The Ascent [XO, XBSX|S, PC, XGP, PS4, PS5]

[Silent_Buddha]

Just released and it is absolutely gorgeous for a Twin Stick Shooter. Hell, it's just absolutely gorgeous period.

Some areas just made my jaw drop, especially when you can see the multilevel hive in the background. The environments are incredibly dense and detailed.

Pretty amazing, IMO for a 30 USD title. Or if you have Game Pass, just play it.

Also, IMO, this is also what I would consider "next gen" graphics.

Regards,
SB

 

[pharma]

The Ascent Tech Q&A (wccftech.com)

We'll have our review available soon, but in the meantime, we're sharing our latest chat with the developers. This is entirely focused on technical details that had not been finalized yet when we previously spoke. Enjoy!

 

[iroboto]

so far so good. Enjoying my playthrough, the game is not a looter shooter though, so that may throw people off entirely. This is very much a RPG. You get specific weapons, abilities and stuff at specific times in the story.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

so far so good. Enjoying my playthrough, the game is not a looter shooter though, so that may throw people off entirely. This is very much a RPG. You get specific weapons, abilities and stuff at specific times in the story.

There's a bit of random loot drops. I've done the starting area twice now, the first time I got a rare headgear that I didn't get on the second run.

But yes, this is certainly more of an twin stick ARPG shooter than a twin stick looter shooter.

Regards,
SB

 

[pharma]

 

[mr magoo]

Damn, for me personally this game ticks all the boxes. Fantastic isometric shooter with rpg elements ( diablo meets cyberpunk), fantastic atmosphere ( my fav movies are akira, ghost in the shell, bladerunner and best book W. Gibson "Neuromancer" ) amazing sounds and music that i listen daily. Amazing 10/10.
What is really impressive about the game is there is no lod popin, nothing draws on the screen when you move everything is just there. And there is a shit ton of it, NPCs, flying objects, buildings etc etc and on top of that lots and lots of lights (neons everywhere!) particles and weather effects .... crazy

 

[Malo]

This is really f'd up for gamers

The Ascent is lacking DLSS and ray tracing on Game Pass but not on Steam

https://www.pcgamer.com/the-ascent-dlss-ray-tracing-missing-game-pass/

 

[BRiT]

I'm sure eventually it'll all be sorted and they'll have the same functionality in all of the builds. It does seem like it would have benefited from a little more time to sort out these details. Hopefully gamers can be patient during the first month or two.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Still having a ton of fun in the game, the atmosphere is great if you're into cyberpunk type settings. Shooting feels really satisfying.

Some things to note for people thinking about it.

Loot drops, but there is no randomized loot statistics. So weapons and armor have set damage and stats.

Weapons can be upgraded but armor can't. However, upgraded versions of armor will drop but upgraded versions of weapons won't. This makes armor sort of the gate in terms of what difficulty of enemies you can handle. There is point where no skill is needed and your armor and health can absorb practically everything. Then a difficulty range where enemies at X level will require just Y hits to kill you. Here, your skill at dodging and aiming will determine if you can kill things before they kill you. Then if enemies are a certain number of levels above your armor level, you'll get one shot killed.

That the difficulty range that is governed by dodge skill, weapon DPS, and aiming ability is fairly generous so in general I don't feel the gating mechanic of armor drop quality is too onerous.

I'm not sure this game would be worth 60 USD, but it's an indie game and priced accordingly at 30 USD. For 30 USD, I'd say it's definitely worth it if you like twin stick shooters. If you have Game Pass, I'd say give it a try regardless.

One last thing is that weapon upgrades require a generic crafting item. At the start you only see these at set locations and they don't respawn. So at first I was worried that like Souls games, I'd have to be careful to choose what weapon I wanted to upgrade which made me hesistate in upgrading early weapons. However, eventually there's an enemy type you'll randomly encounter that can drop this resource. So, I'd imagine if you don't mind farming a lot you could upgrade every weapon in the game.

Regards,
SB

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Dang, I love getting up close to some of the larger starship set pieces in the hive. They are so dang detailed for a top down isometric twin stick shooter. NPC models could use some work, but environment and ship models are out of this freaking world.

There was this one area where there looked like there were hundreds of wires and cables swaying around down in the tunnels that looked so freaking awesome. I love that it appears that almost all of the pipes and wires and stuff are actual geometric objects rather than clever texture tricks. Combined with the lighting, everything just looks so good.

Regards,
SB

 

[Malo]

There are some nice things about this game, predominantly the graphics and set pieces are just gorgeous. Really love the visual style, detail and scope of the game. But there's just so much annoying crap that really drags this game down. The main issue is the ridiculous mission design that gives you all these side quests that range from way below to way way above your level, low level missions that require you to pass through areas that contain enemies way above you, and a complete lack of any ability to scale your armor in any meaningful way apart from possibly waiting until somehow better stuff unlocks at stores.

