Another great pixel art horror-adventure by Stranga. Much like Red Bow, it's very light on anything that is actually frightening, opting for an eerie, aesthetic that calls to mind a slightly bloodier Spirited Away.
As with Stranga's other games, there's endearing characters and excellent environments at every turn. The plot stands on its own somewhat well, but becomes much better in the full context of Stranga's previous games Red Bow and My Big Sister (the remastered edition, in particular). Everything up to the ending is great without full context, but I imagine the ending would feel a bit dissonant without the context of the other games. As such, I'd highly recommend playing them first.
I found most of the adventure game style puzzles to be straightforward and not frustrating, serving their job to keep me engaged with the environments well. Only the final puzzle threw me for a bit of a frustrating loop. Unfortunately, for my tastes, the overall narrative puzzle required to unlock the full ending was even more frustrating. Unlike Stranga's previous games, the conditions required to unlock the full ending were sprinkled throughout the game's 4 hour run time and easy to miss. The ending was a bit of letdown without earning all of the scenes, so I didn't want to just leave things there. I opted to just watch the portions of the ending I missed on youtube rather than replay the game in its entirety, which allowed me to a experience a much more satisfying ending, but also left things off on a bit of a sour note.
Still, despite the frustrations at the end, Ashina was a great time. I can't wait to see what Stranga puts out next!
As with Stranga's other games, there's endearing characters and excellent environments at every turn. The plot stands on its own somewhat well, but becomes much better in the full context of Stranga's previous games Red Bow and My Big Sister (the remastered edition, in particular). Everything up to the ending is great without full context, but I imagine the ending would feel a bit dissonant without the context of the other games. As such, I'd highly recommend playing them first.
I found most of the adventure game style puzzles to be straightforward and not frustrating, serving their job to keep me engaged with the environments well. Only the final puzzle threw me for a bit of a frustrating loop. Unfortunately, for my tastes, the overall narrative puzzle required to unlock the full ending was even more frustrating. Unlike Stranga's previous games, the conditions required to unlock the full ending were sprinkled throughout the game's 4 hour run time and easy to miss. The ending was a bit of letdown without earning all of the scenes, so I didn't want to just leave things there. I opted to just watch the portions of the ending I missed on youtube rather than replay the game in its entirety, which allowed me to a experience a much more satisfying ending, but also left things off on a bit of a sour note.
Still, despite the frustrations at the end, Ashina was a great time. I can't wait to see what Stranga puts out next!
Ashina: The Red Witch is a really good little game. It gave me a lot of vibe. The writing is simple but very clever at the same time. And the story is part comedy, part horror.
One complaint is the control lacks precision. Sometimes it feels like a bug but no, it isnt.
One complaint is the control lacks precision. Sometimes it feels like a bug but no, it isnt.
Quite enjoyable. The story is just ok but one of the plot twists actually surprised me tho. The puzzles are quite easy. The art is really pretty and probably the best thing this game has. the characters are ok for the most part. The ending is pretty anticlimactic, although that may be due to the fact that this is a prequel; but since the game doesn't clearify that anywhere, you're just left confused.
Con un atractivo apartado audiovisual, Ashina: The Red Witch coquetea con la cultura japonesa a varios niveles y toma como referencia obras como El viaje de Chihiro o los temibles yôkai. Desde los ambientes y la gastronomía hasta la cultura más abstracta, todo confluye en una extraña sensación de tener que encontrar nuestro lugar en el mundo que se enfoca desde la muerte como un sinónimo de segundas oportunidades.
Precioso y doloroso a la par, Ashina: The Red Witch es un viaje a través de nuestra vida, de las expectativas que los demás tenían hacia nosotros y de su repercusión sobre nuestro presente. Al final, acabamos dejándonos llevar por la corriente a la que nos hemos visto abocados, sin darnos cuenta de lo que hay más allá e, incluso, escondiendo sentimientos durante demasiado tiempo, hasta que salen de la forma menos adecuada en el momento menos preciso.
