Reseñas

• gamedeal user

  Apr 14, 2022

  I like this game a lot so far and would recommend it. Adding some edits to my initial review: Things I like: - Graphics are great - Combat is pretty satisfying - Movement gives a lot of flexibility on how you approach enemies and adds a nice vertical dimension to fights - Meaningful choices about routes through the different zones, giving you a ton of options for how you want to scale your character - To add to that, HOW you upgrade seems to matter. It feels like you can make a better or worse choice along the way and that can make the run notably tougher or easier for you. I think as I'm starting to make better choices, the runs feel more streamlined - The healing system is interesting, utility spells are a nice departure from your "active" spells, and the auras give nice permanent boosts that feel like they matter from within a run - It feels like there's a LOT of replayability here, and the NG+ system is fun so far and looks like it's shaping up to add some nice difficulty and give the player a lot of control over how to apply that difficulty from run to run Things I'm less fond of: - Even with damage scaling, it never really feels (to me) like your character hits very hard if it's not a spell. Honestly, I don't want to melee regular enemies 10-20 times to kill them, and IMO, melee damage could be scaled up. Right now, the meta-progression feels like I have more options per run as I go, but it doesn't feel like I'm getting much stronger at all from run to run. This can be particularly egregious during boss fights, which ARE fun, but which can tend to drag on for a LONG time because you have to hit them through SO many attack cycles. Edit: I still think the damage could be scaled up BUT it feels like less of a problem with some of the stronger auras, and I'm seeing those more frequently now. The boss fights still sometimes feel like hitting an angry sandbag with a spatula. - There are situations where a reward like an astral chest will be placed between two traps. It's a minor thing, but it doesn't feel great. I don't want 2 tree stumps to chuck 6 explosive dudes at me repeatedly while I decide which stat I want to scale. Edit: I still think this is true. I've had a few instances now where I've gotten smacked by a static trap while standing in front of an altar or at an end-of-level reward. It's never ruined a run, but it's made me grind my teeth a little. - Some parts of the "return to town" experience feel weird. For example, a bunch of the unlocks from the poet and the dragon (who wears his name well, despite what my character may think) were already auto-unlocked prior to my completing my second run. It makes the meta-progression aspect of it feel less fun, because I didn't have to work to unlock them. Edit: I think I was wrong to suggest that a bunch of the selectable spells and auras were "fluff", so I deleted that from my first comment. After some more play time with them, they do feel better to use than I expected. I do think that synergies seem harder to build than I'd like, but maybe that's because they're not meant to really lock in until late game, which isn't out yet. Might be nice to see an added bonus if you have like 2 of the same type of gambit apply to a spell or something, particularly since there are a limited number of Pavo feathers and you can only upgrade so many times. - My own personal thing, but 4 spells feels like maybe 1 too many. I'd rather see more ways to upgrade the spells I do get. Combat is frantic enough that I'm not really actively choosing individual spells during fights most of the time, and the icons are small enough that I'd have to memorize the rotation during each run or stare at the lower left corner to pick them in real time anyway. The pace of the combat just makes it seem like there isn't really time to do that. It's a little different with boss fights, but given that you HAVE to cycle through spells, it feels like they're on a conveyor belt most of the time anyway, and 1 fewer might make for a better rotation, and synergies would be a little easier to build up. Edit: I'm torn on this. I still feel like the spell rotation is a little clunky. Maybe it's because I'm usually still toting around one "beginner spell" even by the end of the second zone. It's probably because I'm prioritizing keys and spell upgrades and Andromeda's bar when it shows up, but it seems like you SHOULD be prioritizing those things. It just always feels like there's one weak link in the rotation that doesn't really need to be there, especially because the "gambit slot" upgrades are so rare. Weaker/neglected spells are just going to continue to stay weak/neglected, because you're not going to spend the resources to level it or add a slot, when you already have 2 or 3 other things that are better and aren't maxed out. - A new one: I've had a few runs now where, even though I've taken keys whenever I'm low on them, I'll still hit a spot where I won't get any keys for several rooms in a row. It doesn't happen often, but it really sucks when you have to pass up 4-5 astral chests in a row. It seems hard to make up missing that many upgrades or auras, and so the run is kind of scuttled just because of bad room RNG. Maybe a mechanic where if you have 0 keys, the likelihood of a key room choice appearing at the end of a room increases by a small amount every time one doesn't appear. That way, if you're ever out of keys for more than a few rooms, it's because of a choice you've made and not because of bad luck. I like this game a lot. It's a ton of fun, and I'm eager to see where the devs go with it. I think it's more than worth the asking price, even at this point in its development.
• gamedeal user

