The UI is a horrific beast one has to tame, especially when it comes to navigation. Whether it’s health bars, status effects, item drops, pickups, objectives 一 all of it is reduced to small icons or tiny text stuck in the corners, so as to not disrupt the vistas painted with blood, sweat, and tears. The game boasts a gorgeous hand-drawn art style and likes to pair it with minimal UI design, which isn’t executed as well as you’d expect. The problems arise when it comes to how transparent Astria Ascending wants to be. Whether it’s allowing someone to tank hits with taunting and a high DEF stat, a continuous stream of healing, or an overload of elemental attacks, it’s neat to see them snugly fit into it. It’s an ambitious attempt at furthering dedicated roles instead of balancing, and it’s fun to try and figure out who should do what. Some of these mechanics can be found in the skill trees, or at least one of the four you can implement for each character. If you’re expecting factors like attacks having range, a turn timeline to strategise, or detailed enemy information, you won’t find it here. While the battlefield is grid-based, the implications for tactical advantage are gone. It’s quite clear that Astria Ascending is opting for an old-school JRPG approach to its gameplay, in which a lot of its battle mechanics are aggressively streamlined. While there is a focus on making sure all eight characters cover the factors that come with JRPG turf, it’s fairly weak and inaccurate, especially in how you approach battles. Your eight characters have their roles, whether it’s physical attacks, magic attacks, support, or a balance of all three. In the beginning you’re fairly meek, lacking in the fields you’d expect, even for a tutorial. If anything, they’ve been watching Law & Order and eating Danish pastries for the past 33 months. It’s hard to frame a story around the last moments of this squad of demi-gods in their final battle of many, but Astria Ascending tries by implying the squad hasn’t tried at all. With a plot like this, you would think it’s safe to assume that the word “overpowered” is a factor in gameplay, but you’d be incorrect. What follows is the last three months of their tenure, the 333rd group of soldiers to follow this cycle of death and rebirth. Tasked with protecting the lands and its varied species, it’s a job with temporary benefits, as after three years of working together you pass on into the sweet unknown via “Ascension”. Now that’s a pedigree right there.Īstria Ascending follows the story of Ulan and her seven co-workers, who have been chosen at random to be a powerful group of demi-gods. From there, they expanded into Japan and developed Astria Ascending with some major talent, including Kazushige Nojima, scenario writer on several Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts titles. This is the sophomore JRPG release from Artisan Studios, which got its start with the first Western-developed Hyperdimension Neptunia title, Super Neptunia RPG. Thankfully, publishers like Playism and Dear Villagers are making sure a lot of these games get the right exposure, like today’s title, Astria Ascending. For every Downwell there are a thousand La-Mulana’s and, niche or otherwise, they’re left waiting for the right player to bring it onto a forum for the best spotlight to shine. The Japanese indie scene has always been a market lacking the tools to propel titles to proper stardom. Reviews // 27th Oct 2021 - 12 months ago // By Samiee "Gutterpunk" Tee Astria Ascending Review
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