Ashen

Great game but If, like me, you're buying this having been attracted to the "Online Co-Op" tag be warned it's not traditional co-op. If you want to play through the game with a friend you're gonna have a lot of headaches.
Firstly trying to sync your worlds and secondly trying not to de-sync constantly.
The games co-op is passive meaning you're meant to just briefly cross into other peoples game space and help out a bit and then truck off again. If you're trying to play with a friend persistently, while it's possible, it's like the game is constantly trying to separate you and regularly will. I've read the co-op is more stable for some than others but for me it was extremely frustrating turning around every 5 minutes and going 'oh, my friend is now an AI character again, fantastic'.
I get the feeling if they'd just made it traditional co-op this game would've been received a lot better and been a lot more popular. It's clearly doable so why they've chosen not to support it is baffling.

I think the biggest reason for Ashen not recieving a very positive rating is that people tend to lament over the things the game doesn't offer instead of appreciating what it does.
In my opinion the game offers alot which other souls-like don't, most obvious example would be the jumping and climbing mechanics enabling a parkour like exploration at times.
If you see something that looks climbable it most of the time is in one way or another and usually will also have a reward waiting for you aswell.
Other than that the game is designed to be played in co-op, while the AI Companions do offer some help in the base game and playing it solo is also viable, dungeon doors and some climbing spots are literally designed for 2 players.
The co-op is also pretty good with you being able to connect to your friends with a multiplayer filter and being able to explore the whole map together except for Vagrants Rest, which is kind of like a ever changing Firelink Shrine.
Playing through Children of Sissna would also have taken alot more time with AI or solo, rather than with my friend.
The only real negative aspect to multiplayer is the fact that your friend will not show up as himself but rather as one of the NPC companions, depending on which quest you have active
The Combat is pretty much what you'd expect, a stamina bar which depletes on attacks, dodges and blocks
There is a slight difference in the dodging mechanic, if you press dodge once you do a bloodborne inspired dash but if you press dodge twice you will actually roll instead of dashing.
The weapons boil down to axe and club variants, which are then seperated into one- or two-handed.
Axe weapons usually have lower base damage but faster swinging speed and crit chance compared to clubs which swing slower, have no crit chance but offer higher stun and damage.
The stundamage is used to break guards or stagger enemies, while Blunt weapons excel at this, its also possible to pair a shield with a one-handed axe and use the shield to break guards or interrupt.
Each weapon has a very unique look to it and upgrading them makes different parts of the weapon glow.
Shields and Armor sadly can't be upgraded at all but better lanterns can be bought later on in the game.
Story and artstyle are definetly a matter of taste but in my opinion neither of it was bad, story had some decent twists and you can get into it if you really care and as for the artstyle I just really liked it.
The different Areas are all unique and look beautifully crafted and so are the dungeons.
I had a great time with the game and would definetly recommend it to anyone whos looking for a souls-like game to enjoy with a friend
BUT I would also recommend you to wait for it to go on sale, as the full price can seem a bit high