No todo lo que nos pasa está ligado a la lógica, por eso hay que estar preparado para lo que sea. En esta suerte de precuela de My Big Sister, la vida y la muerte conviven en un mismo plano de existencia sin que, en la mayoría de ocasiones, seamos conscientes de ello. Pero, como en todo, que no lo veamos no significa que no esté ahí.
Análisis completo: https://www.ningunaparte.com/analisis-ashina-the-red-witch/
Precioso y doloroso a la par, Ashina: The Red Witch es un viaje a través de nuestra vida, de las expectativas que los demás tenían hacia nosotros y de su repercusión sobre nuestro presente. Al final, acabamos dejándonos llevar por la corriente a la que nos hemos visto abocados, sin darnos cuenta de lo que hay más allá e, incluso, escondiendo sentimientos durante demasiado tiempo, hasta que salen de la forma menos adecuada en el momento menos preciso.
No todo lo que nos pasa está ligado a la lógica, por eso hay que estar preparado para lo que sea. En esta suerte de precuela de My Big Sister, la vida y la muerte conviven en un mismo plano de existencia sin que, en la mayoría de ocasiones, seamos conscientes de ello. Pero, como en todo, que no lo veamos no significa que no esté ahí.
Análisis completo: https://www.ningunaparte.com/analisis-ashina-the-red-witch/
Ashina the Red Witch is the newest adventure title from Stranga Games, sporting fantastic music, fun puzzles, well-made pixel art, and a story that is poignant, heartbreaking, and gripping right up until it isn't. While the narrative, characters, and dialogue were excellent most of the way through, Ashina shoots itself in the foot with the most thematically dissonant and laughably bad ending this side of Game of Thrones.
As I stated before, Ashina is a thrilling and gripping tale for about 90% of the 3 and a half hour runtime. Stranga Games has taken more inspiration from Studio Ghibli’s masterpiece Spirited Away than I’ve perhaps ever seen anything take take, even Ghibli’s own game Ni No Kuni. And to be truthful, it’s all the better for it. Spirited Away is my favorite film of all time, and the second I arrived in the spirit world I started to see the similarities. So yeah, it’s a quick way to my heart, what are you gonna do about it?
Ashina follows the story of Ash, a twenty-something girl exhausted with life, tired of raising her younger sister Tema who is of course always getting into trouble. The two are transported to the spirit world by way of a mischievous spirit named Tanto who has stolen their late mother’s pendant, and after they’re separated Ash sets out to rescue her little sister, just as she always does.
You’ll be taken to several different towns and areas, and the gameplay mostly consists of doing small quests for one NPC in exchange for an item for another NPC to get you to the next thing. It’s all very simple, and most of it is just walking around and talking to the delightful characters. There are a few puzzles scattered about, and they do a great job hitting that medium of not being too tough while offering a challenge and feeling like a natural part of the environment.
Ashina is a very story driven narrative heavy game, so I don’t want to spoil too much more of the story - instead i want to talk about themes. Right up until the end, this story is tied together by the theme of learning to sacrifice for others because it is our responsibility. The characters Ash meets along the way have all given something up, all lost something, for the sake of others. The way to truly love is to sacrifice, to work selflessly. It hits hardest when Ash asks a miner why they keep digging for the coal that powers the city. She responds “why are you trying to rescue your sister?” Ash responds, “because it is my responsibility.”
There is even a part of the story where Ash is offered an escape back to the real world if she agrees to leave her sister behind for dead, after having a meltdown and revealing how much she hates Tema because of what she gave up to take care of her after their mother died. And yet, back into the pit she goes for her sister, her only remaining family. Because to love is to be selfless, stupid, and steadfast.
This story ends with perhaps the most baffling, and contradictory ending I can call to mind. The lesson at the end is that one should, in fact, be selfish. The characters that act for their own selfish purposes are rewarded. The characters that act out of love are punished with death, or worse. It’s not just a matter of evil winning and it being a tragic ending - the theme that the story pushed so heavily is completely invalidated in one fell swoop. The ending makes it clear that to love is to be weak, to sacrifice is to be doomed. Nothing you did in the game matters, actually - it was all stupid. Ash should have gone home and let her sister die.
