Spectral Ascension is a new Battle Royale game, that just released this week. It describes itself as a Brawler, but I would compare it more to other magic based BRs like Spellbreak or Valgrave.
There are 4 different combat abilities for every character. The standard attack is a magical missile spell. The side spells contain a bomb of thorns, which explodes after a few seconds and a wall of thorns, which damages players inside of it. The side spells btw can also damage the player, who casts them. And there is also an ultimate ability, which will only rarely be used, since it takes a long time to fill up (there is however an ultimate pickup). The ultimate ability summons a bunch of big mushrooms, which apparently also damage players. All 4 abilities can be upgraded till level 4, with upgrade points, that players will be rewarded by after every round.
This is also something special about Spectral Ascension. It is a round based Battle Royale game, similar to games like Bean Battles. The player, who scores the most points after 4 rounds of Battle Royale will be declared the winner of the match. The most points will be rewarded for the placement in the round, but there are also additional points for kills. The winner of the most rounds however is a lot more likely to be the Top player than the player with the most kills. Currently there is only a Solo mode and no Duo or Squad options.
Spectral Ascension is a smaller Battle Royale game by the new indie developer Spectral Studios. This smaller scale also shows itself in the maximum amount of players per match, which is just 8. The map of the game however is adjusted to this size. In comparison to other BR games the Spirit Forest map definitely seems smaller, but it does fit rather well for 8 players in a round based BR (It could still be a little bigger, but isn't a real issue). The map has a nice elven kingdom vibe. There is a large world tree, there are a lot of mushrooms, purple flower trees, magical crystals and particles floating through the air. It all creates a really nice vibe and I definitely like this map. Even a lot of bigger BRs have less atmospheric maps than the Spirit Forest.
The speed of the closing zones is pretty fast. It will often just take 30-45 seconds between the circles for the next zone too close and at the beginning of the match it can be difficult to see whether you are inside the next zone or outside of it, since it glows yellow from both sides. This fast pace however is fitting, if you consider, that the devs were apparently aiming for an arena like style for their BR game and with the smaller map and less players, it kind of makes sense.
Not only is the zone fast, but so are the players. The movement speed is really fast in comparison to practically all other games. The only one that comes close is probably Hyper Scape. Funny enough your character is going to side strafe as fast as he is running forward, which just looks hilarious. Characters can also jump pretty high and there is an additional forward dash ability, which can be used up to 3 times in a row and which fully recharges in only a few seconds. Movement is therefore a key factor of the gameplay and probably as important as the different spell abilities.
There is currently only one character model in the game for all players, which is a female witch. She however looks pretty fitting to the setting. Visuals are generally pretty decent, even though the texture quality is certainly lower than in the bigger BR games. In this aspect you can certainly see, that Spectral Ascension is being developed by a smaller studio.
The background soundtrack during gameplay is pretty decent and sound effects work okay. Sound, visuals and controls also offer some decent customizability options.
There are currently (release week) also very few players. I once managed to get into a match with 4 other players, but for the most part of the day nobody else will be queuing, which is going to make it hard for new players to stick around. Perhaps the developers should try to implement a bit more marketing for the game, since I only discovered it via an active Steam search for new BR games (alternatively the implementation of Bots could be considered to give new players a chance to try the gameplay out).
Pro:
- Magic based Battle Royale Game
- Great movement
- Map and setting are fitting
- Pretty decent soundtrack
Contra:
- Only round based BR
- Currently very few players
(- Abilities are the same for all players, no selection)
(- Only 1 character model for all players)
Result:
Spectral Ascension is a surprisingly decent new BR game. I am personally not the biggest fan of this round based BR approach, but the game got a couple of things to offer. It provides a different magic BR style than Spellbreak or Valgrave, the map is really atmospheric and pretty well designed and the movement in the game is fast and feels good. I personally would have preferred to be able to choose between different spell abilities instead of all being usable by every player and a bigger player maximum would have also been nice to see (perhaps we could see something like a Duo mode with more players in the future...). The lack of players is also a big problem, since it is really hard to actually try this game out. I however recommend doing so, if you are interested in either magic or round based Battle Royale games.
5.75/10
