The Ascent is an absolute spectacle that is often mired by a plethora of issues, yet occasionally rises to true greatness. From the perspective of an isometric twin-stick shooter, players take in an absurdly detailed cyberpunk dystopia. While the world is not particularly interactive, the endless stream of citizens, enemies, and detailed surroundings always make the world feel alive and bustling. Considering this was primarily accomplished by a team of 12 developers, the world is awe-inspiring.
Combat can also be good fun when the game hits its moments of stride. There are plenty of unique guns and abilities to mess around with. No one gun or ability will carry a player to the end, so experimenting with synergizing combos is encouraged. Unfortunately, the combat can be The Ascent's undoing as well. While it is terrific fun to tear through hoards of enemies when the game's balance is in its sweet spot, on several occasions, the difficulty will spike to the extent that everything that was working well two seconds ago is entirely insufficient to progress. Often, these moments seem balanced for a coop experience, with the final encounter seemingly explicitly designed for two or more players. This is infuriating to run into, especially when the solution is to backtrack fully out of the area to the nearest upgrade merchant.
The Ascent’s other faults further exacerbate these moments of frustration as well. Overarchingly, the RPG side of the game is generally unclear about the tangible effects that upgrades to character, guns, or armor will have on the current combat challenge. While these intricacies become clearer as the game progresses, it is often too late to make a meaningful change without a ton of backtracking and a large expenditure of currency once a difficulty spike is found. For example, guns cannot be upgraded without a merchant, so if a player finds themselves with underpowered guns (or the wrong type of upgraded guns) for an encounter, the solution is backtracking. And backtracking becomes arduous rather quickly due to the plodding pace of the player character and an extremely unhelpful map in which one cannot set waypoints. A player can take the metro or a taxi, but those solutions are still clunky. Another odd choice is that the game gives players many side quests that they cannot do at the time of receiving them, whether by being literally barred from access or by enemy difficulty, with no warning at all, which again leads to backtracking.
There are other nitpicks that could be dwelt on, like how the story entirely loses steam by the end or the surprising amount of bugs across different platforms, but for the sake of some brevity let's just summarize by saying that The Ascent is immensely flawed. Even so, oddly enough, it is extremely recommendable. When the combat works it really is a blast and the sites and high points of the game have to be seen. Just know what you are getting into and take a friend or two along for the ride.
Combat can also be good fun when the game hits its moments of stride. There are plenty of unique guns and abilities to mess around with. No one gun or ability will carry a player to the end, so experimenting with synergizing combos is encouraged. Unfortunately, the combat can be The Ascent's undoing as well. While it is terrific fun to tear through hoards of enemies when the game's balance is in its sweet spot, on several occasions, the difficulty will spike to the extent that everything that was working well two seconds ago is entirely insufficient to progress. Often, these moments seem balanced for a coop experience, with the final encounter seemingly explicitly designed for two or more players. This is infuriating to run into, especially when the solution is to backtrack fully out of the area to the nearest upgrade merchant.
The Ascent’s other faults further exacerbate these moments of frustration as well. Overarchingly, the RPG side of the game is generally unclear about the tangible effects that upgrades to character, guns, or armor will have on the current combat challenge. While these intricacies become clearer as the game progresses, it is often too late to make a meaningful change without a ton of backtracking and a large expenditure of currency once a difficulty spike is found. For example, guns cannot be upgraded without a merchant, so if a player finds themselves with underpowered guns (or the wrong type of upgraded guns) for an encounter, the solution is backtracking. And backtracking becomes arduous rather quickly due to the plodding pace of the player character and an extremely unhelpful map in which one cannot set waypoints. A player can take the metro or a taxi, but those solutions are still clunky. Another odd choice is that the game gives players many side quests that they cannot do at the time of receiving them, whether by being literally barred from access or by enemy difficulty, with no warning at all, which again leads to backtracking.
There are other nitpicks that could be dwelt on, like how the story entirely loses steam by the end or the surprising amount of bugs across different platforms, but for the sake of some brevity let's just summarize by saying that The Ascent is immensely flawed. Even so, oddly enough, it is extremely recommendable. When the combat works it really is a blast and the sites and high points of the game have to be seen. Just know what you are getting into and take a friend or two along for the ride.