Ascend: Hand of Kul

 Xbox 360
User Score
7.6

Generally favorable reviews- based on 177 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 120 out of 177
  2. Mixed: 26 out of 177
  3. Negative: 31 out of 177

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  1. SebastopolQueen
    Jan 10, 2014
    5
    I stopped playing this game because i ascend my character and i did not mean to and there is no way to delete the save data,the idiots did not know how to make save data and you can't delete it and can't start over,i will stop playing this game until they put the option to delete you're character and start new game
  2. CriticalMedic
    Dec 13, 2013
    5
    Let me start off by saying that I dislike this game. The gameplay was decent, the darkness was cool and everything seemed ok. That was up until I noticed that if you want to get ahead or be the best you have to pay actual money to get the best stuff. I tried again and again to compete with peoples scores who were paying real money and it was sadly incomparable. I deleted it from my hardLet me start off by saying that I dislike this game. The gameplay was decent, the darkness was cool and everything seemed ok. That was up until I noticed that if you want to get ahead or be the best you have to pay actual money to get the best stuff. I tried again and again to compete with peoples scores who were paying real money and it was sadly incomparable. I deleted it from my hard drive never to play again. It was fun but once you find out you got to pay cash to get ahead the fun goes right down the drain, along with this games score from me. A smelly 5.… Expand
  3. LuciferReviewer
    Sep 29, 2013
    5
    This could've gotten a much higher score if Microsoft didn't flood the game with micro transactions... It takes hours of grinding to get good stuff, which makes it more of a chore to play. It's fine if you like the free-to-play formula, but keep that crap off Xbox... Micro transactions should be left for smart phone games. Other than that, the game is pretty fun.
  4. ApexPredator1
    Sep 29, 2013
    5
    This game is fun but every 10 min it loses connection and needs to take 2 minutes to connect.. so u spend a long time looking at menus.. please fix. I do like the combat.. feels good. However you end up having to mash a bit.
  5. Echo001
    Sep 27, 2013
    6
    I really like the game, but it is really hard to enjoy it when every 10 min. or so you get disconnected from the service. Really annoying when in the middle of defending a shrine and you get disconnected, causing you to lose the shrine and have to fight for it back
  6. FatalDeathSG45
    Oct 7, 2013
    6
    This was the free-to-play title I was most anticipating on the 360. In some ways, it does not let down; in some ways it kind of does. You take control of a Caos warrior and choose to worship one of 3 gods (Light, Dark and Void), each of who grants different powers, abilities, etc. As you play the game, you control territory for your god, acquire new armor and weapons, and level up yourThis was the free-to-play title I was most anticipating on the 360. In some ways, it does not let down; in some ways it kind of does. You take control of a Caos warrior and choose to worship one of 3 gods (Light, Dark and Void), each of who grants different powers, abilities, etc. As you play the game, you control territory for your god, acquire new armor and weapons, and level up your warrior. Racking up combos increases your Soul multiplier, whic increases the amount of Souls you can acquire. When you get to a certain level, you can "ascend" your character, allowing them to invade territory of other pllayers' worlds while also granting permanent upgrades for future warriors. You can also grant blessings and curses towards other players (provided that they're within your vicinity). While this game has some interesting ideas, it's not without its flaws. Being as it's a free-to-play title like Happy Wars or World Series of Poker: Full House Pro, it takes a long time to load up, and there are some connection problems to deal with. Combat is also not to my liking. The lack of an evade or a lock-on feature makes combat against large groups of enemies and building up your multiplier very difficult. Another thing I dislike is how quickly your equipment can degrade. With the Souls (the game's currency) you grind from enemies (which becomes a chore), that will barely be enough to repair your equipment, let alone buy new gear. To make combat even harder, enemy attacks almost always knock you back, leaving you vulnerable to attack. And of course, free-to-play games are dreaded by microtransactions, and this game is no exception. As mentioned before, the Souls you grind normally are barely enough to repair damaged equipment, let alone buy new gear. So if you want high-end gear, you pretty much HAVE to fork over real-world money to get it. This game has potential, but it needs a lot of work if it's going to stand up to better paid RPGs like Diablo III and Dark Souls.… Expand
  7. LD9000
    May 21, 2014
    6
    An OK game, the whole "giant" thing is quite new, there's quite a lot of smashing things like huts and pillars, etc. The gameplay seems to be pretty repetitive (mashing LMB, occasionally RMB or space). Swords and axes are fast, two handed maces deal AOE damage.