  Jun 23, 2022

  Fun game, but hate that you can't save progress while progressing with the game. God forbid you want to go to sleep, or have to leave and do other things. You lose all your progress, and are sent back to the hub world. Had a good run, and selected take a break, thinking despite the warning, I thought my run surely wouldn't just end, but I was wrong.
• gamedeal user

  Apr 13, 2022

  I'm a huge fan of games like Risk of Rain, Dead Cells, Wizard of Legend, etc. These pixel-y indie roguelites are probably my favorite genre of game, and Astral Ascent is a lovely addition to that collection. The difficulty is well-balanced, the graphics are beautiful (especially the animation!), and the combat is intense with a lot of complexity. Only complaint I have is that the dialogue is a bit cheesy. Honestly if that's the only actual criticism I have, that's a really good place for a game to be.
• gamedeal user

  Sep 21, 2022

  Reason I picked up this game: Roguelite 2-player local co-op. Posted on September 21, 2022. I was looking for a co-op Hades experience and this is the closest game to it. Beautiful game with well thought out mechanics: You have spells, utility spells, auras, special call summons and many more. There are many additions in-game while doing a run that makes you go "WOW". The art is insane from Main Menu to Animated Pixel Dialogue plus Voice Acting is superb. World 3 is available now and there are 3 playable characters with their own unique spells and they also have access to general spells. I sank in 80 Hours in Hades got the true ending and this game I have like 88 Hours counting and World 4 is yet to arrive. Pros: - Everything from art to music to gameplay to character conversations/written stories. - Unique spell system which you can upgrade with their own affinities called gambits. - Since there is no perfect game, If I rate Hades 9/10, this game at Early Access is already an 8.5/10 - You have meta help from NPCs you get in certain rooms to spells from bosses you whooped. - You can do almost everything at World 3, the final game lasts to World 4 Cons: - Cons are mostly for 2-player gaming since the game is designed for 1-player runs. - 2 players share their upgrade path: you choose which one upgrades their spell or stats so the upgrade "loot" is divided when another player joins in. - I have upgraded everything at the base, at the start of a run: you are given only 1 random spell + aura/feather and this is bad for 2 players. I have so much excess currency just sitting at the base since I already have everything maxed out. - Stat upgrades like the 5% attack speed and 5% damage feels grindy for 1 player more so for 2 players since only 1 gets them, you don't feel them in-game unless you get many stat upgrades (5 to 10 upgrade stacks). - There are many cool spells and auras but you have no access to them to make it less RNG and make it more build specific like in Hades. Suggestions: - With everything unlocked at the base allow us to purchase 1 spell or utility spell or aura per player with the excess currency that is just sitting waiting for World 4 to arrive. - Give 2 players 2 feather upgrades per room. - There needs to be gambit altars like the spell altars. - 5% Attack speed and 5% damage upgrades need to be catered to player 2 as well. - A Reroll function (not just in the Peddler room) for: spells, spell affinity and gambits, to give us more chances to theory craft and build.
• gamedeal user

