Asfalia: Fear (PC)
When I first saw the name for the point and click adventure Asfalia: Fear, I had thought it would be some sort of surreal fantasy horror game. The game it actually is ends up nowhere close to that in design though, instead trying to focus on the more playful sort of fear like the kind around the Halloween season. With laughing pumpkins, friendly mythical monsters, and a world full of generally pleasant or silly interactions, the land of Asfalia is normally quite a nice place to be that invites its target audience of younger gamers in for some slightly spooky fun.
That doesn’t mean Asfalia: Fear is lacking in conflict or danger though. The game begins with a young boy named Charlie playing with his four puppies, but when a storm scares them into fleeing the playground, Charlie pursues them into the woods and finds himself all turned around. Leaving the real world behind, he now finds himself in the land of Asfalia. Even though the place is populated by spirits and creatures, the citizens of Asfalia mostly seem kind and outgoing, but the land is being gradually subsumed by a malevolent shadow. Charlie quickly meets a helpful little fire sprite named Lily who joins him on the adventure, and while she’s useful for turning back the darkness, she’s also a lovely little companion for the young boy as well and its easy to grow attached to both of them.
Generally most actions in Asfalia: Fear are pretty wholesome and the monsters are cartoony enough in design not to be intimidating. Early on for example you meat a vampire, but he’s actually a giant piece of silverware, Kniferatu not only a fun twist on a familiar creature but just the first of a range of delightful personalities you meet on the short adventure. A trio of vultures might wear skulls on their head, but they act more like two younger brothers being kept in check by their older sister than carrion scavengers. Charlie’s kindness leads to plenty of kindness in turn, but even though Charlie’s a child, Lily is a freshly born fire and brings a fun extra perspective. She’s a bit smarter than you might expect of a technical newborn, but she’s also quick to give funny little asides because she’s trying to figure out the world or is left in disbelief by some of the antics of stranger characters like a chimera whose odd priorities lead to him missing important details right in front of his nose.
Meeting the different characters is definitely the most enjoyable and charming part of Asfalia: Fear, the voice acting excellent for giving life to this cast and even making some simplistic characters like the Cerberus who guards certain paths more memorable for the personality the voices exude. Similarly, the colorful and clean art style is pleasant to look at, although compared to other point and click adventures for young audiences, there aren’t too many objects in the environment to click on either for puzzle solving purposes or seeing amusing animations. The backgrounds are very detailed and have some little things to spot that don’t require interaction to be a little interesting, and generally this dream-like land has a good mix of locations and situations to fill its 3 or so hour runtime. However, the “Fear” in the game’s title does become questionable since the marketing claims this to be a game about embracing fear as something that’s not always bad for you while not showing it all that well. The malevolent shadow is purely presented as a danger and when even a chimera and the Cerberus are a bit too cuddly, it doesn’t feel like you’re facing a fear in interacting with them. There is one moment near the end where it almost rushes through trying to make some statement on handling fear and situations where it can be good to be a little scared, but it feels like a bit of a token statement since it’s not even tied to the bigger pieces of the plot.
Asfalia: Fear is still pretty delightful with its artistic direction and it’s entertaining to see what’s next, but it also isn’t a game that aims to oppose your progress much. A good deal of advancement through the story can be achieved by speaking to characters and going through every dialogue choice, and while you do get a bit of an inventory, items like a shovel often work in an expected manner and are presented as an option when you approach the relevant clickable object or character. It seems only the simplest of logic puzzles are at play most of the time, like clicking matching symbols or fitting objects into openings shaped much like them, but Asfalia: Fear does have a little reward system for poking around a bit more or attempting a special interaction. Stickers are added to a little scrapbook you bring with you, and these stickers are actually very well done art that depict related scenes or characters, sometimes in entirely unique art styles. This gives you a bit more incentive to explore and something extra to chew on can probably add about an hour to that estimated time given earlier, but there is another side amusement that feels like it was built for an entirely different type of gamer than the rest of the adventure.
Early on you can unlock Ghost Invaders, a little in-universe video game where you fly a fightercraft sideways through space, traveling automatically but your spaceship will follow the movement of your mouse. Early on this shooter feels fit for children as you just shoot at incoming attackers and your laser is pretty simple, but once you start getting some upgrades the enemies drop and move deeper into new waves of foes, the game becomes surprisingly demanding. Ghost Invaders can flood the screen with bullets where slipping through them requires a great eye and reflexes, the player needing to be quite involved in making the twitchy adjustments required to survive. It is legitimately hard but also entertaining for fans of the shoot-’em-up genre, but strangely out of place in a game that otherwise feels fit for the kind of young audience that has just come to understand how a mouse cursor can interact with objects on screen.
THE VERDICT: Besides the surprisingly tough but enjoyable Ghost Invaders side-game, Asfalia: Fear is mostly not a game that asks you to do too much to see its short story. On the one hand, that makes the intereactive point and click elements less rewarding unless you go for the stickers, but generally the characters are so pleasant and fun to talk to that they help sustain the adventure in the place of challenging puzzles. A wholesome stumble into its own little Wonderland, Asfalia: Fear should certainly hold the interest of young adventure gamers thanks to its art and vocal performances, it just needed some more gameplay substance if it wanted to be more of an all-ages adventure.
And so, I give Asfalia: Fear for PC…
An OKAY rating. With the generally entertaining procession of new places and characters to find plus the stickers to keep you a bit more canny about your surroundings, Asfalia: Fear doesn’t feel too plain and simple, but it is ultimately a pleasant little romp rather than a captivating adventure or brain-bending journey. I can see Asfalia: Fear very much becoming a generation’s equivalent to Pajama Sam or Putt-Putt at least, the imaginative little twists added to the familiar monsters of its world making for a delightful cast. The conclusion does feel like it could have done with addressing the “Fear” element a bit more, the possibility of a deeper message potentially the kind of thing that could make this more of an emotional journey rather than the kind that just leaves you idly smiling at the charm that’s always on display. The adventure being short and the range of actions restricted does keep it moving along so well it never settles into a rut that would make you hungry for something more involved, although the toughness of Ghost Invaders is always there if you want to not only really test your mettle but see how you hold up on against the global leaderboards. Even just a bit more logic involved in its occasional puzzle interactions outside sticker hunting would do the main adventure some good, but if treated almost like an animated film, it’s a enjoyable watch with a bit of participation from the player that doesn’t hold it back from showing you its silly little ideas.
For young players Asfalia: Fear will be doing its job well, and even as an adult it’s not bad so much as not something you should go out of your way to play. A lot of artistic talent brought this adventure through Asfalia to life but the game design might have held back a bit to keep this game clean and accessible for its youngest players. It is consistently interesting to see what lies ahead as you explore Asfalia though, the generally pleasant characters appealing to players of all ages even if the point and click elements won’t be as broadly entertaining.