Ashen wears its influences unabashedly, but immaculate execution helps it rise above unoriginality. SUBSCRIBE FOR MORE VIDEOS: / gamingboltlive LIKE US ON FACEBOOK: / gamingbolt-241308979564 FOLLOW US ON TWITTER: / gamingbolttweet
It's great how this game have its own identity, despite the soulslikeness, sometimes I feel surprised of they're enemies in every corner, then I remember the game and the subgenre that I'm in and everything make sense. What I say is that the game can alienate you (in a good sense) and make you forgot that you're in a game that takes inspiration on the fromsoft series. Other thing is great is the verticality of the game, adding a jump button and the possibility to jump and climb is awesome. Well that's what I wanted to say, totally worth it, specially if you have Xbox Game Pass.
@@nicolas.p1750 If you are focused on running the main story quests for your first playthrough, expect to finish it in maybe 22 hours. There are some really difficult dungeons.
Umm.. is there no parrying in this game? & I just bought this game since it came out on console.. (PS4) and it feels really clunky & slow.. FPS drops in certain places.. idk if this is just the game or will it need a few patches to work out the console bugs? Other then that so far a pleasurable experience... although the design gives me a lot of absolver memories & I don’t like that. I hated absolver lol
I just beat it last night(thanks game Pass), and thought it was pretty mediocre. The game was way too buggy, it crashed on me a lot, and the overall mechanics don't feel that polished. I do like the art style, though. It's definitely not a bad game, but it's pretty mediocre. For the price, you're better off buying a real Souls or Bloodborne title.
Fair point and i actually forgot to mention how many time's the game crashed for me aswell strait back to xbox dash. Have they still not patched the game?
@@davpreec , I guess they didn't patch it, cause the game crashed on me soooo many times. The worst, was at the last boss. I was about 2-3 more hits from killing him, and boom, the game froze up and crashed to the home menu. It took me about 1.5hrs to finally get to that point, and the game just crashed on me. I was so pissed, I didn't touch the game for about 2 days. I finally beat it last night, though. lol
Hahaha damn that suck's , I would have raged if that happened to me aswell , Lucky i only got crashes's randomly when walking around. Also noticed sometime's when an enemy is dead but looks alive on my screen that the game would crash shortly after that too. I would have thought they would have atleast tryed to patch some of the issue's by now lol
The Surge is one of the most underrated "Souls" games out there. I don't think I've ever played a game with better level design or better weapon/armor design, and the 60fps option on the 1X made the game more enjoyable for me than even Dark Souls 3 and Bloodborne.
@@RFJ0KER more enemy types are introduced later on but not a whole lot of variety. The variety is in the armor they wear and weapons they wield. The boss designs are very well done as well, even if they are a little on the easy side, but you're rewarded with upgraded weapons for killing bosses in specific ways.
I agree with you. The Surg is one of the most underrated soulslike game. I liked it a lot. the setting, the mechanic of torn enemy´s armor parts and the level design. but Dark Souls 3 and Bloodborne are to me on another planet
it has a very small enemy design and few bosses, that's my major problem with that game. It has great combat and decent map design, but the low enemy variety killed it for me, it started becoming very boring and repetitive after a while. The story was pretty weak too. Up until now I considered it the best non from software soulslike game (ignoring games like hollow knight because they have just a few elements from the souls games), but Ashen has taken that place for me
Good video but where are all the reviews of Children of Sissna mode? I had way more to say about CoS than base difficulty. Same with the DLC. Did no YTer play CoS?
Not one review has gone over character classes, weapon variety, or movesets things that are important in an action rpg/souls borne game. Frankly if you are stuck with just an axe or mace the entire game that turns me off. It's why I didn't get seikero (and why nioh was so cool, tons of weapons, tools, fighting styles). Is there a magic system, why don't any reiwers answer or go into these details. I could care less about co-op, as I don't play games to socialize (as an option or as mmo fine, but don't make it required if not mmo).
Do not buy the game. I love it, but if you are all about moves and weapons, this one is not shining. It is actually much more about exploration and enjoying the growth of your village. I also hate these Dark Souls comparisons, I hate DS and like this game.