  Feb 2, 2023

  I do recommend this game in it's current state, but that comes with come caveats. TL;DR, the game is absolutely gorgeous. Incredible pixel art, great animations, solid combat, but somewhat poor balancing. Too long, but will read anyway: As said, the art, music, characters, designs, are nothing short of incredible. Like, the quality is nearly second to none. It kicks the crap out of Dead Cells and Skul: Hero Slayer in terms of presentation, and it's not really even close. The combat is not bad, it has a very solid base. But I think there are some issues. I think some of the smaller enemy's attacks are poorly telegraphed. They are way too small, and the feedback on when they initiate their attack is nearly completely lost. The other thing is that enemies initiate their attacks while you're attacking them, which I'm never a huge fan of, especially when there are like 20 enemies on screen, but only one of them matters, while the others take juuuuuust long enough to kill that they take little pieces off your healthbar. It's just more annoying, and it feels like the dash has way too much downtime, for few iframes you actually get. Though that could just be perception. I managed to first-try 2 of the bosses, and I think the bosses are generally well designed. They have unique moves, but I think they are built to lose against your first try, since you never really know what they are actually gonna do until it actually happens, unless you come in extremely well prepared with a ton of HP and a healing charge. Also enemies drop HP drops so rarely that you could complete the entire first stage and get 1-2/5 shards pretty regularly, then another run you'll get like 10 it's pretty inconsistent. Seems like a pretty weird rate for the system to punish you so heavily for using the charges before you reach the 5 you need. Also 80% of your damage comes from using your abilities. It's not my favorite style, but it works, however, that makes the game run super differently if you don't get good spells, it becomes a huge slog. And you only typically get 3/4 spells that you're forced to cycle through by the end of the first stage. Meaning, you have to fight the first boss with basically 2/4 of your main damage dealers being more of a mana-tax, rather than an actually good damage option, to get to your (hopefully) good damage options. All this is to say, the combat is good, but has some flaws that if were addressed, it could be a masterpiece. Personally I don't like having to cycle through spells by having to mill through the other 3, and sort of makes half the combat about buying time, and farming mana trying to deal chip damage with your main attack. Alternatively, and much more boringly, you could wait till your single, consistent ability on your LT cooldown goes up to actually do any amount of sizable damage, then use the opening to farm more MP. Idk, it feels clunky for how dangerous it is to farm MP while so many of the abilities are almost one-shot kills on everything but bosses. It feels like it should maybe be more evened out. Weaving spells during the natural combat rather than only engaging TO GET to use your spells. The metagame, or the overarching strategy also leaves something to be desired. The choice between keys, currency, or a boon to one of your abilities seems like there's only one good answer. KEYS. Keys are how you get run-wide passive stat bonuses. My best run ever got stacked with strength, and it's almost impossible to do that with anything other than keys. The aura bonuses are almost always useless, despite being very important. Like, you can get an aura that will give you a small bonus when you poison an enemy! Cool! Sucks that all my abilities, weapons, and passives are for fire... There's hardly any buildcraft, and you sorta just have to hope the game gives you a synergy that you can use. And, even then it's like "deal a tiny bit of ice damage when you cast this spell" which is negligible compared to the actual strength of the spell and I feel like I hardly ever notice. That and also why would you put your passive bonuses on the early spells? You have to go so far out of your way to upgrade them, that 90% of the time, you'll have 1 OP spell, 1 decent spell, and 2 literal trash spells because you literally cannot afford to invest in your other spells, since spell upgrades, slot unlocks, and spell upgrades require you to go well out of your way to get. Better to just farm passives and then get some money to replace your spells at the guaranteed shop at the end of each stage. I think the designer was afraid of people becoming too OP, while wanting to make an RPG system baked into a rogue-like. This game feels like it has the quality of a fully fledged single player adventure game, with the setup and everything, but they were almost afraid to take that route due to the lack of replay-ability. It just feels uneven, uneven is the way you could describe almost everything in this game, but this game is still genuinely an artistic wonder, and I hope that the gameplay and metagame eventually reach the point to match it's near flawless presentation.
• gamedeal user