My main quest indicates it's a suggested level of 6 and I'm level 12, yet to progress I have to take on some huge mechdroid thing that constantly shoots missiles at a rate you can't even dodge fast enough to avoid completely and takes out my health way before I have a remote chance of doing any damage to it.

There are other side quests which despite being low level you can't even get to because some area is locked out until you progress in main quest more.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

The game is great put needs polish. Lots of polish. It's like 12 devs were enough to make the game, but not enough to playtest it thoroughly.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

My main quest indicates it's a suggested level of 6 and I'm level 12, yet to progress I have to take on some huge mechdroid thing that constantly shoots missiles at a rate you can't even dodge fast enough to avoid completely and takes out my health way before I have a remote chance of doing any damage to it.

There are other side quests which despite being low level you can't even get to because some area is locked out until you progress in main quest more.

Finished the game (including every single side quest) and while janky in some parts (your second point, for example) I really enjoyed the ride.

For enemy levels, it's like an old school CRPG. There's almost always a way to get to your destination with level appropriate enemies (for the mission) as long as you bother to try alternate routes. There are a couple exceptions, however involving the Casino delivery quests (you can't even get to the elevator that takes you to the area the Casino is located in until you're higher level than the first few quests).

I actually enjoyed this. I really REALLY liked the nervousness of exploring knowing that if I'm not careful, the enemies I run into might just wipe the floor with my carcass. Enemies in the game do not scale with your level which is another thing I love. I really dislike games that scale enemies to your level. You never get an appreciation of how strong or how weak your character is in those games. I also dislike games that artificially lock you from going to certain places purely based on how tough the area is. While there are some gated areas in the game, they are gated based on quest progression and not based on enemy strength.

That second one got me frustrated immensely with 2 quests. I ended up having to look it up and found out that the question location doesn't actually open up until after a certain point in the main quest. Bleh. That could have been fixed by just not giving the quest until that point in the main quest.

Armor availability are based on 2 things.

• Shops will have armor become available based on where you are in the main quest.
• Armor drops from enemies are based on the enemy level.

So, if, like me, you're doing a lot of exploring and taking on enemies much higher than yourself, you'll get all the armor before they become available in the shops. That in turn allows you to take on tougher enemies ... to a point. Weapon drops operate similarly, but they aren't nearly as much of a gating element as armor is.

It's not a game without imperfections, but for 30 USD (or cheaper on sale), it's well worth the price of entry, IMO.

Regards,
SB

 

[Malo]

So, if, like me, you're doing a lot of exploring and taking on enemies much higher than yourself, you'll get all the armor before they become available in the shops. That in turn allows you to take on tougher enemies ... to a point. Weapon drops operate similarly, but they aren't nearly as much of a gating element as armor is.

Yeah that's pretty much where I ended up being most of the time, trying to use cover and tactics to take down tougher enemies and ending up getting good armor. I'm further through the game and opening up more areas, trying to progress.

 

[zed]

There are some nice things about this game, predominantly the graphics and set pieces are just gorgeous. Really love the visual style, detail and scope of the game. But there's just so much annoying crap that really drags this game down. The main issue is the ridiculous mission design that gives you all these side quests that range from way below to way way above your level, low level missions that require you to pass through areas that contain enemies way above you, and a complete lack of any ability to scale your armor in any meaningful way apart from possibly waiting until somehow better stuff unlocks at stores.

My main quest indicates it's a suggested level of 6 and I'm level 12, yet to progress I have to take on some huge mechdroid thing that constantly shoots missiles at a rate you can't even dodge fast enough to avoid completely and takes out my health way before I have a remote chance of doing any damage to it.

There are other side quests which despite being low level you can't even get to because some area is locked out until you progress in main quest more.

Oh interesting, is this common? Having a suggested level rating for a mission, its a good idea, I might nick it.
Though having to travel through areas with stronger enemies isnt too much of an issue, its realistic, just use stealth and try not to engage them if they are too strong

 

[SmooTh]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1496852078169407495

 

[BRiT]

I played through this GamePass title last month and it was a blast. There was only one frustration level with the first spider-mech boss that kept kicking my ass despite donning the best fire-resistent armor I could find and grinding out improvements to my weapons. Once I was past that it was fun sialing.

I was hoping the announcement would have been new story DLC.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

It's a great foundation for a game, but my biggest disappointment is that I tend to play these games in co-op and it doesn't really function properly. I got a few hours into it single-player and stopped when I thought: "I sure wish my son could join in..."

I doubt I'll go back to it,