    My fingers started to hurt really quick from all the button mashing. It seems that the game is very heavily focused on grinding    An OK game, the whole "giant" thing is quite new, there's quite a lot of smashing things like huts and pillars, etc. The gameplay seems to be pretty repetitive (mashing LMB, occasionally RMB or space). Swords and axes are fast, two handed maces deal AOE damage.

    My fingers started to hurt really quick from all the button mashing. It seems that the game is very heavily focused on grinding for gear, which... comes almost broken when you find it. This is the first time in an RPG where finding loot feels more frustrating than fun (cause I have to repair EVERY item I find).

    Somehow with 3 factions I've expected PVP, but it's not in the current release (marked as BETA). Currently factions seem really imbalanced, with dark having almost twice as many players/achievements as either of the other factions.

    Overall, when compared to other P2W games, I would prefer to spend my money on other games, and not this one, even though the style of this game seems promising.    … Expand
  8. ThinkSamich
    Aug 3, 2014
    7
    I decided to try it because I had read others describe it as "like Dark Souls", the game is certainly nothing like the play-style found in Dark Souls, quite the opposite really. The only elements you will find here that are similar to Dark Souls are the fact that things drop souls for you to collect when they die, and the PvP system(if you want to call it that) or way of interrupting theI decided to try it because I had read others describe it as "like Dark Souls", the game is certainly nothing like the play-style found in Dark Souls, quite the opposite really. The only elements you will find here that are similar to Dark Souls are the fact that things drop souls for you to collect when they die, and the PvP system(if you want to call it that) or way of interrupting the worlds of other players is certainly a beefed up copycat of the Dark Souls "see phantoms from other worlds" system. Sending NPCs after player phantoms isn't exactly PvP in my book. Whether or not that is bad will be up for you to decide.

    What this game does have is a few features that I have yet to see anywhere else. Neat "bells" that certainly make you do a double take. Your character in the game is quite larger than humans, you are probably the size of a building. Multiple humans can ride you into battle, you can eat/throw these humans. You convert human alters to the faction of your choosing (you pick from Light/Void/Dark at the beginning of the game) and it's a way of controlling territory in the multiplayer aspect of the game. Faction influence seems to play a large part in the end-game PvP/Multiplayer.

    All of the Armor and Weapons are purchased with Souls you have collected. You can also speed up this process with micro transactions, and they are everywhere. Free to play games with micro transactions are quite common these days, as far as I could discern there are no weapons available only to paying customers, so at most you're saving yourself a few hours by spending cash. There seems to be an agenda here on Metacritic where a lot of reviewers are calling the title, "pay to win" however from what I saw everything in the game can be attained without spending a dime. At most you're paying to skip a grind, which is something I don't want to downplay because it is a growing issue, but certainly not "pay to win" where players get unfair advantages with items or abilities only attainable through a cash shop.

    For me the biggest deterrent of the cash shop to me was the lacking gameplay. For lack of a better term the combat is quite "Vanilla", a hack and slash with a few extra abilities determined again by the faction you choose. Weapons seem to offer different abilities, but nothing that was able to keep me interested. For me combat is where the bulk of my score deduction took place. Points were deducted for overall clumsiness and the lack of fluidity in combat. It seems like difficulty is increased by outright swarming the player with hordes of enemies where damage becomes inevitable no matter how well you play.

    The artwork isn't spectacular but I wouldn't consider it bad either. Actually I found it quite nice to look at. It certainly should not be something that keeps you from playing the game.