@@franziv4593 Thanks for the info! Original DS is my favourite game of all time actually, partly because it has the (imo) perfect feeling of constant progression and getting new armor/weapons/items. Starting almost naked with nothing and becoming an epic knight with awesome armor and a huge magical sword, that's part of what I love about these games. I want to get every single item, because it could be (and often is) something to make you stronger, look cool or change your playing/combat style. Starting with normal clothes and a simple axe and staying a normal dude with normal things and almost the same moveset really takes a lot of the fun away for me :/ Gonna give it a try sometime anyway, because I do enjoy exploration a lot, too. Just feels like something is missing if I can't find awesome equipment and stay the same throughout the game.
@@Beinomat Sounds like you would need a Diablo in 3D ;) I became totally the visual guy during the last years, only looking for atmosphere and good story. Did you give Dragons Dogma a try? It is an action rpg with heavy combat focus and a lot of different playstyles, can be changed all the time mid game. Start weak and end destroying mega bosses. Also the story is a bit mindfuck ;p In one playthrough I was using Sword and Shield, Daggers, Bow and Magic, you can switch classes all the time but have to level them up. Sadly not that much lootwise.
@@franziv4593 Dragons Dogma is one of my favourite games as well :D Really hope they will do the sequel! Don't get me wrong, I play a lot of games for atmosphere and story as well (with no RPG systems at all), but for this 'genre' I was probably spoiled too much that I can't live without it :P I can totally agree that atmosphere and good story can make a great game, but it's kind of strange to me that you say you hate Dark Souls then. No game got me more immersed with it's world and absorbing all the pieces of lore and trying to learn as much as I can about this dark and mysterious place. It's all personal taste and it's totally fine if you don't like Dark Souls at all, but it would really interest me why.
The Souls genre is probably my favorite genre. I'm really enjoying Ashen. Below also just dropped in game pass. I played about an hour so far and it's awesome.
great review! I totally agree with your description of the game. To copy from another game is not necessarily a bad thing expecially when is a good copy. I´m enjonying the game so far and I think it´s amazing to be able to play it at day one on the game pass. Well done AA4
Well realistically, $60 should be about 60 hours. This game is 40 though, 50 in Canada. A dollar should be an hour in my opinion because you shouldn't be done the game shortly after you started. 20 hours sounds like long now, believe me.
@@warthogvanguard7292 lol thats the dumbest way of deciding whether or not you should play a game. A dollar an hour? Lol sorry but youd only be limited to JRPGs
I mostly agree with this review.. the only downside of this game is the variety of enemy, ukkoto is just a normal mob after a little bit of journey in the game.. the same can be said to the second boss which later become a normal mob.. and also, give me more boss, its only have 4 boss including DLC.. oh yeah, and Sissna is kinda bulshit at the first time, because she hit hard, like very freakin hard, she can claw 75% of your health if you fail to dodge her.. but in the end what you have to do is play a little smarter, be patient and pay attention, and you will come out on top.. overall this game is solid game 8.0/10 even its souls like but this is really solid...
I really liked this game, but as far as the best game to come from the inspiration of the DS genre.... I'm gonna place my vote on Bloodborne. From combat, weapons, atmosphere, and less medieval but more modern early combustion technology stage. Bloodborne felt like a world where the Fable Series had a rebellious and more talented offspring who just loaded up some gun powder and oversized saw-tooth switchblade openly embracing bath after bath of blood bank amounts of fun. But to shit on Ashen because it was simpler or because if wasn't doing what dark souls did... Well... To those feeling negative for that... Umm duh, it's not dark souls because it's titled Ashen. Inspired yes, but it has every right to be its own entity. And since when did mind numbing difficulty become a requirement for things to be good? Fuckin Green Day was mad popular for how long and they were the furthest thing from difficult. Sometimes simplicity brings out the best of what can just be seen as a well put together and clean running clockwork of great ideas that undoubtedly will lead to more and even better concepts to come. Don't shit on progress because simpler version like this make as a perfect starting place for people who never have even played those types of games yet. I know people who won't play dark souls cause it's harder than their job they have to do everyday and games are about relaxation and entertainment. So then after those people play games like Ashen, the demographic that Souls like games reach out to are now going to grow even bigger. Ashen to me in a flawless victory in paving a road to a place in the future where the souls like genre is really going to have it's own pedastal and stand among other historical defining concepts like the platformer, JRPG, 1st person shooter, simulations and etc. The people who shit on the Ashen game don't have a reason to speak I'll on this game. It did exactly what it was designed to do, those of you who disagree for whatever reason act as though everyone like yourselves should just suck Dark Souls dicks for all eternity. But not everyone trying to get the John Holmes dick dark souls. Maybe we just want some Rob Schnieder Duce Bigalow company like comfort. Not everyone like to be choked out when they cum guys lmao
Did some research on this game. www.google.com/amp/s/gamingbolt.com/ashen-dev-explains-why-they-went-exclusive-with-xbox-one-no-plans-for-ps4-and-switch-versions/amp I'll be waiting patiently for a switch or ps4 version no matter how long, who knows a elite version of this game will come out later(sounds like they might release it next year?)
it's awesome man!! I would ask that fromsoft give xbox players bloodbourne and the much wanted bloodbourne 2. It's the only game I play on my ps4 and I think those that can't afford both consoles need to play it easily the best ps4 game.
