Astral Ascent

好玩，难度不变态，技能酷炫，爽感十足。局外养成也有不少乐趣！

I can not for the life of me see how this game has flown under the radar for so long. With the amount of effort and love put into it you would think this would of blown up and hit mainstream status like dead cells and binding of isaac. Yet somehow this hidden gem came out in 2023 and hands down beat MULTIPLE "triple" A titles and modern releases by a land slide. The fine tune balance is absurd; I have done multiple destiny runs each very different from the last and none of them feel "meta" or pipelined into a single choice. Hell I've even done weapon only no spells and running raw stats LOL. There is 0 reason to wait to buy in fact I got this on sale and immediately bought the DLC, artbook, and soundtrack because it felt so bad not supporting this project and I'll be damned if they stop support because it's no longer sustainable. If you find any sort of joy or fun in this genre you are doing yourself a disservice not owning this one. Double so if you are a seasoned roguelite enjoyer because the amount of viability and mix-n-match is by far unrivaled imo. AND the rng is forgiving with both banishes and reroll and they are optional? Get it... Four base characters with 4 weapons and each weapons has 3 "aspects" or "enchantments". Ranging from straight up changing the playstyle or give bonuses without changing the identity (like gain a whirlwind slash for big ol' greatsword). Beat the game with base weapon, unlock the difficulty slider, per most roguelites, and beat it with the enhanced difficulty. This unlocks new meta progressions that range from minor stuff like more hp, more base crit chance, to buying second lifes, resetting rerolls, and game play changes like starting off your run with an aura (blessings/boons/artifact whichever you are more familiar with)) between basic to legendary rarity depending on investment. Game offers multiple in game mini-games that are completely optional but very rewarding should you choose to venture off in a side quest on your way to beat the big bad but can be skipped with the sun tokens the farmable currency you get for doing runs and killing enemies. For instance the first character has an enhancement unlock condition that says kill 5 enemies while airborne and dont touch the ground while doing so. Second character you get is a melee specialist with a counter and he has an aspect you get by hitting 5 counter attacks on the same enemy. Some of the mini-games come from the bosses, like playing wack-a-mole or playing the floor is lava lol. Both the weapon enhancements that alter gameplay and the gaining of zodiac favors for zodiac ultimate abilities can be bypassed with the farmable currency and it's the games way of creating a currency sink in the later parts of the game once you have your meta progression capping out. All and all I regret not knowing about this game sooner. Will be slapping this as my nominee for labor of love moving forward. May support never end and my wallet help prolong the lifespan of this game. May there also be a great sequel one that everyone talks about like silksong, hades 2, and helldiver 2 because we can't let this dev team go out when gems aren't as abundant in the modern slop ages!!

刚上手或许有些不习惯，很乱找不到自己在哪，缺魔法，新手教程也不多，但新更新有了更细的教程，虽然有些没翻译好。 玩明白之后才发现是爽游，光环搭配技能和附魔能很快成型，很有创意，非常期待新作！！

我菜逼，所以不推荐。 [h1] 太长了不看 [/h1] 1. 海量的局外成长。 2. 太吃技术了。boss 演出又花又出伤快，还是大范围伤害。小怪也是范围伤害。 3. 不知道是我没解锁完局外还是啥。ban位紧缺，局内太随机，导致上下限差很多。一个技能有插槽、法术、等级，四个养成方向，根本不能面面俱到。

The game has immaculate vibes: setting, music, character design, visuals, dialogue all lend to a really upbeat and whimsical world that I found to be pretty immersive, and this was the highlight of the game for me. But the combat BLOWS. I'm sorry. It's not good. It has no substance. While there are tons of different skills, it feels meaningless which ones you actually choose, because they serve solely as vehicles for your elemental modifiers and auras. Good skill design makes your choices affect your actual gameplan and strategy for fighting enemies. But in Astral Ascent the gameplan is the same no matter what skills you have: mash every skill in order while autoing in between them to generate mana. They look different, but that's it. It doesn't matter if your skill shoots a laser, throws out shurikens, summons spirits, or does a groundpound. It's the same thing. There is never a situation where you're specifically wanting to use one skill over another, which makes them feel functionally identical. And even if you do want to use a specific skill, they're all mapped to the same button for some reason because you're meant to cycle them in order. So even the control scheme clues you in to the fact that there isn't meant to be thought into using your skills strategically. And then you get access to summons, and it's exactly the same thing. Do I want this summon that damages the screen in a wide aoe, this other summon that damages the screen in a wide aoe, this other summon that damages the screen in wide aoe, this other summon that damages the screen in a wide aoe, or this other summon that.. yep, you guessed it... damages the screen in a wide aoe? Sure, the conditions they proc on are different, but it all ends up with the same result. Conversely, In a game like Dead Cells, your choices drastically change your combat strategy. Using a whip, vs firebrands, vs crossbow, vs crowbar, vs broadsword, vs shields or grenades or traps or turrets... everything actually FEELS different to use and you have to adjust depending on what you're using. Skul is another great example, the skull you're using + the skills available to them very much alter what you're doing in combat. I just don't see the point of making your game build-centric when every build plays exactly the same. Nothing you choose in Astral Ascent changes how you approach enemies. It's just more numbers with different colors. I played a slime / sapling summoning build, a burn build, an ice build, a lightning build, all with entirely different skills, and somehow they all felt exactly the same. It really doesn't help that basic attacks only exist to regenerate mana. In many of the roguelike greats, basic attacks can create a lot of diversity in gameplay depending on what you're using: look at Hades and your choice of weapon, using bow basics vs shield basics vs fist basics sword basics are all drastically different gameplay styles. But in Astral Ascent every character just spams a very similar basic combo that exists just to get them to... spam their bland skills more. The only way your gameplay differs is through the characters' unique skills - the ninja girl gets a teleport, and the fire punch guy gets a parry, for example. But that's one single skill per character. That's it. The other big reason the combat falls flat is the enemy behavior. There isn't enough going on with the enemies to make you have to do anything other than spam. There might be one or two times per map that you feel you have to dodge something, but for the most part they feel like combat dummies that you're testing your power-fantasy damage numbers on. Boss fights are fun only because THEIR attacks are cool and fun to dodge, your own attacks feel like a non-event comparatively. I wanna reiterate that I really love this game's universe and worldbuilding. But I can't forgive the combat. It feels lazy. And it seems to be created to appeal to the same type of audience that enjoys games like Vampire Survivors - lots of flashy effects with minimal brain activity.

This was nice game. Just jumpong, killing ugly monsters, and again jumping. I like it. But its too pixelazed for my old eyes :) I CAN RECOMMEND TO MY FRIEND EVEN MY GRANDMA.

rapido, frenetico, colorido. una vez que entendes las sinergias cada run se vuelve muy divertida, y te hace sentir rotisimo si tenes buenos combos de auras y hechizos. despues de cada run la progresion de siente y te recompensa para seguir intentando. los bosses son todos muy diferentes y complicados aun cuando reconoces los patrones de ataque. lo que mas me gusto a mi personalmente es la movilidad dentro del mapa y los diseños de todo. este juego tiene un arte hermoso. aunque tengo que admitir que en las etapas late de las runs cuando peleas contra un jefe es dificl distinguir que pasa en pantalla, pero fuera de eso es un juego muy bonito a la vista. recomiendo mucho darle una oportunidad a este juego, es muy divertido 10/10