Ashen

Solid Souls like
Does Ashen keeps crashing?...Do this!
hit windows+R, type systempropertiesadvanced then click ok, then select environmental variables, then under system variables select new, then under variable name type OPENSSL_ia32cap then under variable value type ~0x20000000 then hit ok. This will stop the game from crashing. Game is solid and fun to play!

I don't think this game deserves mixed. Def not overwhelmingly positive but it should be positive. It takes a while to get the hang of and the tutorial is kinda terrible but its actually great after that.

Got the game on sale for $12. This a souls like with firewatch animation style. This is the first souls like that I have played and I will 100% recommend this game. The story line was good, the pacing was pretty good. At the start of the game you dont get much scoria (money), by the end it is just thrown at you so upgrading really happens in the later half of the game. All the bosses were well scaled and for my first souls like it was achievable, the last boss however was very difficult but I suppose it is the last boss. 10/10 game

At the time of this review, it has taken me 18.2 hours to beat the game. All side quests finished, maybe 1h or so of grinding and getting lost. I did not do or buy the DLC.
Look, is the game a 10/10? No. But its a 8/10 for me, especially at the pace the game runs. Even if I was on for just 30m, it felt like I got a lot done. Ashen is a solid take on the Souls-like formula with enough of its own identity to be different. I read through a lot of the comments and most complaints were multiplayer which I did not touch or some form of stability issues. I had 0 crashes, bugs, glitches APART from the companion AI randomly disappearing like 2-3 times. Suddenly found myself alone 200 feet undergound surrounded by darkness and demons. Fun.
Difficulty - Starts off easy, but ramps up as you go through the campaign. The thing is that the game is built around you going along with an AI companion. You can choose who as you select the quest and the companionship makes for a totally different experience. You play off aggro and many encounters are built around the idea of 2 people. Now. The AI is fine, but they are often insanely strong, soloing a lot of mobs and saving your life. Prepare yourself though for the dungeons as it is rare to find a game where you must venture FAR before the next save point, and once there you cannot return. I see this aspect turning some people off as the difficulty gets pretty high, but I personally really enjoyed that aspect because you had to be ready and you get that tense feeling of "1 potion and a dream" as you are in hell's ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ looking for respite. Also, I have to mention this game has a very different leveling system than other games. You gain life + stamina from completing quests which are woven quite well alongside the story and also from some world items. Thats it. You never level up your own character.
World - I loved the art style. It could be both charming and indimidating. Building your own town was cool and I really liked the aspect of always travelling further and further from town. All the zones are compact and for a explore-♥♥♥♥♥ like me, it felt nice that I could sweep a whole zone and it didn't feel too large or tedious. One thing this game got correct is that the dark dungeons are DARK. I personally really enjoyed the claustrophobic nature of the 3 dungeons (looking at you dungeon 2) and 1 really dark zone. Otherwise, a real strength this game has is that as you go through the game the zones get better. They become a touch more linear and structurally varied and visually more stunning. I just beat The Surge before Ashen and the more you advanced in that game the more the zones sucked and it really left a sour taste when you face off against the last boss.
Combat & Loot - The combat is fine. Simple, but good enough to carry you through. My main complaint is the lack of loot. There are literally 2 weapon types. Hammers = big bonk with stun chance and high damage. Axe = fast bonk with crit chance and mid damage. Throughout the game you find a bunch of 1 hand and 2 hand variants, which leads to my next complaint - loot. When you reach about 50% of the game, legit all the loot you find is 90% 1 of 2 things: bags of currency or upgrade material. On top of that the in-game currency is pretty sparse and there are no real good/fast grind spots so in the end game you have enough materials to fully level 10 weapons, but you can maybe do 3 unless you grind for hours. Armor too is lacking. You pick up like 8 along the way and you kind of just slowly upgrade. One thing that is cool though for the combat are the different relics and artifacts you can equip. Basically think of it as a major passive bonus and 4 smaller passive bonuses you can swap between in town. They affect things like damage, stamina use, hp %, damage reduction, etc.
Bosses - I liked all the bosses. The first 3 were good ones to teach mechanics and to ease you into the game. The fourth one, strap on your boots, the game gets real. Its a great fight, but the boss and dungeon before it are true Souls difficulty. The last boss of the game I really enjoyed (story-wise too). Felt like a toe-to-toe dance. I got her on my second try, but I can see why many would hate her because of 1 thing - the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ run back. ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ the developers could not have chosen a more asinine way to get back to the hardest boss. There should of been a non-teleport shrine just outside of the arena.
Story - There is one. I mean, by the end I kind of understood it all, but they throw a lot of names and ideas and places at you pretty quick with not much to hold on to. Its not so much a "Souls" type story because there is dialogue and a premise and direction, but it kind of all felt like background "stuff". What I did appreciate though is they did a good job at establishing a sense of direction and purpose.
Overall I found Ashen to be a solid gaming experience, with a fun fast-paced world to explore. The difficulty has a nice curve that gets quite high. What drags it down is nothing horrible as people are too quick to shove something in a corner if it does 1 thing wrong.
Last point. Is it worth the full $40US or $50 CAD? Not sure. I got it on special. I don't think game time = quality, but this one was quite short with no real replay value (for me). Then again, $50 CAD for me is almost the price of a movie ticket and some popcorn for a 2h entertainment night.

