2025 | LeftOver | PC/SteamDeck
Welcome to the fantasy zone, get ready!
Developed by LeftOver and released in 2025 on Steam, Asura the Striker is a fast paced on-rail shooter that brings Space Harrier to modern platforms with a twist. You play as Asura, a humanoid weapon with lush blonde locks and a skin-tight suit, fending off hordes of alien invaders in an attempt to protect the earth. We do this by jumping into our mech suit and taking the fight to the skies. Much like the aforementioned Space Harrier, and other games like Burning Force, Panorama Cotton, and Afterburner, the game closely follows the character from behind as you zip across landscapes, chasing that ever elusive horizon. Early games in the genre were designed to give a sense of 3D and speed in a genre that was dominated by ships going up, or left to right. Instead opting to follow the character, or the ship, as it flies away from the camera, with enemies, projectiles and obstacles coming in from all directions.
While not the type of shoot ‘em up you’d expect to see in 2025 (or 2026 in my case), Asura the Striker is a beautiful and welcome tribute to the arcade titans of old. With a solid twist to stand on its own two feet against a force of invading aliens. Its core mechanic is, of course, to shoot stuff. You have you button to keep providing the screen in front of you with a steady stream of bullets, as well as a button to bomb anything in close proximity to kingdom come whilst piloting the mech. The latter replenishes after successfully eliminating a group of enemies, so you can let the fireworks fly to your hearts content. Alongside the shoot and bomb buttons you also have a mechanic that slows down the game for a few seconds called Lightning OverDrive. While not a get out of jail free button, it does provide a moment of brevity amongst the chaos when held, especially during the later boss battles.
There are a total of three vehicles, or EX-Gear, you can choose from. The mech suit gives the game a more traditional shoot ‘m up feel with the mech being able to deploy bombs. These restore after clearing a wave of enemies, with the only downside being that it doesn’t hit enemies from far away. The second is the Geo-Blade. This not only functions as a cool surfboard, but also allows you to quickly dispatch any form of on screen enemies with a charged slash. The description says that it’s only good for ranged attacks, but I found that range doesn’t equate to distance. Unless you mean off-screen. If something is on your screen, it is within range! I’ve been doing most of my runs of the game with this Gear and it’s one of the most devastating tools in your arsenal. Bosses will melt before your eyes, trivializing the ones that don’t lose their hitboxes when they go through their animations.
The last EX-Gear is the Moto-Slasher. A small plane on which Asura stands that enhances your Shining Knuckle. This does mean that you’re mostly focusing on melee attacks instead of shooting. It’s a great piece of gear for learning the windows of opportunity that the bosses present, but it does ramp up the general difficulty of the game. Certain costumes also offer a great boost when combined with specific EX-Gear, like the bunny outfit and the Geo-Blade. There’s also a special costume that changes the bullets to a laser that fires in the opposing direction of your movement. You can, of course, also forego the EX-Gear in favor of a more challenging run. There are a total of 8 endings to the game, 7 of which are accessible from the lower difficulties, with the 8th Omega stage being a long, timed boss fight. The stages range from nighttime cityscapes, cloudy skies, giant space ships, to deserts and oceans. They offer a nice variety, and ambience, with each stage having their own boss assigned to them, one of which is the literal moon (fast approaching)!
While the visuals are striking, and bring an almost nostalgic atmosphere to Asure the Striker, there is a small caveat that I have with the overall design. This isn’t really a caveat that comes from this game in particular, but rather this specific style of shoot ‘m up. With most games like Asura, Space Harrier, Burning Force, etc. the character tends to take up a sizable portion of the screen. This leaves very little real estate for the rest of the game to flourish in. Asura the Striker, particularly with the added size of the mech units, obfuscates a significant portion of the screen. This leaves very little room to actually see what you’re shooting at. This design tends to mess a little with my depth perception, but once I got used to it, the game started feeling much better. I will admit that this is, in part, a skill issue on my end, but it’s also something that you kind of have to take into account when designing a game in this particular style. This caveat can be somewhat mitigated by weaponizing Asura’s wardrobe and EX-Gear selection. One of her outfits makes her model transparent, which is how I got used to the game. The sword also gives the game a bit more screen real-estate. The transparent model is specifically designed for the purpose of practicing the game.
Asura the Striker threw me right back to the long evenings spent on my Sega Mega Drive, with a soundtrack to match. The music uses a lot of synthesizers that make it sound incredibly similar to the arcade games of days gone by. While the performance on the Steamdeck does tend to cause a few slow-downs during effect heavy sequence, it’s still very playable. If anything, this gives the game a slightly more authentic arcade feel to it. With the multiple endings, the variety of ways to play the game, and to dress up the main character, there’s plenty of replayability to it. Each run takes about 20 minutes to complete, depending on how long you last in the Omega stage. The only missing feature so far is the gallery mode, which will hopefully feature some of the in-game art, as well as the unlocked ending screens. What’s there is a great experience with a lot of replay value. Especially if you’re a fan of chasing high scores. It is a great stepping stone if you want to get your toes wet in the genre, but don’t want to immediately drown in a tidal wave of bullets. Asura the Striker offers a lot of flexibility, and you can set the level of challenge to your liking. It’s a solid shoot ‘em up with great visuals, great music, and great character design. You can’t really go wrong with that. And while it doesn’t perform flawlessly on the Steamdeck, it does sit comfortably next to my favorite ‘pick up and go games’ next to Caladrius Blaze, Milano’s Odd Job Collection and Steam Hearts. If you’re looking for a great arcade-y experience, with some fancy costume work, consider giving Asura the Striker a look. If anything, please give the soundtrack a listen!
Battlebunny/10
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