In the moments where Astral Ascent comes together, it absolutely deserves to be mentioned right along with the inspirations that it so clearly wears on its sleeve. However, it struggles to maintain that quality all the way through, and does not always execute well on some genre staples in a way that severely undercuts its overall potential.
Starting with the good: Astral Ascent's core combat, movement, and enemy design is an absolute delight. Every fight feels responsive, beautiful, and high-octane in a way that is really gripping, and its difficulty curve is surprisingly good, offering some very clear ways to learn and improve on its combat at all times, without being overwhelming to start. It runs a good balance of making you feel competent, while still always having the carrot of even better skill and harder challenges for you to chase.
Unfortunately, outside of its stellar core loop, Astral Ascent's quality lags heavily. To put it simply, Astral Ascent is very broad, offering a truly staggering amount of unique content, spells, and storylets. However, this commitment to breadth really undercuts a lot of what it is hoping to achieve. Individual boons throughout a playthrough vary from totally gamebreaking to completely and utterly irrelevant. Truly, the amount of times this game offers as a reward a "10% chance for X effect" where x effect is something totally minor will drive you mad. The result of this was eventually realizing that a grand majority of the systems here just aren't rewarding enough to care about, and the game is more fun if you don't think too hard about your build - and genuinely, the difficulty rarely punished me for this kind of thinking. This is a serious disappointment in a genre that boasts games like Hades and Dead Cells, where building your character carefully and intelligently over a run is one of the major thrills.
The story suffers almost the same problem. There is an absolute glut of characters here, most of which we do not get to spend enough time with to really care about, and the presence of four main characters who's engagements in the story vary wildly only serves to further muddy the waters of relationships and stakes. The game has a lot of cool character designs and worldbuilding ideas but they are totally buried under the sheer weight of the game having to balance the need to maintain a relatively breezy pace while still giving everyone time to shine. Despite my best attempts to read everything and really invest myself, the story was something that also fell away the longer I spent with this game.
In all, Astral Ascent is a very impressive second outing from Hibernian Worlds, in that its peaks are very reminiscent of the greats it has clearly modeled itself on. Unfortunately, it is a game that feels the whole way through like it would've benefited greatly from some more aggressive editing to isolate only the parts of it that were good. As it stands, its a little bit bloated, a little bit unfocused, and a lot bit shallow. Good for a jaunt, but not necessarily a favorite.
Starting with the good: Astral Ascent's core combat, movement, and enemy design is an absolute delight. Every fight feels responsive, beautiful, and high-octane in a way that is really gripping, and its difficulty curve is surprisingly good, offering some very clear ways to learn and improve on its combat at all times, without being overwhelming to start. It runs a good balance of making you feel competent, while still always having the carrot of even better skill and harder challenges for you to chase.
Unfortunately, outside of its stellar core loop, Astral Ascent's quality lags heavily. To put it simply, Astral Ascent is very broad, offering a truly staggering amount of unique content, spells, and storylets. However, this commitment to breadth really undercuts a lot of what it is hoping to achieve. Individual boons throughout a playthrough vary from totally gamebreaking to completely and utterly irrelevant. Truly, the amount of times this game offers as a reward a "10% chance for X effect" where x effect is something totally minor will drive you mad. The result of this was eventually realizing that a grand majority of the systems here just aren't rewarding enough to care about, and the game is more fun if you don't think too hard about your build - and genuinely, the difficulty rarely punished me for this kind of thinking. This is a serious disappointment in a genre that boasts games like Hades and Dead Cells, where building your character carefully and intelligently over a run is one of the major thrills.
The story suffers almost the same problem. There is an absolute glut of characters here, most of which we do not get to spend enough time with to really care about, and the presence of four main characters who's engagements in the story vary wildly only serves to further muddy the waters of relationships and stakes. The game has a lot of cool character designs and worldbuilding ideas but they are totally buried under the sheer weight of the game having to balance the need to maintain a relatively breezy pace while still giving everyone time to shine. Despite my best attempts to read everything and really invest myself, the story was something that also fell away the longer I spent with this game.
In all, Astral Ascent is a very impressive second outing from Hibernian Worlds, in that its peaks are very reminiscent of the greats it has clearly modeled itself on. Unfortunately, it is a game that feels the whole way through like it would've benefited greatly from some more aggressive editing to isolate only the parts of it that were good. As it stands, its a little bit bloated, a little bit unfocused, and a lot bit shallow. Good for a jaunt, but not necessarily a favorite.