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.