  Apr 19, 2022

  I only have 2 problems with the game in it's current state: The realistic looking characters look a bit off-putting when in dialogue. I feel bad saying that because I'm sure a lot of work and effort was put into the characters design. As it is, I feel like the game would be better if it stuck to pixel art, like have the characters be about as detailed as they are in the cutscenes. The second problem is I'm having is frame drops when I hit one of those pink bubbles or if a lot is going on onscreen. I feel like this game has the potential to spiral out of control with the amount of spells and augments. Having this many things happen at once should not slow the game down if it is the main gameplay. For reference I have a rtx3070 and 16 gigs of ram, so I'm curious why sometimes the game is stuttering. I don't care too much however, the game is still in early access after all. Other than those 2 very nitpicky things, I love this game and it's combat. It feels very nice to play and rewarding unlike many other games like it. The atmosphere that the game puts you in, the visuals, the character design are all amazing.
• gamedeal user

  Apr 19, 2022

  This game looked really cool and I thought for sure I was really going to like it. I like rogue-likes and I like 2-D action games. I also love the art style of the game and the whole game is animated really well. Unfortunately, the actual gameplay is far too simplistic and way too floaty. Looking at the game, I thought it was going to be a Devil May Cry / God of War type game where you could do cool combos….. And you really can't. This is because your attacks, while flashy, are very basic. You have a button that you use in order to do basic attacks and a button that you use in order to use your spells. There's pretty much no variation to your basic attacks. In fact, you can just hold the basic attack and your character will automatically attack. In regards to the spells, you can equip a total of 4 spells and you can't freely select what spell you want to use. The "spell" button will simply use the next spell that's in the queue. Once you've used all 4 spells, they'll all "reset" and you can use them again in the exact same order. Using spells cost mana, and you gain mana by using basic attacks. So what the game wants you to do is to switch between using basic attacks and using spells. While that looks fine on paper, in reality you're fundamentally using one "combo" over and over again which is "Complete a basic attack sequence --> press spell button ---> repeat". I mean, I eventually felt God of War 3 got repetitive since I used certain combos over and over again, but even in that game I was at least using 4 different combos/strategies! With Astral Ascent, it feels like the same thing over and over again. While the game might have a lot of different spells, it effectively doesn't matter because there's no decision-making involved in how you use the spells. Spells will always do more damage than basic attacks, so you'll always want to use the spells as soon as you can. Not only is the core gameplay overly simplistic with effectively just one combo, it just isn't very satisfying. Sure the spells look good and flashy, but when I am simply using them at a press of a button, it doesn't feel satisfying at all to use them. In my opinion, there needs to be some level of difficulty in the execution of your attacks (e.g. Devil May Cry) in order to make it feel rewarding to see all the cool effects on screen, but this game doesn’t have any of that difficulty. It should also be mentioned that while the game wants you to switch between basic attacks and spells, even THAT has issues. This is because the game has almost no hit stun on enemies except for the very smallest of enemies (and sometimes not even them starting in the 2nd biome). This means that in the opening you have in order to attack an enemy before they move onto their next attack, you can EITHER choose to complete a basic attack chain OR use a spell. Not both. So the simple combo of "Complete a basic attack sequence --> press spell button ---> repeat" becomes EVEN SIMPLER to "Complete a basic attack sequence ---> dodge" and "Press spell button ---> dodge", repeat. I will say that the bosses are really well done. They can pretty much stand toe to toe with Hollow Knight bosses. The bosses in Astral Ascent have a large variety of moves and really make you think of how best to damage them while at the same time dodging their attacks. Unlike regular enemies who are simply a matter of building up mana in order to use a few AOE spells to take them all out, you can't do that with bosses because they have too much HP. So no matter what, you have to master the bosses if you want to defeat them, which is great. They also look really cool. In my opinion, some core changes need to be made in order to make the game more satisfying to play. • Have more hitstun and refine it: Hitstun is crucial to most action games. If players are attacking an enemy, they need to feel confident that they can complete their combo without risk of