After becoming so invested in these characters, in what I felt was maybe the best story in a video game this year, I was absolutely gutted by this ending. As I said, it’s not about the tragic nature - it’s about spitting in the face of theme. If you throw away your ending for shock value at the end and tell the player plainly that your story wasn’t worth anything, guess what? They’re gonna feel like they wasted their time. And I do. What was on track to be on my favorite indie games of all time list is now a bad taste in my mouth.
There are alternate endings, but this isn’t the “bad” ending - they’re all relatively like this. It’s also worth noting that Ashina is a prequel to a previous game from Stranga Games, My Big Sister. Ash’s fate was always going to be what it was, since the sequel is already written. For reference, I did skim through a playthrough of My Big Sister to see if it somehow made Ash’s story make sense - it does not. If anything, it’s even worse than I had originally thought.
Overall, there is so much good going on in Ashina: The Red Witch that I would be a fool not to acknowledge. Part of the reason I reacted so badly to this perplexing ending is that I genuinely cared about these characters. Even the ones I hated, I at least cared about them. They made an impression on me. Not to mention the wonderful slew of references and design inspirations from the works of Hayao Miyazaki, the absolute banger soundtrack, and the pleasantly memorable locations and one-off NPCs along the way. The issue, however, is that the writer invalidates everything they did with such a profound lack of self-awareness I feel like I genuinely lost these hours of my life.
Despite its charming art, music, character work, settings, and inspirations, Ashina’s last 30 minutes invalidate the entire story before it and slaps players in the face for being stupid enough to care about it.
As I stated before, Ashina is a thrilling and gripping tale for about 90% of the 3 and a half hour runtime. Stranga Games has taken more inspiration from Studio Ghibli’s masterpiece Spirited Away than I’ve perhaps ever seen anything take take, even Ghibli’s own game Ni No Kuni. And to be truthful, it’s all the better for it. Spirited Away is my favorite film of all time, and the second I arrived in the spirit world I started to see the similarities. So yeah, it’s a quick way to my heart, what are you gonna do about it?
Ashina follows the story of Ash, a twenty-something girl exhausted with life, tired of raising her younger sister Tema who is of course always getting into trouble. The two are transported to the spirit world by way of a mischievous spirit named Tanto who has stolen their late mother’s pendant, and after they’re separated Ash sets out to rescue her little sister, just as she always does.
You’ll be taken to several different towns and areas, and the gameplay mostly consists of doing small quests for one NPC in exchange for an item for another NPC to get you to the next thing. It’s all very simple, and most of it is just walking around and talking to the delightful characters. There are a few puzzles scattered about, and they do a great job hitting that medium of not being too tough while offering a challenge and feeling like a natural part of the environment.
Ashina is a very story driven narrative heavy game, so I don’t want to spoil too much more of the story - instead i want to talk about themes. Right up until the end, this story is tied together by the theme of learning to sacrifice for others because it is our responsibility. The characters Ash meets along the way have all given something up, all lost something, for the sake of others. The way to truly love is to sacrifice, to work selflessly. It hits hardest when Ash asks a miner why they keep digging for the coal that powers the city. She responds “why are you trying to rescue your sister?” Ash responds, “because it is my responsibility.”
There is even a part of the story where Ash is offered an escape back to the real world if she agrees to leave her sister behind for dead, after having a meltdown and revealing how much she hates Tema because of what she gave up to take care of her after their mother died. And yet, back into the pit she goes for her sister, her only remaining family. Because to love is to be selfless, stupid, and steadfast.
This story ends with perhaps the most baffling, and contradictory ending I can call to mind. The lesson at the end is that one should, in fact, be selfish. The characters that act for their own selfish purposes are rewarded. The characters that act out of love are punished with death, or worse. It’s not just a matter of evil winning and it being a tragic ending - the theme that the story pushed so heavily is completely invalidated in one fell swoop. The ending makes it clear that to love is to be weak, to sacrifice is to be doomed. Nothing you did in the game matters, actually - it was all stupid. Ash should have gone home and let her sister die.
