Ascend: Reborn

A great remaster of a fantastic 360 era 3rd person action, with unique mechanics and a host of community features this game is underated af. My only regret is not knowing this remaster came out sooner. The game is insanely fun and though while certainly not perfect, is a splendid time if you lower your standards a bit. Considering the time the original came out and it is free, I don't see how that'll be hard. Unfortunately the player base is basically dead, with me only having two organic encounters with players so far (at original writing time). That said this game was way ahead of its time and has a ton of features to negate that feeling. Particularly the ascendancy system, which leaves behind clones of peoples caos (player characters) that fight in a never ending crusade against active players serving differing gods. Meaning that you could be the only person on and still encounter others. I will say it pays to be smart about how you play as there is only one currency and saving/spending it the right way is the best way to stay flushed with souls without breaking the bank to buy em with real money. So here is a few pieces of advice to new players, for saving souls: -Beginning at the beginning DO NOT spend souls on starting equipment, in fact spend as FEW SOULS AS POSSIBLE on you first Caos. Not only will this save you a handful for your first ascension, it will begin to cement strategies to circumvent your soul spending at all. -Upon reaching level five outside the 4th and last tutorial zone (the one with two shrines and one altar), you will get the option to ascend. Do this AS EARLY AS RESPONSIBLE each time. This is because xp = time = souls. And ascending gives you permanent buffs and better respective gear longer which means less souls spent on them. -In your first and subsequent ascensions buy up to 4 legacy item plaques for a total of 5 and begin rotating in your best armor pieces and most importantly weapon, one of each in a slot. NEVER BUY STARTER LVL 1 EQUIPMENT. This is because you are effectively wasting souls when you could keep using legacy items for free aside from the starting fee. -Now this is a long term tip, in order of safest to spend souls on to most risky: Legacy plaques 2-5 (I believe they go away after transcend but are well worth it for the souls they save in the long run every time) - XP boost (1.5x XP that will help fast track leveling which you will do A LOT OF, to my knowledge aside from the weekly they don't count down out of game) > Cosmetic Stuff (caos heads, hairs, beards, skin and hair colors, etc. this will sound weird but they are the one thing you never lose even on transcending, but are just cosmetic) > spells (buying more than one is technically wasteful as you get 4 for free, but upgrades never are, and even then more options are not a bad thing and these don't leave you til you transcend at level 60) > sure bets > items and runes (keep track of item levels and learn to identify potential upgrades as soon as possible, this is because upgrade and repairing will eat up your souls as you get to 3-5lvl and a visit to the repair anvil in valley of pilgrims before logging can remedy the basic item repair, still inevitably you will want runes the best of which can get pricey) > crusade spells (only buy these as needed when you encounter other players for the achievement if you want em, still though the banish, curse and bless achievements are easy to get with friends) > other non xp boosts (if you get stuck on a fight or just want a bit of pressure off your shoulder in whichever way for a while by all means, I just would not get nuts with any one of these and refresh em too much) > Any 6th or 6th+ legacy plaque (good for backup items not consumables unless death stacked) > Risky > Alignment Masks (Breaking into enemy gods dungeons can be lucrative but doing it wrong can cost souls, I'd wait until you've found at least the 3rd dungeon of each god and try to go for all three in order AFTER doing it on your gods first each time, do not buy a 2nd enemy god mask while one is still active) > Wasteful > Any items that do not give something back to you that cost souls (Starter items, items bought from the store and you don't get your moneys worth from, runes accidentally socketed on the wrong items, etc. AVOID THESE IF YOU CAN.) -Find weapons that you are most comfortable with in the combo hit sense, for me that was two handed with the 2 light then 2 heavy combo as it kept me from getting hit often by attacks while building up my multiplies for more souls. Though if a different works better than by all means. -Consider keeping a backup weapon and armor piece so that you don't HAVE to repair and spend souls and can instead just repair them at the forge in valley of the pilgrims for free. (Note: Idk if items that aren't equipped are repaired, if they aren't though you could probably just equip them then repair if you have another bit of downtime to login but not play). -As you progress through the game you get territory, but ascending to another god makes you lose that territory to your former god. If you know or feel like you may be away from the game for awhile don't do it after ascending until you get that territory back or simply put off that ascension until you come back. This is because that territory actually pays you. And that should about cover it for player to player recommendations, if I come up with more I will edit my review. But now I wanted to if I may be so bold, recommend things to the devs. I think I have some ideas how to bring people back even if its only to get their foot in the door and encourage new people to join at the same time, these ideas I give freely to you. -Your scoreboard systems are an insanely cool feature that should be keeping people interested as much as its getting em into the door, but you have a huge problem. There are scores on there which through fair means or foul, simply aren't going to be topped anytime soon. If your willing to respect them I am sure they are legit enough to be memorialized on an "all time board", but doing so won't give anybody anything to aspire for, so why not give the thrones to weekly scores? You could put the all time holders on a list to the right or something so people have things to aspire to getting and keeping. -I genuinely believe that you can respect the historical contributions of the people who came before while giving the current player base something to aspire to, why not take that advice and expand it to the crusade? Keep ascendents running around same as before, but only count contributions to the ongoing conflict from ACTIVE players that week. Cause otherwise its just gonna be darkness forever. If the hosts felt like they could actually contribute to the war more people would play the main story out and care about keeping their worlds alinement into place with their active god. -Only take this to heart if your looking for more content ideas but it would be really cool if there was more interplay around the crusade. Make it so that we could designate a rival player, challenge their ascended champions or even them directly for territory or something. And as far as coop maybe a clan system, complete with leaderboards the clan as a whole contributes to. -On the monetary/player count side of things I believe that your biggest issue is publicity. Though I can't speak for its efficacy personally, I feel like perhaps you need to take a more modern approach to game publicity. I feel like Ascend could do well in the modern way a lot of games get their name out. That is to say negotiate deals with content creators of varying sizes for varying amounts. And that's my review! I'm trying to get my friends into the game, I truly believe this game is criminally underrated and incredibly creative.

Game doesn't even work, the servers are down and never seem to be up

Boring

Playing this game again is just a blast from the past. Every once in a while I would think back to my favorite old Xbox 360 games, and Ascend: hand of Kul is one that would always come to mind. I was crushed to learn that the servers were shut down, and there was almost no way to play the game anymore. Upon learning TODAY that this game has had a revival through Ascend: reborn, I can confidently say, you all will see me climb to the top of the leaderboards, something i missed out on as a kid for some reason.

"The Ascend service is not available, please try again later." Doesn't matter how many times I try, VPN or not, it just refuses to work. I was really starting to enjoy this game until it basically locked me out. Devs, I beg of you: PLEASE fix this!

im very excited to play a forgotten xbox 360 favorite again, need more friends to play and the randome bugsplat crashes are manageable but overall love the scale and the idea behind this game played it n loved it on 360 n now its been brought back just like another lost gem city of heros/villains so happy ppl are bringing back good games on dedicated servers n free to play ill donate to the cause as well,.

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