So is this even close to as hard as dark souls cause im not looking for more of that .-. Game looks really good but thats my issue after playing dark souls
dark souls is hard until you master it after that it's very very easy and if you die it's entirely always the player being dumb. So for me ashen is kinda easy but also very different from dark souls. I did alot at the start then got comfortable now I'm doing solid.
Very polished and beautiful looking game. Sound is great, animations are superb and someone mentioned verticality which is a great addition that new From title will also use (Sekiro). However, there are some things missing. There are no builds, there are no spells and weapons are one or two handers, either blunt with stun chance or axes with crit chance (pretty useless imho). Having AI companion is nice, but is a double edged sword. The game is balanced around playing with companion and will throw multiple difficult mobs (2-5) at you all the time. If your companion dies (happens all the time), you are basically screwed. Your stamina increases through the course of the game, but the stamina bar gets empty real quick. And the worst thing are checkpoints. They are so far and apart, that the game just feels unfair compared to Souls game. That being said, I gave up after failing my 15th or so Palace run, just before the Shadow boss. My bullshit meter just couldn't take it anymore. 7/10. Could have been amazing, but fell a bit short.
I have the same experience. The game is balanced for multiplayer and in my 20h of playthough, I meet a real player 2, maybe 3 times, which definitely changes the experience, compared to the IA. But in the Palace, I did not meet any real personne, and the IA dies well before the end of the Palace, usually around the library. I think the worse is that you cannot run past the enemies in that part of the palace, because Soldiers litteraly block the passage to the checkpoint. There is no shortcut, nothing. It is like the dev completely forgot about level design - compared tot the rest of the game - and all the mechanisms they developed in the game are forgotten. The mobs are the same over and over , and i had the feeling that they tried to make the palace hard instead of interesting. The Sen's Fortress in DS1 was way more challenging sometimes, but way more interesting.
Thanks for fleshing out what all these paid "reviewers" leave out. You would think one of the people reviewing this would of pointed out only 2 weapon types, no magic, builds, classes, levels, etc.. But nope I watched multiple reviews and silence. They all gushed about world and co-op, and as a 40 something guy who doesn't have many gaming friends co-op is a moot point and I don't want to play a game that punishes you for going solo. Couple that with what you said, that save me 35 quid as I'll just buy something else. I didn't buy seikero for the same reasons (1 weapon the entire game, got nioh instead).
Im a huge souls fanboy but this didnt do it for me. I was not a fan of the artstyle and the character movement felt really slow. Also lacking in the lore department in a meaningful way. Half the point of replaying souls games is trying to find new pieces of information from items or the environment to enrich your knowledge of the world.
As a bog fan of Ashen (read its lore page! ) and its world, I am tired of hearing. 'oh thats just a kidies Souls game. Look at how cute it is awwws baby want ah happy meal to go wit it???" Or something on those lines. "Souls like" is stupid. Does every game with guns and first person a "Call of duty like?" Or every platformer a "Mario like"? Nothing, nothing in any form of media is original. All of any games flowers are from a seed taken from another game. In short, shut up or play it.
Things I hate 1. Weapon upgrades can be done but higher levels cannot be previewed making using new weapons a pain 2. Unable to sell old armor and other things collected. 3. Not being able to upgrade armor.
Would have loved to see the game without the dark souls approach. Not the best crossover. I LOVE Dark Souls, but it would be great if games would all stop trying to be like it now.