After becoming so invested in these characters, in what I felt was maybe the best story in a video game this year, I was absolutely gutted by this ending. As I said, it’s not about the tragic nature - it’s about spitting in the face of theme. If you throw away your ending for shock value at the end and tell the player plainly that your story wasn’t worth anything, guess what? They’re gonna feel like they wasted their time. And I do. What was on track to be on my favorite indie games of all time list is now a bad taste in my mouth.
There are alternate endings, but this isn’t the “bad” ending - they’re all relatively like this. It’s also worth noting that Ashina is a prequel to a previous game from Stranga Games, My Big Sister. Ash’s fate was always going to be what it was, since the sequel is already written. For reference, I did skim through a playthrough of My Big Sister to see if it somehow made Ash’s story make sense - it does not. If anything, it’s even worse than I had originally thought.
Overall, there is so much good going on in Ashina: The Red Witch that I would be a fool not to acknowledge. Part of the reason I reacted so badly to this perplexing ending is that I genuinely cared about these characters. Even the ones I hated, I at least cared about them. They made an impression on me. Not to mention the wonderful slew of references and design inspirations from the works of Hayao Miyazaki, the absolute banger soundtrack, and the pleasantly memorable locations and one-off NPCs along the way. The issue, however, is that the writer invalidates everything they did with such a profound lack of self-awareness I feel like I genuinely lost these hours of my life.
Despite its charming art, music, character work, settings, and inspirations, Ashina’s last 30 minutes invalidate the entire story before it and slaps players in the face for being stupid enough to care about it.
A few prominent issues but this is another great game from a very underappreciated indie dev.
I don't know what it is about this one, but I just wasn't as drawn into it as with My Big Sister.
!! This review is for the prologue/demo !!
I really wanted to write this review and get my thoughts out, but there isn't a page for the demo for some reason. I'm not sure what of this changed in the full release, but based on my experience with this demo, I will not be purchasing it to find out. Take all of this with a grain of salt.
I did not enjoy my time with this game. One of the reviews on Steam wrote 'this is not the game for impatient people', but I think it's beyond that. This is a game that's afraid to be a game. I spent about 35 minutes running this game, and five minutes playing it. What do I mean? I mean the game's run time is full of cutscenes and long back and forths that are neither interesting nor endearing and did not leave me feeling satisfied. To make it worse, the dialogue actually auto-scrolls, even though there's a blinker in the corner showing that you can advance at any time. However, the text will auto-scroll the second after the last character is typed in the box, so the only purpose you get out of advancing it is if you want to skip mid sentence. To be fair, you're prompted that you can skip cutscenes at any time with esc, but if you do so, the game gives you no prompting to your objective. I understand the need to have a bit of an introductory exposition from time to time, but there has to be a better way to do it than this. For example, upon arriving into the spirit town for the first time, we get a long pan of the city that ends on the building that the character we're chasing just entered. Many games do this, especially early on. This is ok. What's not ok, is that despite the fact that we just saw exactly where to go to continue the narrative, the screen fades out and opens back up IN the building. The game is so afraid of letting the player play it that it doesn't even let them take control after showing them exactly where to go.
But the gameplay itself isn't much better! It consists largely of fetch quests, which I'm honestly fine with, but I know is a turn off for many. However, the controls are not only not typical, but they're also never explained, instead tucked away in the menu. This was an issue for me, as the UI has the character portrait in the top corner with an empty square next to it, which I assumed was for holding a single item, as I couldn't figure out how to open the menu, and then assumed I just didn't have an inventory. When I first grabbed the soda, I continued exploring around the apartment before giving it to the sister. Then, I found the knife. After checking everything else, I went back to the sister to give her the soda... and the dialogue acted like I wasn't holding the soda. I thought maybe the knife had replaced the soda as my single item, so I checked the fridge, and then where the knife was... and nothing. After some more of the same thing with the knife, I thought I had softlocked myself, so I reset the game. It was only the second time around that I realized you have to go into the inventory to use an item, which is still, in my opinion, a very bad design choice.
