Well give me two slaps in the face and call me a disheveled bear. Turns out I have surprisingly decided to review yet another soulslike, because this website can’t get enough of the subgenre and you obviously haven’t heard the words Bloodborne and Dark Souls enough times. I hope you can tell I'm being sarcastic. There have been three soulslike reviews published so far this year, and while they are all mainly positive it goes to show how attached I have become to this style of game design. I absolutely love Dark Souls and love Bloodborne even more. In every essay where I mention Bloodborne it says, “Bloodborne is one of my favorite games of all time”, so there really shouldn’t be any reasons for me to keep restating this line. I love the soulslike genre and it’s amazing to see how other developers experiment with From Software’s ideas.
Soulslikes come in a wide range of colorful flavors and we practically see Dark Souls get mixed with everything. Such exotic flavors include Samurai Souls, Robo Souls, Anime Souls, Shooter Souls, Dark Souls but not really, and all the 2D soulslike which are my most favorite. There are a couple of soulslikes I still haven’t played though, and they're the ones that came out most recently. Ender Lilies and Lucia: The Longest Night are both 2D soulslikes that flew under the radar for me, but I am very excited to play both. Death’s Door looks really intriguing to me for the simplistic nature and artstyle, and recently started playing through Salt & Sanctuary which feels really good so far.
One soulslike that a lot of people seem to forget though is one from not too long ago. It didn’t have the amount of hype or uniqueness that some of these other soulsikes had, which is kind of a tragedy because it very well be my favorite 3D soulslike. Better yet, one of the top five in the subgenre. The game I am talking about of course is Ashen which was developed by independent studio Aurora 44. Work on the project began around the time of Dark Souls 2 in 2014, which was one year before the release of Bloodborne. The team revealed the name of their project during an Xbox conference and originally aimed to be a somewhat open world survival game with the harsh challenging conditions of, you guessed it, Dark Souls. They wanted the game to be as realistic and gorgeously detailed as possible, but that seemed like too much for a small independent team. Instead they went for a more simplistic artstyle that had a charming look to it, and they stuck with the scope their project would have. Fast forward to E3 2017 and some footage is shown of what Ashen was planned to look like. A co-op focused experience centered around exploring a dying world in search of light and hope. Yep, that seems pretty Soulsborne to me and checks off a lot of boxes.
The game looked very promising and it seemed like this was one aimed more towards being a work of art like Bloodborne and Dark Souls. There were factors holding Ashen back from being a massive success like Nioh or Hollow Knight. There was the fact this game was a timed Xbox One exclusive, and how for PC players they had to buy Ashen through the Epic Games Store rather than the Steam marketplace. Now in one of my past reviews, mainly my Metro Exodus review, I stated it really doesn’t matter where you buy your games from if you are playing on a PC. Well I stand corrected. Epic Games is much worse than I thought and it feels more convenient to buy a game on the marketplace a majority of PC players would buy them from. Ashen had a very rocky launch and it sold less copies than the developers probably hoped for. Which is also a tragedy, because it feels like this game should have been more successful.
This was a title I was planning to skip at first especially since I have played more than ten soulslikes by now, but it went on sale on the Playstation store and my mind convinced me to get it before it jacked back up to full price again. My god, this was more breathtaking than expected. Ashen exceeded my expectations, so much that there are quite a few things other soulslike can learn from this title. Today I want to talk about why I loved Ashen and why it deserves your attention. Pull out your lantern and prepare to travel through a world of light.
Story
The world we know was once entirely surrounded by nothing but pure darkness. You couldn’t see where you were going and no signs of life roamed the surface of the earth. Just darkness everywhere. A being known as the Ashen flew down onto the world and what came from it was light and hope. The Ashen rested on a single tree branch and from there prosperity grew closer. The Ashen could live for hundreds of years, but it didn’t mean it could die from illness or unpredictable attacks. The Ashen grew weary and one day it fell from the tree branch it was resting on. The Ashen lay dying on the ground with only a few minutes of life to spare, but what came from his mighty fall was life itself. There were a total of three ages, each consisting of a different race.
The first age had the Elder Dark which were beings born from the darkness. They lurked in the shadows and feasted on any other living being they encountered. The second age followed the Listener Matriarchs, giants or otherwise titans who praised the light bestowed upon the world and did whatever it took to respect their new gift. The third and final age was mankind. They didn’t have the genetics or physical traits of the Matriarchs or Elder Dark, but what they had was hope for a better world. These three ages struggled to exist together in a bright lit world of life, but those who did learn to get along travel together peacefully. In search of a safe place to settle down and call their home. These groups were pilgrims and they wanted to make the world better.
The history of the world is being told to us by Bataran, a wise stern titan who decided not to be a Matriarch like a majority of titans and instead guide us towards unexplored lands. We are a humble pilgrim traveling with Bataran and we are accompanied by Jokell, a traveler who seeks to know what destiny lies for him. The player character and Jokell have formed a strong bond with each other and they are the only two humans traveling with Bataran. Nightfall is coming upon them and the three of them are heading towards what is left of the Ashen. It’s feathers begin to dwindle before releasing a massive shockwave before death. The three travelers are tossed far away from the Ashen and find themselves in a new land to explore. They settle down in a non-hostile area and decide to make their home. Vagrant's Rest is the name of the place and with time they’ll establish it as a settlement for pilgrims and friends alike to make their home. All is going well, but Bataran states something must be done now that the guardian of the world let out his last breath. A new guardian must take his place and the only way to find out who is the new guardian is by going out on a dangerous adventure and performing a sacred ritual.
