Ascendant

1. Do you like Dust or Valdis Story? 2. Do you like The Binding of Isaac? If you can answer yes to at least one of these, you should check this out. If you can answer yes to them both, you should already be owning this.

There is a seed of a brilliant game here, but it's not as much fun as it should be. The good first, I guess: The stylization of the graphics is unique, and the visual design is terrific. The BGM is [i]gorgeous[/i], no two ways about it. Vibrant without being twee, atmospheric without devolving into sonic punctuation, [i]Ascendant[/i] is an aboslute delight to listen to. It's a shame it's not such a delight to play. The combat is well-executed, if with a somewhat steep learning curve. In fact, in my first hour or two of play, I found myself wondering why there are so few action-platformers with such fun and engaging combat. Then you start to notice that the power-ups you're unlocking don't really appear very much, that most of the pots you're smashing (yes, [i]I know[/i]) are empty, and that using that cool combat engine in an engaging way is just going to end up with you doing sooner and having to start the whole process over again. There is very little variety in enemy or leve...

Ascendant is a 2D rogue-like brawler, and pretty dang good one at that. No run will ever be same, and there is quite a bit of variation in the layouts every time. This game offers consistent challenge, but with variation every run. And that is the mark of a good rogue-like. Here's a quick look video of the game if you want to see it in action and what it has to offer. Or if you'd rather read something more concise, just read the review below. http://youtu.be/pb_gYupS07s I'll first begin by explaining the basic mechanics of this game. You play as your selected magic swordsman that's able to slash down foes, launch them with a hard swing Guacamelee style, or fire magic at them. You continue doing this until you reach the boss of the randomly generated dungeon, who can also change every run. If you manage to beat them, then you progress to the next part of the season, or to the next season if you already did so. Each new progression brings a harder challenge than the last with enemies ...

I highly recommend this game if you enjoy challenging rogue-like side scrollers. The game is artistically beautifully, the characters are unique and offer variation to the gameplay, and the bosses are fun and rewarding. If you like risk of rain or rogue legacy, you will enjoy this game and if you arent a fan, you should become one because this game is great. The game also has an excellent coop (local only) mode and youll likely get more fun out of the two player experience. I've only played it briefly so far, but I think this game is a top contender in its genre. Thanks for reading. Edit: I've now beaten the game with every character and I can still say that the game is extremely enjoyable. Each run has been very unique and it feels great to stomp the last boss a couple of times. I highly recommend this game. Edit 2: Check out the wiki for help with bosses or anything else. I recently added a bnuch of stuff and looked at the rest to make sure they were correct or useful. http://ascen...

[b]#Intro[/b] I am not much of a rewiwer, more of an analyst. This review is based on experience both with the game and the genre, at the time of writing sunk 40-50 hours into this game. I will not play a bad game for 40 minutes let alone 40 hours. If you are a fan of the genre buy it, game is excellent. If you would like a more detailed reasoning behind why keep reading, there wil be very very minor gameplay/story spoilers as it is impossible to talk about certain mechanics of the game without referencing them. [b]#Plot[/b] The plot of the game is simple. You are a Demi-god, There is a God, Overthrow the God, Become the new god. Each Demi-god has its own story and reasons for wanting to be God. The level structure is similar to Binding of Issac, there are multiple floors in groups of two with semi randomly generated rooms between you and the boss of each floor. Every odd numbered floor has a random boss from a select pool of possible bosses for that floor, and every even numbered flo...

This is a fun little roguelike with both huge strengths and glaring flaws. This game sets itself apart from other games in the genre with action/beat-em-up combat, but the moveset is quite small. Almost all the customization comes from spells and passive abilities, so don't buy this game expecting tons of synergies like Isaac. The combat takes some time to master despite how simple it is, and clearing rooms usually doesn't feel like it all depends on luck. Be warned that this game is difficult; barely anyone who bought it has finished it, and that's not due to the usual Steam mentality of buying games and never playing them. Sadly, the boss battles are where most of the aforementioned things occur. Many of them are much too difficult to beat without a good build, and they are heavily scripted with frequent use of invincibility shields between phases. This essentially means that the player will be stuck dodging difficult attacks for several cycles if the game didn't give them a damagi...

I like rogue-lites, not this one. After 5 hours with the game, all I experienced was frustration. What I especially love about rogue-lites is how powerful you can get, in some of these games you can become an absolute monster killing machine god of destruction etc. In Ascendant, all the runs felt the same, upgrades are weak and meaningless, enemies outscale you QUICK and I found it impossible to progress any further than late summer. Maybe I just suck but that doesn't make me hate the game any less.

"Roguelike" 2d platformer with pseudo-random levels and a reflex based combat system. The story is nonexistent for the most part, the music is nothing but about 15 second loops. The artstyle is cool enough. Not a lot of enemy types. Or weapon types. Spells are mostly just projectiles. I spent a lot of hours in it and had fun with it at the time, but now that I've mellowed on the game a bit, I don't think I'd ever go back to it. Some of the bosses feel grossly unfair compared to others, and magic and a few specific uniques make the game a cakewalk. I wouldn't recommend it unless you can ge tit on the cheap and you're really hard up for 2d brawler action. It IS fun to run around and dash and fling enemies around into spikes and walls, but the rest of the game just feels a bit bare. The nods of various mythos and deities and mythologies form a cool framework for the game, and the combat is passably fun for what it tries to do and has a decent skill ceiling, but... I don't know. It's ju...

Its a great game with lots of replay value, i love the combat, and finding out the new abilities after beating a boss is a lot of fun, an addicting game well worth the price.

Ascendant is a rogue-like dungeon crawler which is best played in short bursts rather than over an extended period time. It has fun gameplay mechanics, where you're able to blink to attack enemies from afar, parry attacks, dash, etc., and I've never felt that at any point in time the mechanics in the game weren't important, since certain enemies move faster than your character making the blink important, parrying projectiles one-shots most enemies, and you can avoid enemy fire to get behind them with your dash. The unique positive and negative attributes separate this game from others in the same category, with one positive being a character heals upon boss kills, and a negative attribute for a character is upon picking up health, it has a low chance to fizzle to dust and do nothing. While this game is fun, it's only playable in short bursts due to the soundtrack. Although it fits the theme of the game, the music can detract some from wanting to play it, and because to that I give a wa...