A young man named Zosma is aiming to be a hot-shot adventurer. Is this going to be one of those mediocre manga or manwha about some loser becoming the best guy ever that real-life losers project themselves onto? Nah. On an attempted expedition to the local JRPG temple, the ground beneath Zosma cracks open…

Zosma comes to, and he’s been Undertaled into a strange underground world with the mysterious Crescent Moon Tower stretching into the sky. He gets a new cat slime buddy that attaches themself to him; I named mine Iscariot after Judas of Bible fame. Zosma then meets a strange being going by Penumbra, and Penumbra urges him to ascend to return to the surface – but on the way, he has to help solve the problems of the tower’s denizens. With a friend in tow and a purpose bestowed upon him, Zosma ascends.

The treasure lying around the place is a nice bonus too.

Today, we’re looking at Astra Hunter Zosma, by Torch60, which released in 2024. Given that Torch60’s a frequent topic on this blog, I properly bunched everything on their stuff over here. But yeah, this is his latest game, so I was excited to take a look.

The game has you ascending up the tower, exploring each unique floor stratum and looking to resolve things with the local boss. Between stratums, you go to some other world to buy new equipment and adventure in the shorter dungeons to get bonus stuff. Encounters in the normal tower are on-screen while encounters in the other world are random, lending them different feels besides visuals.

And you can’t be an adventurer without the allure of treasure. There’s the simple treasure of scattered orbs to collect and sure, they don’t contribute to your wallet… but it’s nice to collect. Treasure hunting in Astra Hunter Zosma hits the arcade game appreciator part of my brain, with these treasure pellets feeling like Pac-Man pellets. It’s simple, but it’s satisfying.

Of course, there’s more significant relics to collect that feel like collecting nice tokens. Besides the stuff in that other world, the relics are stuff with treasure maps that give hints on how to get them. They’re simple puzzles, they’re not on some Blue Prince type business – and some maps are just jokes – but they’re nice to collect. This really is a game for the compulsive collectors out there.

But bah, adventuring isn’t all about treasure hunting, we gotta talk fighting!

Battles has Zosma spending actions to unleash a chain of attacks, with the number of actions he can spend increasing the further you are into the game. Moves are separated into physical attacks, magic attacks, and items, and if you do a bunch of moves of the same type in a row it builds up a chain that strengthens the next move, whatever it may be. You could do an item chain to heal up Zosma and Iscariot, then end the chain off with a strong attack. You can do a physical attack chain, boost the next magic attack as the second to last move, and if you got the skill points remaining, you can end things off with a super powered shatter. As you build up Zosma’s library of skills with the sigils he can equip, the combo potential that you could unleash feels satisfying.

However, you’re only commanding Zosma. Iscariot automatically makes moves on their own. You can try to set how the companion acts through skill point distribution and you can readily redistribute the points any time, so you can tailor how they act and avoid unnecessary move usage like people that played the original Persona 3 complaining about Marin Karin while not engaging with the tactics system at all. You can also feed your buddy treats to give start of battle buffs and… I’ll be honest, even with how dirt cheap cookies are, I only really used them for boss fights. Zosma and Iscariot can at least use neat Astra skill limit-break like moves together that Iscariot learns after each boss, at least.

The companion system isn’t bad at all! I respect it as a change-up from past battle systems and there’s clearly work put into it. It’s just that like, I didn’t think it was very interesting. Granted, I understand why Iscariot has to work differently from Zosma because if you played both of them the same way, battles would take forever. I just personally wasn’t into it after the fun tactical system that Soma Union had.

On the writing of the game, it feels in line with Torch60’s other stuff while having the strongest emotional core out of their games. Zosma really kinda feels like a loser anime main character that stacks no paper at the beginning, but as the plot develops, he becomes more honest with his insecurities. He wants to become the best Astra Hunter because his sister Deneb previously held the role – before she mysteriously vanished. He ultimately wants to uphold her memory, and while he initially wants little to do with what Penumbra tasks him to do and Iscariot, he embraces his goal and new friend to become something that he feels Deneb would be proud of.

And now comes the part where I throw a Safe for Work Sasuke wall of images to hide the Big spoilers. So, I’ll say this: I think Astra Hunter Zosma has my favorite story out of Torch60’s stuff. Maybe the gameplay didn’t gel with me as well as Soma Union, but it’s definitely a game worth finishing. Playing through the game took me 11 hours and I did almost everything, so if you’d like a short RPG, this is definitely one to look at! And heck, it’s free, so why not?

After the second boss, it’s revealed that the bosses of the Crescent Moon Tower are long dead. While slightly implied with the first boss, Penumbra confirms what’s going on with the second boss. Penumbra essentially tasked Zosma to be somewhat of a psychopomp, granting the bosses one last fight and satisfying their dying regrets.

Zosma’s initially hesitant about the role he’s put in, but he takes to it. After all, he started his adventure wanting to become as important as his sister was. With every defeated boss, with every last wish fulfilled, he remembers more of Deneb and continues on to become somebody she can be proud of.

There are two big twists at the end. The first is that Penumbra is Deneb and… to be honest, this is probably something you can guess.

Of course, that simple twist ends up hiding the bigger twist that Zosma is actually dead. Like yeah, it makes sense because he fell from a large height… but because of the fantasy stylings of the game and the popular osmosis of the Undertale opening, players wouldn’t expect it. It’s a big subversion of things, but because it makes sense, you can’t be mad about it. It’s a great subversion.

Zosma isn’t on some Charon shit like initially presented, but just another spirit easing the spirits of others that died with regrets. However, Iscariot presents an opportunity for Zosma; the things that Iscariot collects after every boss that melds them closer to Zosma has actually been bits of Zosma’s lingering soul. Neat story justification for the Astra skills aside, Iscariot can enable Zosma to come back to life with a treasure that Deneb collected – which would simultaneously ease Deneb’s spirit because it gives her closure on the treasure she died for and the well-being of Zosma.

But besides granting Deneb closure, Zosma can truly grant everyone a sense of closure by carrying their stories on. Part of what makes the spirits of the tower feel like they died as failures is that they are all forgotten by the living world. With the possibility of somebody truly escaping the afterlife, their memories have the chance to live on.

All that treasure you’ve been collecting? They’re also granted meaning by virtue of the fact that they have stories behind them, which is strengthened by the fact that a fair amount of the treasures are references. All that non-relic treasure ends up being meaningful too in that besides raising Zosma’s standing in the local adventurer guild to get him respect, it allows him to finance a museum that allows him to properly show off the relics and to tell the stories of the bosses he’s beaten. (He has to make sure that mask is locked up, though.)

Everything is tied together nicely! Combined with an emotional final battle with honestly my favorite track that composer SpecialAgentApe made, I actually think that Astra Hunter Zosma has my favorite ending out of all Torch60’s stuff. I’m not sure if I’d say its my favorite overall game, but I think its my favorite story in their work. It’s satisfying and made me feel things, and what more can you want from a story?

Torch60 is currently working on Crescent Prism. He actually mentioned it back when I interviewed them in… 2017, huh? Christ. Well, they released the first chapter of the game back in 2018, but he broke off of working on it because of scope creep. However, he’s picked it back up and they’re currently remaking the first chapter in RPG Maker MV, so that will be a cool thing to look forward to!