A Call for Ashen Responses!
Added 2021-09-04 14:01:01 +0000 UTCHey there, we're looking for your thoughts on Ashen, if you have them. As always, we are looking to read responses that are concise and specific. Picture around two paragraphs, and with specific observations and comments about one aspect of the game, not a broad review of the entire thing. This helps us out tremendously.
Please leave your thoughts as a comment on this post. The deadline for responses is Tuesday, September 7.
Thanks!
Comments
Wish the window for responses was a little larger. I don't always get a chance to check in on my feed regularly, and it bums me out when I just miss my chance to be a part the convo. Would love if y'all considered extending the call for responses whenever possible :)
Patric Fallon
2021-09-09 06:32:49 +0000 UTCSince you guys theorized that some of Ashen's more positive reviews might have been from critics who didn't finish the game, I thought I'd share that I was actually *supposed* to review it for the site I write for, but asked someone else to step in after what felt like my twelfth attempt at the Seat of the Matriarch. Incidentally, the guy who filled for me couldn't get through it either -- in fact, he mentions in his review that this is the first time he's ever reviewed a game without seeing it through to the end. So there you go... Ashen broke two critics on one site alone. While I can't speak for how often other critics tend to finish games before they review them, I can say that a great deal of the press seems more focused on presentation and polish than ideas and artistry, which I'd wager is why Ashen reviewed well. You could examine any ten-minute stretch of Ashen gameplay and think you were looking at a good game, but as a whole, it hammered home how important the context of *interesting spaces* is to a soulslike. The frustration is less rewarding when there's no view from the top. I mean, look at how universally beloved Bloodborne is, versus how universally loathed its Chalice Dungeons are. Even the best soulslike mechanics lose at least 50% of their appeal when stripped down to their barest wireframe.
Mike Suskie
2021-09-07 06:36:10 +0000 UTCI wasn't sure how I felt about Ashen until I encountered the Ashwraiths (?) in the Seat of the Matriarch. Creepy specters waiting in the dark to consume your soul! That was what finally gave me the Dark Souls "feeling." Unfortunately, the fact that new weapons were never upgrades eventually made me feel stymied. Then the run up to the final boss settled it. And for once, I didn't feel guilty about quitting a game! I had a, "It's not me, it's you" moment with the developers. (But I still think I appreciate their aesthetic sensibilities enough to give them a second chance if they ever try again.)
Micah Tillman
2021-09-05 19:20:04 +0000 UTCI forgot the trading system until you mentioned it there, just another way to waste your time. Having to buy items and then trade them up for other items so you can make the potions you want, why??? The only reason could be to make it take longer and feel like a grind. Maybe they thought it would feel like you "earned" them, I dunno, it baffles me like almost all the decisions they made developing this game!
Gordon Burnett
2021-09-04 23:59:52 +0000 UTCIt's a little impressive how completely and thoroughly Ashen fucking whiffs it. I was a big fan of Ashen for the first 80% or so, enjoying its mood, feel, and modest ambitions. Instead of leaning into the challenge fuck aspect, Ashen initially felt like a very literal interpretation of the term Souls-like, i.e. a game that is like Dark Souls. I appreciated that it seemed content to make a somewhat more accessible, more conventional version of From's classics. While it had plenty of flaws, they simply didn't bother me that much. So imagine my surprise when I reached the final act and it felt like the game was saying, oh shit, you weren't bothered by this nonsense? Because you were supposed to be! You're supposed to hate this game! The levels are supposed to feel endless and bland, the bosses are supposed to be unpleasantly frustrating, the trading system is supposed to resemble a bureaucratic nightmare, and the boss runs are supposed to be hateful and pointless. Unfortunately, I bought the DLC while I was still riding high on Ashen, which exacerbates all of its late-game problems and concludes with a bottom 5 Souls-like boss. The only good thing I got out of it is that it made the main game's final boss, who would also easily be in the bottom 5, seem better in comparison. Fuck this shit ass game that I admittedly enjoyed much of my time with.
Eric Nagurney
2021-09-04 23:44:41 +0000 UTCI had my eye on “Ashen” for a while, and when you guys said you were going to cover it + it went on sale, I decided to pull the trigger. I was really intrigued at first - the minimalist art direction was beautiful, and the notion of helping to build a town was a really cool prospect. I loved exploring the land, and slowly realizing that the co-op was fluid, and my companion could be an actual other person was a delight. And then I hit the second dungeon. Jokell died pretty early on, and so I was on my own. It was tough, but I decided to persevere - until I kept getting ganked out of the shadows. I put the controller down, stepped away for a day, and then gave it another try. This time, Jokell straight up fell off one of the walkways to his death, and I again was left to go it alone, only to be once again bested by ganks. I was officially done. I haven’t gone back since, and I felt so validated by your similar frustrations with the dungeon. Ashen, I wanted to love you, but it just wasn’t meant to be.
