Ashen

~{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}~
☐1
☐2
☐3
☐4
☐5
☐6
☑7
☐8
☐9
☐10
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
                    T A K E 　C A R E
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

I have a pretty hard time trying to recommend this game. On one hand, this is probably one of if not the most beautiful games I have ever played. On an artistic level, this game has nailed almost everything. I want to explore this world, learn all of its lore. The music is perfect for establishing the feelings of loneliness and emptiness that plagues the world. The lone warriors trying to rekindle the light on their planet. The story is amazing as well. Every character you recruit has a great arc where you learn about them, their past, their people and their goals. Their quests are great and complex and have a lot of intrigue.
Gameplay is where things become a little rough. It doesn’t really do anything special as a souls like. You have 3 types of weapons. One handed weapons, two handed, and spears. The main one handed/ two handed weapons are separated by a few subtypes where their stats are weighted differently on each weapon. One weapon will have a really high crit rate, but low base attack and stun etc. There is no progression with your weapons aside from when you gain the ability to upgrade them later. So the big axe you picked up at the start of the game will never have to be replaced if you keep up with its upgrade requirements. The weapons are honestly boring. You use what you personally find is most effective to go through the game and that's it. The game needed a more interesting progression system because as it is now, its very flat. Nothing changes about your weapons besides the stats and a small glow it gets near its max level. Weapons also don’t really have any interesting animations or anything, it just is.
Bosses in this game leave a lot to be desired. Because the combat system in this game is quite flat, I assumed they couldn’t do much with the boss design. They were all exciting and interesting bosses but gameplay wise, it didn’t take much for me to beat them. The only boss I have a problem with is Sissna. The first phase of the boss is beyond flat and takes too long because of her large health pool and her constant, and I mean CONSTANT dodging. Enemies in this game have Iframes as well!
Normal enemies were honestly great. Near the end of the game, a lot more variety was honestly desired, but the challenge of the environment you were in, paired up with the enemies never made them boring. The enemies are honestly extremely challenging. Even at the base game you’ll find 70% of your health getting chunked by some common enemies, and a lot of them fight like players as well, to the point where it becomes pretty cinematic experience where you’re both exchanging dodges and blows against each other.
The Rune system needed so much more. All the runes are boring and flat. Even the main tree ones that give you decent combat benefits are just standard talents in other games. They’re all almost boring stat increases and I wish it was better.
The final thing of note is that this game commits the unforgivable sin of dogshit AI. The game can be played co-op with a friend (I’m waiting to try that with a friend of mine). The game is meant to be played with two regardless, and your companion constantly drowns, gets stuck and acts like a fucking idiot. This will infuriate you honestly. You can disable the partner AI, but the game is designed to be played with this second person. Their stun chance and agroo soak is essential honestly to playing the game, otherwise you’ll be playing the game in an extremely slow manner.
The solution I can think of is you absorb a portion of your partner's stats if you disable them from the menu, thus making the game a little more balanced towards pure solo play.
If for some reason you’re still reading this review and still stuck in between. I recommend you buy this game at the end. Go being prepared for some of its flaws, and get ready to enjoy some of the best story, world design, zones, mobs and enemies you’ll have the pleasure of playing. I only wish it had more to it. I hope it gets a bomb sequel where it addresses these issues

Rating: 6.5/10
Genre: Open World RPG
THE GOOD:
+ The minimalist art style works well and provides a unique look
+ Combat is identical to your typical ‘souls-like’ game albeit much simpler. You have to manage your stamina while you block, dodge and attack enemies looking for the right moment to strike. There are no parries or backstabbing involved but the combat can be fun and engaging. This may be a good entry point for newcomers to the genre.
+ Completing side/main quest allows your village to grow. Its always nice to see at the beginning of the game how things develop over time. As you play through the game you find new people to add to your village and unlock new quests.
THE AVERAGE:
+/- The game features quite a few different weapons however each weapon has minor variation in stats so none of them feel truly unique. Strangely, the starting weapon has one of the best stats and move sets, I upgraded that weapon and used it to beat the entire game. You can not upgrade shields or armor and there is only a handful of them in the game, each one increasing damage reduction at the expense of stamina.
+/- Character builds are limited compared to other games in the genre. You can equip up to 4 perks and decided if you want to use a single- or two-handed weapon.
+/- Companions fight along side you, however sometimes they stop following you, get stuck in the oddest places and in general don’t always behave the way they are suppose to.
+/- Level design is a bit inconsistent. Early levels are fun to explore while later levels feel more confusing and difficult. Your reward for exploring levels for the most part is crafting materials, usually you will have so much by the end of the game it doesn’t seem to make a difference. There are no shortcuts to unlock which is a big part of these types of games so exploring levels doesn’t feel as rewarding as it should be.
THE BAD:
+/- Checkpoints are sparsely spaced out, because there are no shortcuts, if you die you have to go all the way back. This is problematic in the last few sections of the game when things get really hard. The last boss notably is poorly designed and when you die if you have run all the way back through a mini dungeon just to get back.
CONCLUSION:
Ashen took ‘souls’ combat but failed to grasp what makes these types of games so interesting and fun. It’s a good first attempt at the genre but limited characters builds and weapons and frustrating level design and enemy encounters really hold it back.

Get it on sale.

This game falls into the Souls-Like genre, but it's not Dark Souls clone. It has its own unique style, interesting atmosphere and lore. The combat is not overly complicated, but it's not one dimensional. This game is well worth one play through.

Had a great time playing through this with my friend. Definitely a souls like, but not as deep as the souls series as far as combat is concerned. The art style is frankly fantastic, especially in later parts of the game. Coop took a Google search to figure out, but once we had it down we never had any issues connecting.

Its a relaxing more open take on a souls game with a art style that feels like a master sculptre was hired to make the whole world out of clay the combat is fun and over all the game is a relaxing game to play and the story is really intresting