Drowning Ashes

Drowning Ashes is a very strategic and challenging game that involves collecting monsters who will help make up your party. The strategic element revolves around recruiting monsters that are strong against enemy monsters you'll encounter in each area. Although there is no tutorial, you'll learn that there are melee as well as elemental relationships. For example, a hammer that does crush damage will be strong against skeletons; light spells will also be strong against skeletons. When you hit a monster that is weak to your attack, a critical strike is awarded. Not only will you deal high damage, but you'll get a second turn plus the monster will lose its turn for one round. So if you encounter 3 skeletons, you can attack each one, back to back to back, landing critical blows on each and causing all of them to lose their turn. You'll need to utilize these advantages in every battle since the monsters get quite strong as the game progresses - especially boss fights. Battles can be quite challenging at the end since most monsters will have elemental attacks that target your entire party and deal massive damage. What makes this more daunting is there are no group heals - only single target heals. So a huge part of the game is neutralizing as many monsters and defeat them one by one. If you do not employ this strategy in the late game, a group of 4 monsters can easily defeat your party. The story itself so far is rather short, having a couple maps to explore. The only NPCs you'll encounter are merchants that'll sell you various goods. I'd say the story is about 3 hours long but I spent 11 hours playing the game, with most of it grinding levels and earning ash (the currency used to buy items) as well as getting my team strong enough to defeat several bosses. For instance, the monsters in the last area are about level 33 or so - yet I had to get my party to level 50 to defeat the main boss.

would whole heartedly recommend this game! have played for a little over an hour and it is truly feeling like a souls game. The difficulty is challenging but doesn't feel punishing if you take the time to learn the combat mechanics. The recruitment element and team building is a refreshing touch and is an amazing addition to the genre (Am running around with my goblin friend George living our best lives). Anyone who enjoys souls likes and old school jrpgs should definitely give this game a go! 10/10

I’ve been having a great time with Drowning Ashes so far. If you grew up loving RPG Maker games and also enjoy the challenge of souls style combat, this is a really cool mix. It honestly feels like Pokemon meets Dark Souls with nostalgic old school visuals. (Which somehow totally works??? It slaps???) Even in early access there is already a strong foundation. The story is not finished yet, but what is here pulled me in. The writing feels solid and the pacing is good so far. I’m genuinely curious to see where it goes next. The balance is one of the highlights for me. The game is hard, but it feels fair. You learn, you adapt, you try again, and when things finally click it feels earned. Exploring, figuring out enemies, and recruiting different monsters becomes a really satisfying loop. Since it is early access there are some rough edges and a bit of jank in places, which is expected. That being said, the dev regularly updates so things are fixed quickly and improved upon. Like all soulslike games some systems aren't fully explained and you are left to figure them out for yourself, but I personally like this. It just feeds the exploration, experimentation and learning that is a core component of the soulslike experience. If you like tough but rewarding RPGs, monster recruiting, and that classic RPG Maker feel, this is definitely worth checking out. I’m excited to see how it grows over time.

BLUF: Really fun classic Turn-Based RPG with creature collection! High replay-ability since there is a point after completing most of the game you can reset while keeping your level, equipment, and creatures! If you grinded as much as I did you'll be a level 75 just ripping through the creatures collecting even more rare weapons! First playthrough was as Warrior and took about 14 hours to complete all the way up-to current content cap in early access but I will definitely be waiting for more updates to the story! Love the art-style and appreciate that they embraced the darkness with more demonic looking monsters, the Corpse Eater is nightmare-fuel but has the funniest attack sound.

I am thoroughly enjoying this game, I'm glad I bought it so far. It's a great classic turn-based RPG that puts you right into the fun of things. I like it when you're thrown into a world without having an hour of story to get through first. I really enjoy the dark aesthetic and art of the game as well. This is definitely a indie title I hope gets finished.

Its a good game, souls-like themed, you can select your character class and hire enemies you defeat which nice, almost like collecting the pokemons you like.

I love these types of classic RPGs with recruitment systems, it's got a lot of potential. In its current state it's missing a few crucial quality-of-life features, but that's to be expected since it's still in early access and the developer is making great updates consistently.

11/10 must play.

My expectations were low going into it, but I found myself pleasantly surprised by how much I have enjoyed it so far. It is, as others have written, a combination of Shin Megami Tensei (SMT) turn based combat mechanics and Souls-like exploration. Difficulty is not quite souls-like, but it requires good use of the "press turn"-like system (SMT) in combat to come out on top of most encounters.