Really, really wanted to like this more than I did. l adore Soulslikes and Ashen does a great amount of this things really well, which makes its major failures all the more heartbreaking.

Other than it being absolutely gorgeous and feeling great to play, I genuinely adore how progression is handled. Not having the ability to level up and instead getting stat bonuses from exploration or doing sidequests is an insanely fresh take on character progression (in this genre at least), and I really like that an AI companion accompanies you the whole way through (other Soulslikes like Code Vein do this but a lot less successfully imo). It’s a shame, then, that the five bosses in the game range from mediocre to downright abysmal, and it’s even more saddening that most of them are on the lower end of the spectrum. Similarly, the level design is middling. The open areas are fine but the two labyrinthian dungeons in the game are an absolute slog to get through.

Still, I’d say I enjoyed my time with Ashen, and I’m hoping the team gives the IP another shot.