This game deserves way more love!
I hardly ever see anyone talking about it, and I really don't know why it's so under the radar...
It has almost everything I seek in a Souls-like:
- Very good combat and animations;
- Incredible athmosfere;
- A lot of exploration.
I must say this review will seem quite negative, but that's simply because I tend to remember things I dislike way more than things I like in pretty much everything I consume. But that doesn't necessarily mean my overall opinion is bad... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Anyway, let's begin:
The controlls all feel very familiar if you are a souls fan, and the combat is also very similar.
It's all about learning the time to dodge, to hit, learning the attack pattern of the enemies, and learning the best ways to use the moveset of your weapon.
I also like how the weapons got balanced. Those with higher damage will mostly have low critical chance or either a worse moveset, those with a better moveset will either lack raw damage or critical chance and so on. So there are options for all playstyles and there are very few objectively bad weapons.
The art in the game is simply beautiful and the atmosphere makes every area feel unique and give you a different feeling. Caves and dungeons get really dark, making it mandatory to carry a properly upgraded lamp. Which you can always place on the ground, in case you want to go for two-handed weapons in such places.
I also like how the areas are quite big and open, so there's plenty of room to explore and find secret items hidden in every corner. Sometimes you can even find hidden paths, but they are not always rewarding.
There are some interesting details like the ost played in the main town changing slightly as you progress through the game. The way as the town grows as you progress, and how the NPCs seem to gain better gear also makes you feel like you are making some actual difference in that world.
It has a quite interesting lore too, if you dig into it, but it's easily misseable. I may look more into it later...
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But of course, the game is not perfect. And has a few problems:
First the progression is a bit awkward: you spend the entire game saving Scoria and feeling like you never have enought to upgrade all the things you need. Until you get to the last two regions and suddenly gets overwhelmed with tons of it, so you get very excited to go back to the main town to do some real progress with your gear... Just to realize you was in the very final upgrade of pretty much everything, and no longer have anything actually important to use the whole bunch of Scoria you have left...
The bosses were a bit disapointing for me with a few exceptions.
Most of them just feel like regular enemies, but with a huge health bar...
They often have one unique mechanic in the fight, but it's never a big deal, and they have mostly generic movesets that willl hardly ever change during the fight. So they are fairly easy, to the point that there's only one boss in the entire game that I didn't kill in the first try... (without counting the DLC, since I didn't play it yet)
I also must say that I really dislike how Ashen deals with enemies respawns. It being by time instead of interacting with a checkpoint completely takes away the feeling of walking freely by a "clean" area. And it's even worse in closed dungeons. Meeting enemies you already killed when you walk backwards in a closed dungeon makes no sense at all!
Another issue is the multiplayer, which is pretty much dead if you don't call a friend to play with you. And even if you bring one, it's fairly easy to lose the possibility to connect in case you do a main objective before your friend.
And if you are alone you are left with the AI companion, which seems to alternate between two states of mind:
The "decent helper" and the "complete nuts". When in the second state, the AI will just do some nonsense like jump off the nearest cliff, become irresponsive at a random spot until you force it to respawn, get confused hitting the air while trying to save you from a grab attack, etc...
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And besides all that, the game could really use some quality of life changes such as:
- Unlimited storage space (honestly, you can't even store all the different weapons and armour in the storage...)
- Unrestricted inventory slots. I mean, why do I need to have a permanent empty slot just because I don't want to use potions? Why can't I just place any other consumable there? Or why can't I just have another one handed weapon equipped instead of my two handed?
- A better keybinding for the lances (having the same key as regular weapon swapping is just annoying, and creates bad situations when you need to swap between 1h and 2h quickly)
- Less multiplayer restrictions;
- And maybe the possibility to place markers in the map, so you don't have to remember everything by head when you backtrack...
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So, my final grade:
8.5/10 in coop
7/10 with AI
Probably the best souls-like I've played in a long time, but could be even better!

