On a whim, I decided to yank out and play some Saturn games that didn’t have anything to do with Panzer Dragoon. I was amazed at how much I’ve forgotten how cruddy a lot of them were(don’t get me started on Crusader). Then out of the blue I pulled out Astal. I had kept it in the back of my mind because I remembered it as being a “little” game. Cutesy and nothing more. But as I got myself reacquainted with it, I found myself liking it. As a platformer, it can get exceedingly cheap. But it has its charms the video game world seems to have forgotten. Hand drawn animation. Scrolling and parallaxing. Gorgeous music. Definitely a Sega game to the core. Anybody else out there remember this game?
Astal is one of those games I always meant to eventually pick up but never did. Perhaps it’s time to fix that, if only for the music, which I heard is fantastic, and I am a big game music fan.
In my eye?s the best looking 2D game I?ve ever seen, the 1st level is a work on Art. A stunning game and even thought it?s an early game it had one of the best intro?s even one Saturn, in terms of FMV quality. Me and my brother?s kid used to love the 2-player mode (lovely touch) and the music and sound effects were brilliant, Could never work out why SOE never picked this game up 
I loved the game, and long for a sequel on the PSP. Also I?m sure a couple of the JSR team worked on the game
A very cool game, unfortunately I never finished it when I had it. I’ve always wanted to see something like it in 3D, I love the empowerment of manhandling enemies a hundred times your size. God of War, and some boss fights in NiGHTS also have some taste of that, but it could be made more integral to a game, with really dynamic cameras when you bodyslam a huge dragon or something.
Well, Dragoon Lover you’ve inspired me to buy this game, I just bought it on Ebay. After watching some movies on Youtube, I can’t believe I overlooked this game, it looks stunning and has a great musical score.
Astal’s voice sounds so familiar where have I heard that voice before? Wait a second, is that Brave Fencer Musashi’s voice?