Ima buy this game but whats confusing is, can you co op with a SPECIFIC person? My friend and i wanna do that but if you can only co op with randoms its sorta pointless to try
@@Bbslushieee BE AWARE!! Based on what the developers said in the FAQ for the game, the co-op is still restricted by progression, similar to how dark souls did it. For example, if you have beat an area and its boss, your friend who hasn't beat it yet will not be able to play with you in that area. For whatever reason, all of these "souls like" games never seem to want to implement true co-op, which baffles me because I think that would be my game of the year if they did just that. A souls like game you can play with a friend, from start to finish, regardless of level or progression.... guess i'll keep dreaming. See game FAQ here -- www.ashen-game.com/news/ashen-multiplayer-faq
Enough with Soulslike games already. How about some God of War like games? I loved DS 1-3 and Bloodborne, but GOW was far and away better as a game. Why isn’t anyone copying it?
Paid review, he never mentioned: 1. The bad weapons range. 2. Basic weapons moveset. 3. You can’t upgrade your stats. 4. Lack of builds. 5. Empty and uninteresting very large map. 6. Unbalanced & OP mobs. 7. No skills you can use just Light Attack R1 and Heavy Attack R2. 8. You don’t have to use a shield because most of the time the game forces you to use a lantern. 9. Hiding all artifacts and talismans behind side quests, So no reason to explore!! 10. Trash loot everywhere. 11. No shortcuts!!! 12. Expensive weapon upgrade cost. 13. You must gank with your AI Friend. 14. you will be facing a herd of mobs attacking from every direction at the same time, cus the game designed for Co-op only. 15. Trashy and lazy items dropping mechanics.
This review is waaay too optimistic. The Ashen is just the worse, poorer version of the dark souls and if you played any souls game before it, you saw it all. It just doesn't bring anything worthwhile to the table, what's more it's lacking in many things that made these games unique and fun. TD;LR no rewarding exploration, no pvp, no covenants, no secrets, no deep lore, no magic, no waifus, no rpg character progressio or statictics, no challenge, massive amount of trash loot, massive amount of trash mobs that doesn't feel like a threat and more like a punching bug, no parrying, no backstabing, no interesting or memorable characters. If you are some kind of die hard fan of dark souls and somehow didn't have enough after all these games and you are looking for dumbed down version of it, ashen is the way to go. If you never played any souls game you may as well give it a try, but i don't see why you should spend 40 bucks on it if there were so many other game that did it better. I have nothing against "souls like" games, i played some good ones like Nioh, even though masochistic amount of grind killed this game for me. The good things i can say about this game is that for a just released game it runs pretty well, is mostly free of bugs and have nice graphic that may appeal to some people. Worlds is full of things to gather from hidden hard to get places but 99% of things you find is a trash loot. You make a hard jump trough a massive hole risking all your scorcia, and what's there? A healing orb that you can buy from any npc for 250 scorcia or another weapon that is tiny bit different from the one you already have (For example +3% more crit but 2 points less dmg). Picking all this crap doesn't feel rewarding at all. Game is so minimalistic that you don't really have to care about anything besides your stamina. There are 0 rpg elements, no weapon scallings, no different builds. All the progression comes from collecting enough scorcia to buy another upgrade and doing some boring fetch quests to unlock them. There are some collectibles that give you minor bonuses, but to get to them you have to pile trough sea of trash loot. Because of that every new armor or weapon you find feels almost the same. What's the point of putting so many of them inside the game then, besides the cosmetic aspect? The combat is simplified and it's piss easy with the npc companion or in coop if you manage to make the multiplayer work. I had some fun going trough the cavern near the starting area where everything could one shot me, but after i swept the floor with all the monster there it turned out it's a place where you were supposed to go hours later in the game. If you want to make things even easier for you, grab a weapon with a big stun effect and stagger the enemies into oblivion. The first boss was okey, even though i killed in on the first try, but it had nice touch to it, but the second one was a letdown and i slowly started loosing last bits of my interest in playing it further. The game is one big boring fetch quest that you can't skip because otherwise you won't unlock upgrades and new travel options. In matter of fact this game bored me so much that i can't even pull myself to finish this mini review.
@@asuhhDrew it gets really good when you reach the cave to Amiren. Will agree it's a slow burner, but I'm having a lot of fun right now. There are obvious similarities to 'souls, but it's not meant to be played the same way, so I think it's safe to put down the comparisons if you're capable.
@@Armataan I guess it's a matter of personal taste after all. My rating would be DS1 > BB > DS3 > Nioh > Surge (didn't play Ashen yet, but I can't imagine liking it more than DS3)
?? Countless dark souls games? I can only think of Immortal unchained, which ppl say is dark souls with Guns....oh, a d Lord's of the fallen and the surge? What am I missing on ps4?