Nick Paul
2021-09-04 22:46:26 +0000 UTCIt’s a bummer the companion system falls flat, because it’s clear they built the difficulty and dungeon design around 2 players.
Tylor
2021-09-04 19:13:35 +0000 UTCInitially, Ashen was my version of “Garynip:” An Annapurna published soulslike with a smaller scope, gentler game mechanics, and online co-op. The excitement I had for the game made its lackluster aspects all the more disappointing (namely the awkward difficulty ramp and tacked on side quests), but to be fair it does have some “big shoes to fill,” to quote Sideshow Bob. It is no Dark Souls 1, but what it does offer is fun in its own right, and one of the better modern takes on the genre.
Tylor
2021-09-04 19:10:59 +0000 UTC(not sure if this specific enough, but that's one of my problems with Ashen--there's nothing to be specific _about_.)
Zack Handlen
2021-09-04 16:02:40 +0000 UTCI can be stubborn when I play certain kinds of games, and the only reason I got as far as I did in Ashen was that stubbornness; when something is difficult enough to be frustrating in a way I understand, part of my brain just decides "Oh, you _have_ to finish this now," and I'm stuck. There were moments when I enjoyed Ashen, when I appreciated the mood, when the combat was a smashy-smashy kind of fun. But the majority of my time was spent feeling increasingly exhausted and irritable at the gap between the game's narrative ambitions and its rudimentary, inadvertently hateful play. "Re-building" is nice, "repeating badly designed enemy encounters with no checkpoints" is not. No aesthetic can survive this kind of tedium, and the story wasn't well-written enough to make me care beyond the initial vibe impressions. So when I got to the final boss, died, and realized what was being expected of me, I walked away. It was weirdly freeing.
Zack Handlen
2021-09-04 15:56:07 +0000 UTCI definitely had a hard time with Seat of the Matriarch but for me the final straw came when I died to the last boss for the first time. When I spawned back at the town and realised I had to fight my way back through the cave I turned the game off and walked away... for about a week. I came back determined to see it through and spent a night running the cave again and again, cursing the devs for not letting me really build a rhythm to learn the boss and Jokel for dying pretty much the instant phase 2 started. Except in my last turn he didn't, suddenly he was a superhero, dodging perfectly, attacking only when there was an opening and I realised another player was in control of him! My hands were shaking as I dodged the final spider scuttle and my buddy delivered the killing blow. I'll never know who that saint was but I thank them for getting me through that nightmare. It was that lack of respect for the player's time that killed this game for me, it could have been so good if they'd just given a few more checkpoints and a lot more light
Gordon Burnett
2021-09-04 15:07:42 +0000 UTCI have Ashen on the list of my favorite games I played the year it came out. I really enjoyed the aesthetic and the sense of community you get as your hub builds up. It reminded me of Majula. However, since finishing the game, the main thing I associate it with is how terrible a time I had in the Seat of the matriarch. I very nearly quit playing the game. I have no idea how a dungeon full of insta-death ledges made it into a game where the ai companion is this bad at walking. At one point I found myself wondering if I had, perhaps, completely misunderstood the genre of game I was playing. There are no checkpoints so is this some kind of weird roguelike? Having such a limited verb set (no magic or good ranged combat and the darkness means I can't even two hand a weapon) meant that instead of trying to vary my approach or go get some levels, I just had to put my head down and memorize the path that would spawn the fewest ambushes. Ultimately I got through it, and the rest of the game went better. But when I sat down later and tried to play the dlc, I gave up 5 minutes in after Jokell fell off another cliff, leaving me to die at an ambush mob.
William
2021-09-04 14:30:27 +0000 UTCIn Ashen, I rarely felt like I was forging my own way in a hostile world. It often felt more being in a maze, putting one hand on a wall, and following it until I got to the end. In the few times I followed a landmark or pursued a gamer(tm) instinct, I would find something unsatisfying. And that dungeon. Gwyn H. Lordan, that second dungeon. At one point, figuring I HAD to be near the end, I attempted to run ahead, ignoring every enemy and hoping I'd make it to a boss with enough resources. Halfway through the run, my jaw was on the floor. Why? Why make it that big? Why is it so full of ambushes and giant, time-sink enemies? I made it to the bottom, I put the game down, and I never came back.
Autumn M
2021-09-04 14:20:51 +0000 UTC
