-Review- Astel, Naturalborn of the Void - No Summons, No Damage, No Magic Tricks & No HUD

Astel, Naturalborn of the Void is basically Amygdala from Bloodborne however extremely watered down here combat wise. The presentation is very nice but that doesn't sell me personally. This is easily a one minute review type boss however since the boss is constantly transporting away along with attacks that doesn't allow much space I'm afraid we're looking at a three minute review so I'll express how I feel about every attack since there isn't that many of them.

The Cosmic Burst is the opening attack most of the time, after that it usually occurs if the player is too far away and it's very fun once you get the timing down. The unfortunate thing is that it has a poor punish window even if you're very close enough to reach Astel within seconds after the attack.

Waves of Darkness never was a concern but does prevent the player from staying underneath the boss which is something I appreciate though once again the punish opportunity is very low and it's not a satisfying attack to avoid also. Maybe if it had shock waves without the gravity damage instead then it could have been more impactful and engaging.

The Tail Slam is weird and not visually appealing. Simply running to the sides gets the job done but it's never satisfying to pull off because it looks so poorly animated in my opinion. At least the punish window is very generous especially when it usually occurs twice in a row.

Nebula is something where the damage detection timings should have been better. With distinct animations perhaps half of them should be lethal and the other half should leave openings to punish which only a couple does allow time to squeeze in properly which was satisfying to execute when the moment was appropriate.

Vicious Bites was a problematic set of attacks, the telegraphing is terrible and prevented a lot of punish opportunities from other attacks. What ever happened to the well telegraphed attacks from the Armor Spider from Demon's Souls? This attack also didn't have a very good punish window.

Meteorite of Astel is one of the sloppiest moments in the fight with running to the side at a far enough distance being the safest solution. It would have been better if you could time it properly to punish if you got close enough to attack Astel by properly avoiding the meteorites but they track you all the way. It felt like a huge version of the Arcane Sky Barrage in the Rom, the Vacuous Spider fight from Bloodborne but less engaging.

The Teleport Grab is the most problematic attack in the whole fight due to the poor indication of it's position and occurrence. It's a good jump scare though so I'll give it that. The punish window is actually decent if you evade the huge grab detection range.

The Pincer Grab is probably my favorite attack though it hardly ever occurred during practice runs. It's telegraphed well though the range is oddly small for it's build up but at least the punish window was good.

The Gravity Slam is just a waste of time and was clearly just there to look cool nothing more. It's not satisfying to evade and the punish window is really weak.

The Tail Stab is another attack I loved to see and punish. It's very well telegraphed and satisfying to time evading properly similar to the small ranged Nebula attack.