    Overall this game is something new to try, but nothing I would plan on spending a weekend on. To me it has potential to have a good foothold in the market as a free to play game because it looks so promising for what it is in Beta. In the grand scheme of things though it can seem quite elementary. The title has a long way to go if it plans on trading punches with anything beyond smartphone titles. I gave it a 7 because the foundation looks nice, but without the addition more complex core gameplay mechanics the game is going to be left behind the times. Push the cash shop to the side and work on combat/core gameplay if you want your title to succeed.    … Expand
  9. XxGrizzXx115
    Dec 26, 2013
    6
    This game started off really fun, but the whole "Ascending" thing seems REALLY pointless and not needed in the game. If that wasn't there, I'd probably have more fun and plus its a F2P soo micro-transactions.
  10. jinringa
    Oct 1, 2013
    5
    I think this game has a lot of potential, but the game play is just kind of boring. It lacks a dodge mechanic outside of the dash, which sort of ruins the appeal of a tell and reflex based combat system. In fights with other ascended champions, if they are charging up a guard breaking power attack you have no chance to really dodge it since you cannot dash backwards. The fact that yourI think this game has a lot of potential, but the game play is just kind of boring. It lacks a dodge mechanic outside of the dash, which sort of ruins the appeal of a tell and reflex based combat system. In fights with other ascended champions, if they are charging up a guard breaking power attack you have no chance to really dodge it since you cannot dash backwards. The fact that your guard also guards you from all normal attacks and spells from all directions also makes it pretty boring and bland. The lack of meaningful or actually useful combos also makes combat pretty bland. The spells are nice and the idea of affecting other players with spells across worlds is pretty cool, but I would have gladly sacrificed that for a target lock mechanic. Without a target lock, combat can get pretty confusing as the camera follows you around, especially with boss fights. It is basically impossible to gauge distance well enough in order to get a boss to start its attack animation and then get back in fast enough to land your attacks, so it just ends up the best way is to slowly ping it to death with your slow recharging spells.

    Combat basically is either grinding against mobs that are easy to rack up a big combo and hence currency modifier, or mobs that you can rack up a big modifier, but take a huge amount of time and effort to do so, and so you do not and just try to kill them as fast as possible. Or boss fights where you ping it to death while dashing the whole time or you can try to get in and hit it, but without a dodge or target lock mechanic, even if you see its almost instagib unblockable attack coming you probably cannot get out of the way fast enough to avoid it.

    It also suffers from pay to win syndrome, not as bad as some games, but it definitely has that problem. The game revolves around leveling up a champion, then sacrificing it and starting over again from scratch, but with an extra bonus that is really pretty meaningless unless you are willing to sink hundreds or thousands of hours into a pretty mediocre experience. Your equipment takes damage constantly and in my experience you can never really afford to buy anything much better than what you have since you find new and slightly better equipment regularly and are constantly having to repair it so that you can actually progress. Buying spell upgrades and all that is feasible up to a certain point, but I never was able to accrue more than 20,000 of the in game currency without feeling like I needed to spend most of it in order to stay above the mobs. With spells and equipment costing 50,000 or more to buy and 10,000+ to upgrade it certainly seems like you need to spend actual dollars in order to reach the highest power levels.

    Overall, for a free game it is not bad. But I do not think it is something worth spending money on, since it is all pay to win and your money does not unlock any really new experiences any earlier, since there are no new experiences in this game, just power creep.    … Expand
  11. triston80
    Apr 29, 2014
    5
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Ok take what I said before, with my suggestions, but now add something else. Increase the rewards at the end of each floor of the endless dungeon by a lot... I don't wanna spend that time for 1,000 Souls(Plus gear I sell and stuff to around 3.5K) when I can make TRIPLE that in the same time. Increase it to like 4,000 or 5,000 Souls for the FIRST FLOOR, then 7,500 for the 2nd, 10,000 for the 3rd and so on. But ALSO LET US GET EXP and Souls from killing IN THE ENDLESS DUNGEON as well! It's boring to sit there JUST for Souls to get my God Armor(I've Ascended a total of 4 times already soon 5).

    Also, let people actually go into different Faction's Server's to RAID their Altar's where people there can ACTUALLY FIGHT YOU in real-time like a REAL War should be fought, in real time.

    Also, we should be able to make our own Clan's, starting at a MAX SIZE of 10, and costs Souls to increase to a MAX of 200. Also some of my friend's suggestions are letting people make their own World's/Servers and Dungeon's for others to fight and raid on, with us getting a SLIGHT AMOUNT of the Souls and EXP they collect. And they just gave me a new suggestion: Let us set our own amount of Souls as a reward for the Dungeon's when we make them as well AND what defends it at the end.

