legends of Astravia as well.
Legends of Astravia is currently scheduled for a release on PC with a release date TBD.
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