Ashen wants to be Dark Souls Lite, but it's missing too much. I tried to enjoy Ashen. It lacks polish in so many key areas that I set it aside for a year before coming back.
Ashen’s art design is nifty. The faceless characters let players flex their imaginations. The limited color palette is superbly used to great effect. The developers stuck with a less-is-more approach. EnvironmentsAshen wants to be Dark Souls Lite, but it's missing too much. I tried to enjoy Ashen. It lacks polish in so many key areas that I set it aside for a year before coming back.
Ashen’s art design is nifty. The faceless characters let players flex their imaginations. The limited color palette is superbly used to great effect. The developers stuck with a less-is-more approach. Environments are varied and interesting. Despite the simplistic visuals, performance isn’t even passable. Enemy draw distances are short, so short my hero was occasionally attacked by enemies who still hadn’t rendered! Frame rates are at times as low as Horizon Zero Dawn, which is obviously far more demanding. Frames will dip into the low teens when more than 2 or 3 enemies pop up. In a combat focused game, low fps sucks. In a game that looks like a Wii port, low fps is downright unacceptable.
The hero is accompanied by companions, and their AI performance is equally bad. Companions commitment suicide by falling off ledges. Yes, they will just run off ledges. Companions often stand idly as enemies attack you, or them, or both. Companions often swing at enemies and miss. They will swing and miss 3,4,5 times in a row. They often get stuck, so players must move to the next area before their companions suddenly appear ready to run off the next ledge. Companions can be handy, but their primary utility is distraction. Brave heroes can leave their companions behind and venture out solo. Since companions can’t hold excess inventory, what good are they anyway?
The online component is lame. Don’t expect souls-like summoning. Players are randomly matched. A player becomes a companion in someone else’s world. But neither player is aware of the pairing until they see their companion acting the fool. Few people are playing Ashen at this point, so random co-op ain’t happening much anyway. However, players can team up with friends which definitely makes things more fun.
Unlike Ashen’s performance, the soundtrack is fantastic. Dark Souls games lack music during exploration. Their absence doesn’t negatively affect the games though. Ashen’s soundtrack is simplistic and haunting. The melodies aren’t catchy, but it’s hard to imagine playing Ashen without them.
Combat is boring. Although there’s dozens of weapons, move sets among weapons in each class are identical. So one axe handles like every other axe. Many weapons have slow animations. Novice players should avoid those. Nearly all enemies move quickly and attack in packs. Slow, hard-hitting weapons are the worst choices in most encounters because players will be taking multiple, rapid hits from gangs of baddies. Players are limited in weapon loadouts as well. They must always carry a lantern and a shield in one hand, and a light and heavy weapon and/or a spear in the other. This means player can’t mix things up much, such as carrying two shields and two light weapons. Replayability takes a hit as a consequence. The lack of combat variety means players won’t be playing a stealth build and then try again as a heavy. Weapons are easy to master. Too bad only a few are worth using.
There’s no leveling in the traditional since. Players earn souls—called scoria—to upgrade weapons and a few equipment items. Health and stamina are only enhanced upon completing quests, and players can’t choose which stat gets a boost, the game automatically upgrades those stats for them. Armor and shields aren’t upgradeable, which stinks. This is a problem because unique weapon stats would help players fight thru the absurdly difficult phases. The lack of a meaningful progression system further hinders replayability.
And there’s no NG+. That is the death blow to replay value.
Pacing is the biggest problem. Ashen starts easy, and then hits players with a Mack truck at the second dungeon. That dungeon is encountered only a few hours into the game, and it’s insanely difficult given the scant resources and upgrades players have available to them. The sudden difficulty spike has frustrated countless players because it comes out of nowhere, and that dungeon throws everything including the kitchen sink at players. The companion AI really struggles with this dungeon too, more so here than any other area. At this stage, many players still rely on the AI to distract foes. After the second dungeon, Ashen’s difficulty drops and stays relatively the same for the rest of the game. After the second dungeon, players are buried with scoria and upgrade components to the point they become meaningless. The second dungeon is where Ashen sours for many players.
Ashen is not worth $40. Sluggish performance, buggy companion AI, uninspired progression, and uneven pacing detract from its pleasing aesthetics. Although it’s about 10+ hours in length, the lack of ng+ and boring combat toast replayability. Even true souls fans will find it hard to appreciate what's there… Expand
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