    Also, add a Tournament Mode like the NUMBER ONE PERSON get's like 100,000 Soul's w/A new Gold Rarity weapon. Top 10 get 75,000 Soul's and some Legendary(Purple-named) weapon's. Top 50 get 50,000 Soul's with some Blue named weapon's, and Top 100 should get 25,000 Soul's.

    Along with being able to set up Group-Raid's on Enemy Clan Fortresses and Bases. This would give SIGNIFICANT Faction/God control over the Crusade map's. Let the Fortresses and Bases have fortified defenses and protection with their own plauer's, and battle-installment's and that you get more EXP and Souls for it, the stronger the maker of the Base and/or Fortress is, along with how many times they ascended, how many people were protecting it, and what was protecting it tells how much EXP and Souls rewards it gives. Like:

    Every level higher for the maker of the Fortress and/or Base give's +250 more Souls for winning, for every Ascention +1,000 Soul's. Along with another +100 EXP for each level and +500 for each Ascention.

    Every level higher of a Player defending add's +500 Soul's and +100 EXP when winning, PLUS the Souls and EXP you ALREADY get from them. Same for their Automated(A.I./Computer-Controlled) defenses.    … Expand
  12. AdamSimonKrist
    Nov 15, 2013
    6
    This game is Microtransaction hell, once you "Ascend" and start from the beginning, it is near impossible to get to the powerful warrior you once were without spending a couple dollars for "Souls". That aside the rest of the game is pretty good, not amazing, but good. But i feel the Microtransactions hold this game back.
  13. killer5786
    Feb 23, 2014
    5
    I don't know about this game, I like that you can kill monster's but I don't like (like other people say) you don't earn that many souls and it is hard to keep your equipment at full and every time I beat an apex (or whatever) I'm about to get the prize and freeze I have to f*** leave the game and return. I like that it's free but I don't know about playing it that much. and 1 more rant II don't know about this game, I like that you can kill monster's but I don't like (like other people say) you don't earn that many souls and it is hard to keep your equipment at full and every time I beat an apex (or whatever) I'm about to get the prize and freeze I have to f*** leave the game and return. I like that it's free but I don't know about playing it that much. and 1 more rant I don't like having to fight someone after every little thing it's so annoying!… Expand
  14. UndamagedLotus
    Apr 4, 2014
    7
    Honestly, this game isn't too bad. The multiplayer ideas are occasionally frustrating because of trolls, yes, but can make for some interesting gameplay altogether. However, as I played through, and ascended a few characters, I stopped taking any joy from the game. There is no variance, and you can exploit many of the enemy's AI's easily to win against them. Overall, it's good game to playHonestly, this game isn't too bad. The multiplayer ideas are occasionally frustrating because of trolls, yes, but can make for some interesting gameplay altogether. However, as I played through, and ascended a few characters, I stopped taking any joy from the game. There is no variance, and you can exploit many of the enemy's AI's easily to win against them. Overall, it's good game to play every once in a while, but not a game to play for long period of time.… Expand
  15. AntiHero91
    Sep 1, 2014
    7
    The only real problem I have with the game is that people who have the extra cash will instantly get better gear than you. It goes from who's better at the game to who has the most money.
  16. Professorfett
    Oct 27, 2018
    6
    So mighty warriors are you into free Xbox Live games? How about free Xbox Live games that happen to have a story and hours of gameplay and a multiplayer that is very similar to Dark Souls? If you answered yes to that then do I have a game for you. Signal Studios the creators of Toy Soldiers have created a free to play RPG that is actually a ton of fun and it's on the consoles.

    Ascend    So mighty warriors are you into free Xbox Live games? How about free Xbox Live games that happen to have a story and hours of gameplay and a multiplayer that is very similar to Dark Souls? If you answered yes to that then do I have a game for you. Signal Studios the creators of Toy Soldiers have created a free to play RPG that is actually a ton of fun and it's on the consoles.

