Played: April 2022
The promise of wayfaring out into a withered world and shepherding weary souls back to a village that's always expanding is what drew me to Ashen.
It's a concept I've loved in games like Dark Cloud 2 and Ys 8, and I enjoy it most when I don't have to do any of the base-building or resource management of growing that village. In this soulslike you simply find people out in the wilderness, and every time you return home to Vagrant's Rest after a new main or side quest, you'll find that a pile of rocks has become a scaffolding and eventually a whole new house. I get "dungeon anxiety" pretty easily -- it's part of the fun -- but the relief that comes with the safety of reaching a new town after a treacherous dungeon feels more profound when it's the warmth of a familiar home that has welcomed new life.
This is my third soulslike after Nioh and Sekiro (I haven't played an actual Dark Souls), and while it's much easier than both of those games, it's still harder than a typical action adventure or action RPG. Enemies lash out from any and all corners, and I spent every run learning the nuances of an area until my next inevitable death. This one lets you recharge your health at ritual stones (its bonfires) without having to reset the area, which makes it more approachable than other games in this genre. The world is both dour and lively, but every bit of life out there is marked for death by your hands unless they're a story character or trader. Two repeat character models (villager and trader) also find their way back to Vagrant's Rest without you having to explicitly recruit them. They make things much more lived-in than if it were just named characters, but they were a little too nondescript for my taste even with well-written flavor text. It's funny that the villager is also a common enemy type out in the world. As if the only thing separating them between blindly attacking you and sharing a roof with you is the village border. Home is a line of sanity, I guess.
Desaturated clay is a good look for Ashen. Much of the world is gray, true to its name, but much of it's also sun-kissed and golden red. Much more of it, still, is pitch black and requires a lantern to explore. The lack of details on the environmental textures and the lack of features on characters' faces invited me to appreciate the aesthetic more holistically. It's less about individual leaves in the wind and more about the collective people in a storm. I enjoyed how anonymous the player character is. You're made to go everywhere with a companion, but which one depends on the selected quest, and the emptiness of my own character led me to latch on more to these supporters. It also eased that dungeon anxiety to have a companion -- a piece of my safe haven -- with me at all times. They make the wilderness easier to overcome, both in combat and traversal. I'm pretty sure main story exploration outright requires a companion to progress, and while skilled players can defeat enemies in combat alone, a companion goes a long way. I don't have PlayStation Plus, so mine was never another player but an AI, to which I'd give a grade of B+. There were a couple of glitchy moments (I once lost, like, 60k of in-game currency to my companion being unable to revive me by getting stuck in a doorway), and they don't always fight strategically, but for the most part they do what they're supposed to. One of the boss fight strategies was to lure them towards me and just let my companion strike from behind the whole time. I still haven't decided if that was smart characterization for that particular boss or poor game design. Maybe it's one sacrificed for the other? It was at the end of a dungeon that was a total son of a bitch, so I didn't mind.
Admittedly, I didn't grab on to the central narrative or lore much. You're trying to revive some being of light called the Ashen that will guide this world from out of darkness. I think. Everything lives in the ruins of a once-great empire, which made for a pretty cool level design. I did generally latch on to most of the main and side characters. Peg-legged guy looking for his tools and eventually his younger sister. The woman hellbent on curing a disease that another main character has by sending you out to fight stronger and stranger creatures she can study. Another woman whose quests involve bringing back each of her five senses until she's whole again. A couple of godlike beings whose stature against your tiny character is breathtaking. What they lack in facial features is more than made up by height, color, shape, and costume design. Even the fact that swords aren't a thing in this world and you're stuck with variations of axes and clubs gives it a distinct primitive personality. While the combat is pretty basic with light and heavy attack combos and dodge rolls, individual weapons have such nuance to their playstyle, you could stick with early-game weapons the entire time if it suits you -- as long as you keep them leveled up via crafting. I do advise swapping out for newer shields, though.
All told, Ashen is pleasing to the eye, fairly short, and it understands that home is other people. Check it out!
