Astria Ascending’s Beauty Is Only Skin-Deep

What would hap if a budding indie company, known for vibrant 2D JRPGs, partnered with esteemed Square Enix designers? We’re talking Kazushige Nojima (FFVII/Remake, FFVII), Hitoshi Sakimoto (FFXII, Vagrant Story), Hideo Minaba (FFVI, FFIX, FFXII), and Akihiko Yoshida (FFXII, Nier: Automata). You’d get Astria Ascending – a ocular feast connected the 1 manus and a smorgasbord of flavorless mechanics connected the other. I spent respective hours sampling the game’s assortment of features and was dissatisfied with the wide experience. Developer Artisan Studios’ sophomore effort (it besides shipped Super Neptunia RPG successful 2018) shows bouts of promise, but its stale communicative and gameplay near a atrocious sensation successful my mouth. 

Astria Ascending mixes JRPG elements similar accomplishment trees and stat-boosting cosmetics with platforming navigation. A side-view camera suits the sparse controls; you’ll determination on a horizontal plane, scaling platforms with the leap fastener oregon deactivating obstacles portion roaming dungeons. I expect this level of simplicity successful side-scrollers, but Astria Ascending’s explorable satellite lacks depth. 

Puzzles are insultingly easy. In the archetypal dungeon, I activated 4 murals to unfastened a gated doorway, but I didn’t lick the mural bid connected my ain merits; however could I erstwhile a adjacent pillar etched with an on-the-nose riddle spelled retired the answer? At the time, I couldn’t cognize this would foreshadow overmuch of the game’s unimaginative level plan and biology storytelling. Similarly, leaping implicit bottomless chasms to get astatine varying points of involvement got boring rapidly due to the fact that determination are nary consequences for dying extracurricular of conflict scenarios. This begs the question: wherefore person these hazards scattered passim the crippled satellite successful the archetypal place? 

The turn-based combat amounts to rotating 4 enactment members (out of eight) arsenic you utilize a scope of carnal and magic-infused attacks. This allows you to instrumentality vantage of elemental weaknesses, inflict debuffs/devastating presumption effects, and amass absorption points (FP) to heighten the effectiveness of a selected ability. I enjoyed collecting FP and combining them with my astir potent magics, but this look ran its people aft the archetypal fewer battles. The Ascension Tree is wherever you’ll walk your acquisition (SP) to heighten stats oregon get caller skills. Each upgrade genuinely feels similar a captious customization choice. I loved boosting my thief’s evasion properties truthful helium was much elusive, but astatine the aforesaid time, his accuracy and luck numbers weren’t arsenic high. Throw successful 4 imaginable “jobs” (or classes/roles) with circumstantial unlockables for each playable character, and you tin make a squad that’s acceptable for immoderate engagement … oregon truthful I thought. 

Sudden trouble spikes are incredibly punishing and make awkward lulls successful run progress. At 1 point, I came crossed a brag with 4 grunts that felt astir intolerable to beat. That 1 brag formed “stun” and “confuse” connected everyone, immobilizing and turning them against 1 another, healed its allies for much than treble the harm I was dishing out, and adjacent respawned its downed minions. I instantly knew that I’d person to grind to flooded this obstacle, but that required maine to permission the dungeon wholly to repopulate the tiny fig of wandering enemies. Doing this implicit and implicit again drove maine up the wall. 

I tended to debar subquests due to the fact that immoderate areas weren’t accessible yet, and astir objectives required maine to termination punishing monsters oregon cod miscellaneous materials for forgettable NPCs. A mini-game called J-Ster kept maine preoccupied erstwhile grinding became exhausting (we each cognize however overmuch I emotion tabletop broadside activities). J-Ster is vaguely akin to the Japanese strategy crippled Go successful that you spot 5 tokens connected a committee and usage their powerfulness levels/positions to seizure the opponent’s tokens. It took a portion to grasp the rules, but erstwhile I did, I was blessed to beryllium backmost and instrumentality connected a bevy of antithetic challengers erstwhile the lackluster crippled wore thin. 

Astria Ascending explores destiny vs. destiny and hatred vs. emotion (among a bevy of different accepted JRPG motifs) which makes consciousness since the superior setting, Orcanon, is simply a continent divided. Five races – the feathered Awisi, amphibious Peyska, bestial Arktans, reptilian Zefts, and humanoid meryo – flourish successful their ain realms but person occupation mingling and surviving wrong proximity to 1 another. Your unit of mighty misfits, the demi-gods, symbolize the champion warriors/mages that each contention has to offer. Blessed with immense powers, the heroes walk their little lifetimes (three years!) preserving harmony and vanquishing “Noises,” grotesque creatures that telephone the wilderness home. 

Astria Ascending establishes its narrative stakes and extended lore from the get-go, and I’d beryllium lying if I said I wasn’t instantly fascinated. However, the 8 characters with which you embark connected this Noise-slaying travel are one-dimensional archetypes. For instance, Uhlan, the flaxen, shield-bearing person of the troupe, is simply a “cordial young pistillate who would similar everyone to get along” – an apt statement recovered successful your diary because, extracurricular of this observation, I can’t callback immoderate different details astir her property oregon motivations. The youthful Peyska, Eko, has immoderate redeeming qualities; helium faces changeless scrutiny and is taxable to tasteless jokes from his companions during the game’s aboriginal hours. Beyond his relation arsenic the pitiful underdog, helium (and the remainder of the team) failed to unrecorded up to the Final Fantasy ensembles that inspired them. 

Jarring realizations similar this are commonplace and truthful disappointing due to the fact that Astria Ascending is 1 of the best-looking 2D titles of the year. Meticulously hand-drawn characters and metropolises marque up for the deficiency of interactivity and quality dynamism. Additionally, the polished animations are incredible. Every stylish hairsbreadth flick and mouth-covering giggle valiantly effort to personalize/characterize the galore fighters successful your party, but there’s not capable substance to support astir players hooked.

If you can’t basal the English dependable acting – don’t worry, I empathize with you – effort playing with the Japanese VO. This doesn’t remedy the achy dialogue, but astatine slightest the deliveries are overmuch stronger!