Ashen

 PlayStation 4
Ashen Image
Metascore
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5.9

Mixed or average reviews- based on 31 Ratings

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  • Summary: Ashen is an open world co-op action RPG about a wanderer in search of a place to call home. As you adventure through Ashen, you’ll occasionally encounter other players in a massive open world. It’s up to you to decide how to deal with them — fight together against evil, invite them into yourAshen is an open world co-op action RPG about a wanderer in search of a place to call home. As you adventure through Ashen, you’ll occasionally encounter other players in a massive open world. It’s up to you to decide how to deal with them — fight together against evil, invite them into your party or simply ignore them.… Expand

Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 3 out of 3
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 3
  3. Negative: 0 out of 3
  1. PlayStation Universe
    Dec 31, 2019
    85
    Ashen is one of the best souls-likes around and its quality matches that of the games that gave birth to the genre. The mystery and lore help to build a fascinating world that excellently complements the open and varied environments and strange, contorted creatures you will fight in them. A44 have provided a big breath of fresh air in a genre desperately in need of reinvigoration.
  2. Metro GameCentral
    Dec 15, 2019
    80
    One of the best Dark Souls clones so far and while some things are near identical the co-op features help distinguish it as something more than just a straight copy.
  3. Push Square
    Dec 18, 2019
    80
    Bringing a friend along can make one or two fights feel a bit too trivial, but then it’s worth having someone with you to appreciate the stunning vistas Ashen manages to capture. From superb shots of the sea to underground caves illuminated by the crackling fire of your torch, uncovering a new area is an utter pleasure. It might be a year late, but Ashen still manages to carve out its own space for greatness.

User Reviews

Write a Review
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 7 out of 13
  2. Mixed: 4 out of 13
  3. Negative: 2 out of 13
  1. Loonlamb007
    Oct 6, 2022
    10
    To me this Game is a Masterpiece. Even thought it is indeed a Soulslike it can Stand on its own, for its beautiful graphic Style, its uniqueTo me this Game is a Masterpiece. Even thought it is indeed a Soulslike it can Stand on its own, for its beautiful graphic Style, its unique atmosphere and above all that its absolute georgeous Score. The Combat is easy to learn and (sometimes) hard to master. But until the final Boss, I never experienced too much of frustration. To me its just fantastic!… Expand
  2. l_pollux_l
    Feb 22, 2022
    10
    A great game that remind of dark souls I just played the game because it was a little bit similar to ds3
  4. Reydriar
    Nov 12, 2022
    9
    Absolutely love the art style and atmosphere. Just wish they added check points closer to the bosses, especially for the higher difficulty mode.
  5. I_StillAlive_
    Dec 25, 2019
    8
    One of the best "Dark Souls clones" with very unique and interesting graphic style, I enjoyed it a lot :)
    8/10
  6. Chefssgame
    Jan 16, 2022
    7
    Good game, but the playstation port has massive input latency, would have given it a 8.
  7. TheDukeNukedEm
    Feb 20, 2022
    6
    A somewhat fun experience that has many flaws that, by the end of the game, will convince you not to play through it again.

    The artistic    A somewhat fun experience that has many flaws that, by the end of the game, will convince you not to play through it again.

    The artistic style and music are the highlights of the game with some really relaxing music that meshes well with the exploration aspect of the open world. Some of the locales are beautiful and there are some very impressive parts of the game where you will just stand around for a few moments to take it all in.

    Enemy designs are decent enough but, like with many things in this game, don't change much and quickly overstay their welcome. Combat can feel quite unbalanced with enemies being able to attack faster and sometimes even fly through walls to hit you with attacks that were impossible to see coming. The stamina refresh speed feels too slow, as does the normal walking speed. The weaponry is incredibly simplistic and unvaried to the point that I didn't bother even checking out many of the new weapons after a while. There are only a few weapon types and regardless of when you find them in the game, each weapon type moveset is identical. By the end of the game you'll have a ton of upgrade materials, but hardly any of the last upgrade material (making experimenting with other weapons to increase your max damage a generally unrewarding experience).

    While there does seem to have been an effort to have a varied amount of items to utilise, often they just don't offer enough to warrant picking them up. In a later section of the game there are more chances to use them to craft potions, but most of the potions have drawbacks that can dissuade people from using them. There is storage in the game, but by the end of the game you're throwing things away to fit others in the chest (although I tried to keep every weapon - which I realised was utterly useless by the end of the game).

    The AI for your companion is pretty bad, often they will walk off of ledges or just stop moving entirely. Though I liked their individual characters and side stories.

    Overall, this game has a soulslike appearance but little of the actual "soul" of these types of games. It's by no means a bad game, if you can hit your stride with it and get around some finicky combat mechanics. It does have some strange decisions with its design and it feels like some potential wasn't explored. To explain what I mean by the "soul" I mean: replayability, many different items and weapons that you may need to try a new build in order to try out (there's basically just one build in this game), difficulty is haphazard and can feel very easy and repetitive at times and others it feels flawed and unbalanced against your favour. Overall the experience is very shallow in comparison to what it attempts to pay homage to.

    If it's cheap, pick it up. You'll probably like your first go through for the most part, but afterwards you'll most likely forget about it and not play it again.    … Expand
  8. MickeyFinn
    Sep 16, 2022
    0
    Yeah sorry but i bought it some time ago along with the dlc, i only got to it now, being in the mood for soulslikes. Now it's in ps+. I mean iYeah sorry but i bought it some time ago along with the dlc, i only got to it now, being in the mood for soulslikes. Now it's in ps+. I mean i bought the right to rage :p It's a pretty useless crappy game, there are a lot of good soulslikes out there. Ytf it gets hyped. No levelling up, only upgrading progression-linked stuff, a succession of closed areas with one way in and one way out and grapes of enemies. Meaning u have no choice but to walk around with ur souls/whatever. Open world my elbow.. What's the point of making a lesser than lesser soullike unless catching some patsies.. Also a serial bluescreener. Garbage… Expand

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