    Ascend starts out like most RPG's you create your character, male or female it's up to you. I played as a dude of course sadly unlike most RPG's where you get to pick what class you are this one basically has one kind of class melee. An argument could be made saying that the class is barbarian being that the armor that is free that you start out with is just that. After you are done creating your character you pick your god you will follow. These are factions you got Darkness God who is evil, and fire, that whole thing. There is the Light God who is good and shinny and you get powers of lighting with him. Last the final God is the Void God which is the one I chose personally; I got ice powers for choosing that one. The basic story is the humans are being overrun by trolls, sadly not internet trolls because that would be awesome. These trolls look a hell of a lot like Orcs. Hell they basically are just Orcs because compared to you they are tiny. You are a Caos or a giant human and you are tasked with the job of eradicating the troll menace and killing the last Titan that roams the Earth and keeps the Gods from ruling it. You ask well why can't the God's do what Zeus did and come down and kick some ass? Well in this universe if they come down to Earth they will corrupt it and essentially destroy it.

    The game graphically looks passable it isn't the most beautiful looking game but it does its part. The enemies got a little old to look at, now I didn't beat the game so I have no idea on if the enemies change in the later levels of the game but from what I saw they introduce different types but they all are in the same troll looking species. This game is gory, not God of War gore but there is quite a bit of blood. Of course if you want your character to look like a badass it'll cost you, but if you don't mind the barbarian look then enjoy.

    There is no voice acting which saddens me because that means the entire game you have to read. Remember those old school games where you had to read everyone's dialog just to know what is going on. This game is bring that back oh yeah reading and blood all in the same area.

    Now you are thinking Brandon how does the game play mother **** I've read about the story and the graphics and the sound but how does it play? Well my impatient friend the gameplay is fun and unique. We recorded a Bloody Time but it was lost due to a computer crash. The game is a third person hack n slash. You have spells which become extremely useful the more you play. One of my favorite parts of this game is the randomized look that you find in the chest. The big problem is that the loot is damn near broken when you take it out of the chest, seriously who the hell puts broken loot in a treasure chest? Whoever was the guy putting his junk in these chest is a **** Another thing that this game does that is super annoying is your armor and weapons can break. They will break quickly, even if you're kicking ass and taking names this **** just deteriorates. Now when I play a hack n slash I like to use the dodge mechanic like I'm doing a freaky dance. Guess which game only has a block? That is a huge pain in the ass I can't even explain for you people that are big on blocking this wasn't a problem, but for us dodgers out there this will be a huge learning curve. This game has this fun gimmick of calling the humans that worship you and having them crawl all over you. You can throw them at enemies or eat them for a tiny bit of health. They are extremely useful when someone is invading your lands. There is that Dark Souls thing I've mentioned the fact that this game is always online means that whenever you are clearing out a dungeon or doing whatever really, someone can invade your lands. You can teleport to them and kick some ass or get your ass kicked. I found out that 90% of the time someone invaded my lands I kicked the **** out of them. That is unless they are a higher level than me then I just didn't stand a chance. Towards the end of my run in this game I stopped care if people invade my areas because I didn't lose anything for it and I got tired of restarting the same dungeon over and over. The game has a MMO style of revive system where if you die you just re-spawn about 100 feet away from your body. The game can be buggy I had a horrible bug where my character stopped doing damage to enemies, but I just restarted and it was back to normal. Last thing because this is a free game this has micro-transactions. That doesn't mean you can be a level 3 and kick the **** out of a level 20 character.    … Expand

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
68

Mixed or average reviews - based on 5 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2 out of 5
  2. Mixed: 3 out of 5
  3. Negative: 0 out of 5
  1. X-ONE Magazine UK
    Nov 6, 2013
    60
    Distinctly average, and aside from a few interesting online elements there's little to keep you coming back for more after your first few hours of gameplay. [Issue#104, p.84]
  2. Official Xbox Magazine UK
    Nov 6, 2013
    60
    Although this simple brawler has some intriguing multiplayer ideas, the solo game's repetitive and the Crusade metagame is hard to invest in. [Dec 2013, p.87]
  3. Everyeye.it
    Oct 22, 2013
    78
    Ascend: Hand of Kul convinces with an immediate gameplay and some very interesting features, even if not always implemented properly.
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