getting attacked back. Even defensive games like Dark Souls have hitstun! So a lot more enemies should flinch when players attack them. Even the "bigger" enemies should flinch after they've used an attack and are "vulnerable" to flinching, or they might flinch if you deal enough damage to them/do one huge damaging hit. This also helps players feel like their attacks have some impact. For good examples of proper hitstun, you can see games like "Have a Nice Death" and "Odin Sphere Leifthrasir". • Allow actual combos: This can really only be implemented with the hitstun being refined. Currently, since enemies don't really get stunned with attacks, you can at most do 1 or 2 attacks before having to dodge. If the game has a more refined hitstun system, players will then be capable of doing long combo strings, which will also feel really good to use (e.g. basic combo attack chain + spell + basic combo attack chain + spell + basic combo attack chain + spell + basic combo attack chain + spell. WITHOUT any dodges in between). • Balance the spells more: Currently, it seems that you'll pretty much always want to use long range AOE spells. The spells really need to be balanced so that there's a reason to use short range non AOE spells. For example, maybe AOE spells should have a long windup such that it leaves you open to attack AND can't be used in a combo chain (since the enemy will recover from hitstun before the move finishes being used). Then, there would be a reason to use short range quick spells since they have combo potential whereas AOE spells would not. • Allows players to use any spells they want at the press of a button instead of being in a specific order: I think this is the first game where I've seen players being limited/forced to using their special abilities in a specific order….and I don't think it's a good system. I really think you rob the players of their agency by not giving them the option to use whatever spells they want at the press of a button (e.g. by having the up, down, left, and right keypad correspond to the 4 spells). It would add a lot of depth to the system if players can use whatever spells they want, since then a lot more spells suddenly become viable. For example, currently I wouldn't use a spell that only attacks up or down because it's too situational, but if I could choose when to use the spells, I might want to always have a spell that attacks up just in case for aerial enemies. If you're worried about players making one spell OP and spamming it over and over again, simply get rid of the feathers that increase the level of specific spells. The gambits are fine since for the most part, they're only really useful if you use multiple spells together. • Re-work enemies to have more defined roles: Currently, all the enemies feel very similar. While they might all look different, they pretty much all do the same thing which is that they all want to run up to you and hit you. Enemies need to feel more unique. E.g. some enemies should be rangers and attack you from a distance. Some enemies should heal/buff other enemies. Some enemies should stay in the air. Etc… • Re-work exploration rooms: Combat rooms are far more fun than exploration rooms. Exploration rooms just have a series of 3 enemies that you need to fight, which isn't very difficult. I honestly think you should ditch the whole "exploration room vs combat room" idea and just make every room an "exploration room" but you're forced to go into arenas where multiple enemies spawn for you to fight (e.g. a typical combat room encounter). A good example of this is the game "Have a Nice Death". Overall, this is a game that looks really good….. But its core systems aren't very deep and therefore can quickly get repetitive. I can tell that this game has a lot of potential though because the bosses are an absolute treat to fight. If the core systems can be changed such that even fighting regular enemies is challenging and rewarding with a lot to master, I am sure this game can become a lot more fun.
• gamedeal user

  Apr 13, 2022

  Looks promising. It lags a little, but it's the very first version, so it's fine.
• gamedeal user

  Jan 6, 2023

  Mm love it, nice smooth animation and game play, lovely and chill soundtrack, great spell visual effects, loved the personalities each character brings. Few bugs for now like during co-op, the first spell from a chest can't be picked up by both players :/. Great game, fun to play with a friend, can't wait for future developments. :)
• gamedeal user

  Jul 14, 2022

  Astral Ascent has potential to be a very respectable game in the genre. Great art style, mechanics, pace and flow! One my current issues is that many times during the run, the music does not match the pace of the gameplay. For example, sometimes when I'm massacring a wave of mobs the song is still in a chill and slow mood, which sets me off. The runs are still short but absolutely fun even with the current early access gameplay. I recommend fans of the genre give it a try and help the devs with feedback. Looking forward to the future of this game!