The promise of wayfaring out into a withered world and shepherding weary souls back to a village that's always expanding is what drew me to Ashen.
It's a concept I've loved in games like Dark Cloud 2 and Ys 8, and I enjoy it most when I don't have to do any of the base-building or resource management of growing that village. In this soulslike you simply find people out in the wilderness, and every time you return home to Vagrant's Rest after a new main or side quest, you'll find that a pile of rocks has become a scaffolding and eventually a whole new house. I get "dungeon anxiety" pretty easily -- it's part of the fun -- but the relief that comes with the safety of reaching a new town after a treacherous dungeon feels more profound when it's the warmth of a familiar home that has welcomed new life.
This is my third soulslike after Nioh and Sekiro (I haven't played an actual Dark Souls), and while it's much easier than both of those games, it's still harder than a typical action adventure or action RPG. Enemies lash out from any and all corners, and I spent every run learning the nuances of an area until my next inevitable death. This one lets you recharge your health at ritual stones (its bonfires) without having to reset the area, which makes it more approachable than other games in this genre. The world is both dour and lively, but every bit of life out there is marked for death by your hands unless they're a story character or trader. Two repeat character models (villager and trader) also find their way back to Vagrant's Rest without you having to explicitly recruit them. They make things much more lived-in than if it were just named characters, but they were a little too nondescript for my taste even with well-written flavor text. It's funny that the villager is also a common enemy type out in the world. As if the only thing separating them between blindly attacking you and sharing a roof with you is the village border. Home is a line of sanity, I guess.
Desaturated clay is a good look for Ashen. Much of the world is gray, true to its name, but much of it's also sun-kissed and golden red. Much more of it, still, is pitch black and requires a lantern to explore. The lack of details on the environmental textures and the lack of features on characters' faces invited me to appreciate the aesthetic more holistically. It's less about individual leaves in the wind and more about the collective people in a storm. I enjoyed how anonymous the player character is. You're made to go everywhere with a companion, but which one depends on the selected quest, and the emptiness of my own character led me to latch on more to these supporters. It also eased that dungeon anxiety to have a companion -- a piece of my safe haven -- with me at all times. They make the wilderness easier to overcome, both in combat and traversal. I'm pretty sure main story exploration outright requires a companion to progress, and while skilled players can defeat enemies in combat alone, a companion goes a long way. I don't have PlayStation Plus, so mine was never another player but an AI, to which I'd give a grade of B+. There were a couple of glitchy moments (I once lost, like, 60k of in-game currency to my companion being unable to revive me by getting stuck in a doorway), and they don't always fight strategically, but for the most part they do what they're supposed to. One of the boss fight strategies was to lure them towards me and just let my companion strike from behind the whole time. I still haven't decided if that was smart characterization for that particular boss or poor game design. Maybe it's one sacrificed for the other? It was at the end of a dungeon that was a total son of a bitch, so I didn't mind.
Admittedly, I didn't grab on to the central narrative or lore much. You're trying to revive some being of light called the Ashen that will guide this world from out of darkness. I think. Everything lives in the ruins of a once-great empire, which made for a pretty cool level design. I did generally latch on to most of the main and side characters. Peg-legged guy looking for his tools and eventually his younger sister. The woman hellbent on curing a disease that another main character has by sending you out to fight stronger and stranger creatures she can study. Another woman whose quests involve bringing back each of her five senses until she's whole again. A couple of godlike beings whose stature against your tiny character is breathtaking. What they lack in facial features is more than made up by height, color, shape, and costume design. Even the fact that swords aren't a thing in this world and you're stuck with variations of axes and clubs gives it a distinct primitive personality. While the combat is pretty basic with light and heavy attack combos and dodge rolls, individual weapons have such nuance to their playstyle, you could stick with early-game weapons the entire time if it suits you -- as long as you keep them leveled up via crafting. I do advise swapping out for newer shields, though.
All told, Ashen is pleasing to the eye, fairly short, and it understands that home is other people. Check it out!