I will start this review by stating the most important piece of information you need to know before buying this game. Ashen is a great co-op soulslike that rewards exploration, skill expression and different playstyles. Albeit, the difference is not vast in terms of character building but there are for sure options for different kinds of players.
So this game is not very long and I think to some this could be a negative but imo I think this is a great pro in it because it encourages more replay-ability and there's a value there if you've played the game you will know what I mean. So there's room for experimentation and it isn't too punishing if you want to try different playstyles before committing to one, but as with all soulslikes you will need to commit to a weapon and armor if you want to have a chance at the late game.
The exploration is really nice and rewarding with the different landscapes and the amount of hidden loot and platforming you need to do to collect everything is actually staggering but in an amazing way because it always seems like there's a corner you didn't look around or some hidden platform that you need to notice let a lone figure out how to reach this platform and then return from it to where you were before.
The boss fights are not that plentiful but the ones that are present are absolutely memorable and contain both high mechanical impact as well as story impacts. Speaking of which, the story is really easy to follow which is a breath of fresh air to be able to follow a story from start to finish in a soulslike game and it is kind of generic and for sure a case can be made that it's heavily inspired by darksouls but I would say it's distinct enough to be borrowing some elements but at the same time doing it's own thing.
Finally the co-op is kind of dodgy at time but with almost 25 hours in the game, it worked just fine with me and my friend and we were able to play through the entire game together, apart from one slight hitch where I killed a boss when he died to and so we couldn't do the boss fight again because there's no single instance of one player or the other so I had to wait for my friend to kill the boss to be on the same quest step together. So just watch out in instances like this.
I do recommend this game for someone who's looking for an entry level soulslike even alone, especially if you have someone to play with through this game. And for the price that this game is at and the effort the devs put into it, I really do think this game is a steal and should be at least considered by most people if not outright recommended to give it a try for how much it's worth the asking price. Doubly so if it's on sale which it is on the regular.

I have a lot more hours in this game than my profile shows as I got the game when it released on Epic games, and after over 6 years I can still say Ashen is my favourite game of all time. The atmosphere of the game is incredible, its beautiful art direction lends a minimalist aesthetic to the game which makes it's environments all the more enrapturing, and the sombre music that plays alongside does so much to invest you in the mood of the game. I still remember entering the ruined city of Lathyrus for the first time and being left speechless by its majesty. The world of Ashen is one which I got so in to that my only criticism is that the game doesn't elaborate on the lore more, I wanted to know more about the Listeners, more about Lathyrus and it's downfall, just more about everything.
The gameplay loop is one I never got bored of, the combat is solid and feels satisfying, the progression is simple but intuitive, enemies are challenging but learnable, and while the game is also amazing to play solo, I do recommend playing with a friend. Despite being very much engaging, I always felt playing Ashen was also strangely comforting and relaxing. Exploring new areas and getting deeper into a dungeon never got old for me, especially when I first played as it was common to get paired with random people and it was almost always a great experience trying to navigate to and beating a boss together.
I can't entirely convey why this game is so incredible for me, it just kind of is, and I can't recommend it enough.

This a wonderful stripped down souls-like game. Combat is simplified; heavy and light attacks, one handed and two handed weapons. Shields or no shields. Your weapon choice decides your class; no need to plug exp points into attributes.
Upgradeable healing flask. Exploration and item collection. Die and leave your collected currency where the death occurred. Arrive alive and collect the losses or die and lose them forever.
The setting and world environment movement are beautiful. If the other reviews have you feeling mixed, catch it on sale.