The dialogue is very amateur and tends to go in circles, with the characters basically saying the exact same thing but in different ways a few times before it finally moves on, not to mention that none of the things the characters say sound natural or believable. The main 'perpetrator' literally talks like DJ Spit from Smiling Friends but in a way that is not at all endearing or funny or even natural/believable-- it's just annoying and feels so out of place. In fact, I didn't really like any of the characters. Him especially though was probably my least favorite, which is interesting, because based on the way that part of the game is set up, it seems as if the game really wants you to like him and think that he's charming or fun.
The art is probably the best part of the game, but even then, I feel like a lot of the character sprites are very hard to read. In the tattoo shop, I couldn't even tell what the guy getting tattooed was supposed to be, because the dialogue made no sense and the sprite was hard to read. But I will say this-- the world felt very cozy visually and there wasn't a single inch of what I would consider wasted space, emptiness, or unnecessary design.
Anyway, rant over. It's very rare that a game is so poorly designed that it really heats me up like this.
I really wanted to write this review and get my thoughts out, but there isn't a page for the demo for some reason. I'm not sure what of this changed in the full release, but based on my experience with this demo, I will not be purchasing it to find out. Take all of this with a grain of salt.
I did not enjoy my time with this game. One of the reviews on Steam wrote 'this is not the game for impatient people', but I think it's beyond that. This is a game that's afraid to be a game. I spent about 35 minutes running this game, and five minutes playing it. What do I mean? I mean the game's run time is full of cutscenes and long back and forths that are neither interesting nor endearing and did not leave me feeling satisfied. To make it worse, the dialogue actually auto-scrolls, even though there's a blinker in the corner showing that you can advance at any time. However, the text will auto-scroll the second after the last character is typed in the box, so the only purpose you get out of advancing it is if you want to skip mid sentence. To be fair, you're prompted that you can skip cutscenes at any time with esc, but if you do so, the game gives you no prompting to your objective. I understand the need to have a bit of an introductory exposition from time to time, but there has to be a better way to do it than this. For example, upon arriving into the spirit town for the first time, we get a long pan of the city that ends on the building that the character we're chasing just entered. Many games do this, especially early on. This is ok. What's not ok, is that despite the fact that we just saw exactly where to go to continue the narrative, the screen fades out and opens back up IN the building. The game is so afraid of letting the player play it that it doesn't even let them take control after showing them exactly where to go.
But the gameplay itself isn't much better! It consists largely of fetch quests, which I'm honestly fine with, but I know is a turn off for many. However, the controls are not only not typical, but they're also never explained, instead tucked away in the menu. This was an issue for me, as the UI has the character portrait in the top corner with an empty square next to it, which I assumed was for holding a single item, as I couldn't figure out how to open the menu, and then assumed I just didn't have an inventory. When I first grabbed the soda, I continued exploring around the apartment before giving it to the sister. Then, I found the knife. After checking everything else, I went back to the sister to give her the soda... and the dialogue acted like I wasn't holding the soda. I thought maybe the knife had replaced the soda as my single item, so I checked the fridge, and then where the knife was... and nothing. After some more of the same thing with the knife, I thought I had softlocked myself, so I reset the game. It was only the second time around that I realized you have to go into the inventory to use an item, which is still, in my opinion, a very bad design choice.
The dialogue is very amateur and tends to go in circles, with the characters basically saying the exact same thing but in different ways a few times before it finally moves on, not to mention that none of the things the characters say sound natural or believable. The main 'perpetrator' literally talks like DJ Spit from Smiling Friends but in a way that is not at all endearing or funny or even natural/believable-- it's just annoying and feels so out of place. In fact, I didn't really like any of the characters. Him especially though was probably my least favorite, which is interesting, because based on the way that part of the game is set up, it seems as if the game really wants you to like him and think that he's charming or fun.
The art is probably the best part of the game, but even then, I feel like a lot of the character sprites are very hard to read. In the tattoo shop, I couldn't even tell what the guy getting tattooed was supposed to be, because the dialogue made no sense and the sprite was hard to read. But I will say this-- the world felt very cozy visually and there wasn't a single inch of what I would consider wasted space, emptiness, or unnecessary design.
Anyway, rant over. It's very rare that a game is so poorly designed that it really heats me up like this.