~{Graphics}~
☐ You forget what reality is
☐ Beautiful
☑ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ MS-DOS
~{Gameplay}~
☐ Very good
☑ Good
☐ It‘s just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Fallout 76
~{Audio}~
☐ Eargasm
☐ Very good
☑ Good
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ I'm now deaf
~{Audience}~
☐ Kids
☑ Teens
☑ Adults
☐ All
~{PC Requirements}~
☐ Check if you can run paint
☑ Potato
☐ Decent
☐ Fast
☐ Rich boi
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer
~{Difficulty}~
☐ Just press 'W'
☐ Easy
☑ Significant brain usage
☐ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls
~{Grind}~
☐ Nothing to grind
☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks
☐ Isn't necessary to progress
☑ Average grind level
☐ Too much grind
☐ You‘ll need a second life for grinding
~{Story}~
☐ No Story
☐ Some lore
☑ Average
☐ Good
☐ Lovely
☐ It‘ll replace your life
~{Game Time}~
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☐ Short
☑ Average
☐ Long
☐ To infinity and beyond
~{Price}~
☐ It’s free!
☐ Worth the price
☑ If it's on sale
☐ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money
~{Bugs}~
☐ Never heard of
☑ Minor bugs
☐ Can get annoying
☐It's everywhere
~{ Should I play this game with my friends? }~
☐No
☑Yes, 1-2 players
☐It is preferred to be more than 3 players
☐Yes it will be more way better.
~{?/10}~
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☐2
☐3
☐4
☐5
☐6
☑7
☐8
☐9
☐10
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I'm not the biggest fan of Souls Like, but ...
This game ... this game is really something!
First of all, as far as I know, most Souls Like you play alone, or alone for most of the game, and before you buy it, you should know that Ashen should not be played in Single Player mode. I mean, you could... but the game will lose its full potential if you do that. Let me give you my example then: I never played any Souls like before, but I saw this game and it caught my attention in some way, and then, I'm a man who likes to support indies, so I bought it as soon as I got a special deal. (By the way, the price drops here and there, but if you just want the total price. I think this game is a gem) So I started playing Single Player, I got around 12 hours and then drop it. But Caste, why? Because it is not meant to be a game for just one player! The game kind of indicates that you should go Duo when it automatically puts an A.I to be your partner.
So, if this game caught your attention as it caught mine, go ahead and find a friend to play with you. Just annoy your best friend until he buys, just like I did. Even though he complained, in the end he enjoyed the game as much as I did.
Well, for the game itself. It is not your typical triple A game, but there is something about the aesthetics of this game that is simply magical. The soundtrack is a masterpiece in itself, and the composer, e.hillman, is a complete genius. Ashen would not be the game it is without it. The soundtracks define the mood of the scenes and give color (or should I say light? xD) to the world whenever necessary. The graphics are cartoonish, but pleasing to the eye. Each part of the map looks unique and makes you feel very small at times (along with the soundtrack, of course).
The enemies ... well, they are Souls Like padron, so they are terribly annoying. Sometimes you die, you lose all your money and then you quit to steam off, but the story and your duo make you want to go back and grind your ass off all over again. Boss fights are really unique. Each boss is powerful and aesthetic in their own way, and they require different tactics to be defeated . Also... did I mention the soundtrack? Well ... each track its amazing.
The story is very interesting and mystical, but kinda short (Prob you can finish the game around 10 hours). It helps you feel really small in a big universe with all the mythological lore behind it. But, it is a good story. Nothing phenomenal, but it's interesting enough to make you come back after a rage and it even have room for a plot twist here and there.
Things I didn't really like were: The quest tab, menu or whatever. It could be way better and, at times, it can be very confusing. The inventory too. The game makes no effort to explain how it works, and even when you unlock the chest in the village (By the way, I just remembered that the village itself its pretty confusing), it is just a chest in the entire game with a limit. So you can't collect all the weapons and armor. Parkour in the game is a bit heavy ... I don't know if it's intentional or not, but I'm not the most skilled guy and I a was very angry man during some parts falling to my instant death. Combat can be a pain in the ass sometimes, but I think it's just Souls Like style, so I won't even bother. It is probably intentional. Also, I just remembered too, setting off the multiplayer can be confusing. I had to watch a video on youtube to understand how it works, and even with that took a while to figure it out. You can't see your friend at some areas of the game. The devs could had make this really simple... is it that hard to make an invite system or something?
Well, now that I look back, I just feel the game it doesn't make any effort at all to explain how some things work at some points.
So, if you've read this far and still want to make this journey, get a friend and have fun. It was a journey for me and my friend.
Friendly tip: ABUSE SPEAR CRAFTING! My best friend did that and made the game really easy at some parts for us, sniping enemies at long distances. Works fine kiting the bosses too.

Nice souls-like combat system, nice graphics, nice co-op. Difficulty is nowhere near Dark Souls, makes for nice casual experience.

Wonderful environments, minimal stories, great character design. I would define Ashen as a softlike , because compared to soulslikes it's quite easy and it also lacks the complexity of combat, stats and enemies. Still, the game works perfectly fine and difficulty is always well balanced, except maybe for a few moments where the path to the boss is harder than the boss itself. Since the moveset is limited and there are not many types of weapons you will mostly dodge and attack for the whole time. Shields are not so effective in this game and they will just consume the stamina you need for dodging when attacked from multiple sides. As always, learning the enemy pattern is the key to the victory., but most of the normal enemies use the same pattern with some little variation and things only get interesting during mini and regular boss fights. During your quests you always have a following NPC which most of the time is useful (especially for climbing high walls), but can also be annoying when he gets stuck and can't reach you, or when he dies by falling off a cliff. If you activate the online multiplayer a real player can join and play as your NPC, which is much better, but it rarely happens 'cause the multiplayer is kinda broken. You can also play co-op with a friend if you set a filter code, that should work better.
The atmosphere is really great. The exploration feels rewarding, especially at the beginning when you are weak and only have a few items. You can increase your stats by completing side/main quests and finding the hidden black and white feathers of the Ashen. Side quests are great and involve different characters and places you wouldn't normally explore during your main quest. Unfortunately the exploration ends up being useless soon after you max everything you can. There are some secret armors and weapons hidden, but most of the time you will be overwhelmed with crafting materials you won't need anymore.
Now some negative points:
- You can only upgrade weapons (no armors, no shields).
- Limited storage space that can't even contain all the weapons / shields / armors you will find.
- Enemies respawn after some time and can be really annoying before unlocking fast travel.
- Some parts can be easily cheated by simply rushing to the nearest ritual stone.
- You can't skip the ending credits.
The game is well worth if you are looking for a simple soulslike with a beautiful open world and an interesting lore. The base price is a bit high though, I would recommend it only on sale.
PS: If you want to take screenshots without the HUD I suggest downloading the "Ashen Hud Toggle" mod by Pino44io.