Demon Hunter 5: Ascendance

At first I wanted to go full on berserk rant but then I realized the overall art style and general structure of the game made by these developers still stands out far better than any other games in the genre, so I decided to calm myself down and up vote this game. Still, there are many flaws that could be pointed out. First, there are even less hidden objects games - even less than Demon Hunter 4, I think. The hidden objects games these developers make are the sole reason why they were able to obtain this monopolistic position of the genre, and yet they are deliberately choosing to reduce them and not only that, they went one step further and found a way to make them less fun, such as finding just one specific item per game, like gears or cards, instead of finding individual objects that hide in plain sight. Second, there are more ridiculous puzzles and more absurd ways to solve them. Ready to break a car window with a ceramic garden gnome? When you have an axe, rock, toolbox, crowbar, plank, wrench, hammer, baseball bat, sword, and even a chair lying around? Be their guest. I just can’t believe they value more of this nonsense over their masterpiece of hidden objects games. Third, the story has nothing to do with previous series. NOTHING. You think Demon Hunter 4 derailed from the main plot? At least that one had characters from previous series. This one? Nada! I'm actually baffled as to why they even named this game as Demon Hunter. Why? Just because they mention Professor Ashmore a few times? So If I read a few articles or books about Third Kingdom, is my story sequel of Third Kingdom too? According to these developers, Yes. Lastly, the cop looks horrible. The cop alone tanks down the quality of this game. I am not exaggerating. He looks HORRIBLE. And then (heuheuheuheuheuheu 🤣) he gets into this situation where he looks even worse! I think that’s when I decided to rant on the review page, initially. Hahahaheu Man! 😂

Soulless HO game, no pun intended. The HO scenes are certainly not the focus of the game. Puzzles are standard and not innovative. The logic puzzles were pretty bad, e.g. using garden shears for plants to cut through a wire fence.

Worked fine, puzzles are okay, voice acting is awful, story is insipid but also wrong.

I like it

This is a solid entry in a mostly-reliable series. A good mix of overworld puzzles, HO scenes and minigames. Art was generally good, the music loop was atmospheric, but very short. Decent length and bonus objectives. Recommended.

By far this game is the best in the Demon Hunter series and it doesn't even relate to the previous 4 games! Silly but enjoyable plot about being a Demon Hunter who is tricked into being in a reality show broadcast while investigating a museum. There was a good variety of voiced characters with enjoyable cutscenes. Hidden object scenes were easy and the puzzles (outside of a few rotators and sliders) were decent overall. For around a 3 hour play time I don't think this is worth the full price but on a good sale it would be a fine pickup.

It's good, I like it. The story-line is a little campy and the MC is surprisingly casual about the body-count. But the pace is good, the puzzles are engaging, make sense and are mostly consistent. They don't make you flip back and forth to the journal to do them (like in some games), and the music isn't grating. When MC picks something up you know what it's for or figure it out quickly. My only true complaint is that some of the dialogue was clipped short, and the sound effects of the card mini-game are awful. Also (spoilers) why is this man so afraid of angry cats, but big-ass spiders are fine. He even gets bitten (by a spider) at one point, but noooo it's the CAT that's scary

Really enjoyed the atmosphere of this one, it was genuinely creepy at first. Seemed to get a bit lost towards the end though, and the puzzles were a bit silly (I laughed at how many times I got in and out of a burning car, struggling to find out what to do). There is at least one puzzle that is an exact copy of a puzzle from a previous game, but overall I enjoyed this one. It doesn't seem to have a connection to the other Demon Hunter games, so you could start with this one if you want

这个主人公大概是我玩过这个公司作品里最倒霉的探员。别人的嗅盐都是找到了直接用，他还要自己制作，请来的帽子起到了别的游戏里动物+患者的作用；连手电筒都要修两次。除了场景设计比较有意思，风格鲜明，其他真的很无聊，很冗余。

I think I've thumbed-down the entire series at this point so the only reason this one gets a blue thumb is because it stands alone (there is no connection to the previous four games) and arguably has more quality applied to it than previous outings. That's not to say that it's a good game, mind you - it's just kinda okay. Most importantly, it leans heavier into straightforward adventure game and the H.O. scenes are sparse. Most of the game is inventory puzzling like classic PNC adventures so if you're into that, great. If you're here for the scenes... there aren't many and what's there is pretty easy. At least they got rid of morphing objects! It took long enough. There's little in the way of saving graces, but as always, the scene art is pretty good and the environments are well-realized so you're never guessing at what you're looking at. Some of the elements are reused from previous games, but it's nothing to get upset about. Other than that, the story is ridiculous, the human characters hit a weird uncomfortable space where they're not quite uncanny-valley, but they're not quite easy on the eyes, either. The voice acting is what we usually expect from these games and for some reason, there's a really weird ass-pull at the end of the game to tie it to the extra scenario... that, or I wasn't paying attention to the intro. Either way, this is a [i]safe[/i] game and you shouldn't expect any surprises. If you've played any prior Brave Giant-developed game, then you know what to expect. Some of the stuff that usually bothers me in these games make their return here like the three-wheel bead puzzle and the balancing-beam "action" sequence. Both are stupid. I hate them. Everything else is pretty standard fare with simple brain teasers, inventory puzzles, and just clicking around until you find the next thing to do. One thing is that even though you can easily solve something, you're often not allowed to until you get the actual clue (or outright solution) from the environment. Pretty annoying, especially when the game just gives you the answer instead of letting you figure it out. This is a HOG for people who want to walk down easy street. Get it on sale or not at all. You should only consider it if you've got idle hands and nothing better to do.