All the charm and style you'd expect from a Stranga game. Admittedly between the timeline and my dreadful memory there were some story beats that confused me a little, but ultimately the locations and characters shine bright.
I'd also had some trouble getting through this because I was too easily distracted for the first couple hours - but once I really switched off and fully to committed to it I couldn't pull away.
I feel like I maybe enjoyed My Big Sister a bit more, but it's hard to tell if that's because I played it in fewer sittings and was less confused by the story :p
Well worth playing if you liked the other games in the series
I'd also had some trouble getting through this because I was too easily distracted for the first couple hours - but once I really switched off and fully to committed to it I couldn't pull away.
I feel like I maybe enjoyed My Big Sister a bit more, but it's hard to tell if that's because I played it in fewer sittings and was less confused by the story :p
Well worth playing if you liked the other games in the series
My Big Sister is one of my favorite indie games, so, of course I was excited when Stranga announced they were working on a prequel. But this vastly exceeded my expectations. If you've played Stranga's other titles, then this is an absolute must play.
Played via the itch.io release on a Lenovo Y50-70.
This review ultimately comes from someone who has only recently discovered Stranga's output within the last couple of months - their storytelling has been some of the most memorable to me in recent years (both across the AAA and indie spaces) and the art, sound and game design have always been compelling enough for me to want to play the next one I discover in their catalogue.
I genuinely believe Ashina: The Red Witch to be Stranga's finest output yet - all of their individual game design skills have been ratcheted up in this release, with fun catchy melodies and an art style that ranges from genuine eeriness to neon cityscapes and beyond. The scale of this game is much larger too, with multiple miniature "open-world" segments to explore a new environment and get to know the locals. There's not as many big "gotcha" moments with horror-fueled jumpscares and there's no risk of dying here either, which I do find to be a bit of a shame, but those seem to be sacrifices for the sake of a much tighter but also longer narrative than their previous works. This game is ultimately revealing backstories and filling in story gaps from Stranga's other games but nothing feels like obvious fan service moments or that it's being detrimental to the point of distraction.
It's not without it's technical issues - a couple of hitches in the gameplay for up to 10 seconds at a time left me to believe it had frozen a couple of times along with mild stuttering in certain levels and a few grammatical errors in the script prevent this from being a perfect release, but I can generally overlook these as minor inconveniences.
Ultimately, this has probably been my favourite game so far this year - it's a short one, roughly 3-4 hours depending on how good you are with puzzles and how much you want to revel in its atmosphere, but it's far from an empty or hollow experience, with memorable moments and a sharp script that endears you to it's characters.
This review ultimately comes from someone who has only recently discovered Stranga's output within the last couple of months - their storytelling has been some of the most memorable to me in recent years (both across the AAA and indie spaces) and the art, sound and game design have always been compelling enough for me to want to play the next one I discover in their catalogue.
I genuinely believe Ashina: The Red Witch to be Stranga's finest output yet - all of their individual game design skills have been ratcheted up in this release, with fun catchy melodies and an art style that ranges from genuine eeriness to neon cityscapes and beyond. The scale of this game is much larger too, with multiple miniature "open-world" segments to explore a new environment and get to know the locals. There's not as many big "gotcha" moments with horror-fueled jumpscares and there's no risk of dying here either, which I do find to be a bit of a shame, but those seem to be sacrifices for the sake of a much tighter but also longer narrative than their previous works. This game is ultimately revealing backstories and filling in story gaps from Stranga's other games but nothing feels like obvious fan service moments or that it's being detrimental to the point of distraction.
It's not without it's technical issues - a couple of hitches in the gameplay for up to 10 seconds at a time left me to believe it had frozen a couple of times along with mild stuttering in certain levels and a few grammatical errors in the script prevent this from being a perfect release, but I can generally overlook these as minor inconveniences.
Ultimately, this has probably been my favourite game so far this year - it's a short one, roughly 3-4 hours depending on how good you are with puzzles and how much you want to revel in its atmosphere, but it's far from an empty or hollow experience, with memorable moments and a sharp script that endears you to it's characters.