Bataran states that there are allies out there who can help the player character accomplish this task, but they will have to venture through dangerous caverns and temples to find them. Possibly encountering the other ages and finding out what happened to them once mankind came along. The player meets a lot of traveling pilgrims like themself who are willing to assist them. Vorsa, a huntress who wants to find a cure to an illness that Bataran has. Eila, a quirky tribe member who wants to take revenge on the man who screwed her over. Amara, a woman who knows of the journey the player is partaking in and wishes to offer the knowledge she knows of the past. There’s more characters, but that would lead to me spoiling more of the story. The main traveler and all these random strangers will work together to persevere and survive the unexplored wilds. Destiny awaits.
Gameplay
Ashen is another soulslike and by now you should have a basic understanding how these types of games work. You explore the world, discover new checkpoints, die while exploring, learn how to survive the harsh conditions through numerous failures, and learn what is actually going on by taking the time to do so. Ashen may seem like the same old game you played a dozen or so times now, but what if I were to tell you Ashen is the most authentic soulslike out there. The influence it takes from Dark Souls is really obvious, but what it does right is done incredibly well. Rather than have an interconnected world with areas that loop back into each other like a maze, you instead have a more open ended map to explore. The game took some inspiration from The Legend of Zelda and focuses more on the sense of adventure rather than danger.
You are always out in the open and enemies can spot you easily if you are not careful. Sometimes the enemies make use of the environment and ruined buildings to ambush you. There is a jump button which isn’t mechanically new for a video game, but it is significant for a soulslike game. Jumping and climbing in Ashen feels as significant as the Prosthetic Arm in Sekiro, because it changes how the world can be traversed. You can climb up mountains, reach areas that allow you to scan an area, discover secrets you didn’t even know how to reach, or form a path that allows you to reach your goal much easier. Even if you think you missed a jump the game will kindley cling onto a ledge and pull you up. There are several checkpoints throughout the world and around the time you beat the second major boss you will unlock the ability to fast travel.
The main area you will be revisiting the most is of course Vagrant’s Rest which develops the more you progress through the main story and questlines. The way questlines work in Ashen is unique as it ties in with companions, the multiplayer, and when you access new areas. Rather than questlines they are called journeys and they are the individual adventures your companions go out on. By progressing more through a journey your companions get closer to their goal, and the closer they are the more they change. Their appearance will be different and they will be much stronger now that you assisted them with their journey. They offer rewards for helping them and sometimes stations to forge better gear. For example, Jokell gives you a flask which is your main method of healing and can be upgraded using a bench in his house.
Helping out your companions really contributes something to your journey as well, and they aren’t like questlines in Dark Souls where you just have to keep bumbling around until you find them. You choose the journey you want to do and the game will put it on the radar for you to track down. The journey or quest you have active at the time determines what ally may appear to travel with you. Having Jokell’s quest activated will summon Jokell, or having Eila’s quest active will make her appear. Companions are important as they make exploring unknown areas much easier. They will fight enemy hoards when they attack you, heal whenever they are low on health, and get you back up when knocked down. You and your companion can only be knocked down once, and if you die a second or fail to revive the fallen companion before getting killed then you get kicked back to your most recently rested checkpoint.
The currency you pick up when killing enemies is Scoria and when you die your Scoria is dropped. You have to backtrack all the way to the area you dropped it in, but if you die a second time then that Scoria is lost for good. Scoria is used to purchase items from vendors and upgrade your equipment with material picked up while exploring, but it isn’t used to upgrade your stats or traits. The way character progression works in Ashen is also really cool as it ties in with companion journeys. The more you progress through them the more your maximum health and stamina will increase. I like this to , because it encourages the player to dink around and not brute force through the story.
Your health bar is easy to understand. You can refill your health bar using multiple consumables or this game’s equivalent to the Estus Flask which is…… I can’t believe I forgot what they renamed the Estus Flask to. Your stamina bar is used to perform actions like attacking, dodging, blocking, running, and jumping. If the stamina meter is low then you have to wait for it to recharge. You can’t perform any more actions when it is empty. There are a multitude of weapons to wield each having a distinct moveset or property. There are armor sets with different properties as well as lanterns.
There are a few temples scattered throughout the world and they are where you have to go to progress with the main story. They are really dark and contain specific enemies that hide in the shadows. You can carry a lantern to see the path ahead, but you sacrifice having your shield equipped and you can’t wield two handed weapons. If you try to switch to either or then the lantern will be put away. Be careful when going through dark temples as it's hard to predict what lies ahead. At the end of each temple there is a boss which tests your skills and ability to comprehend attack patterns. They will take numerous attempts to beat, but once you understand you should be able to claim victory. There isn’t much else to say about Ashen. The game is great and there are a few systems that help motivate exploration. Fare thee well Ashen One!
Thoughts
Ashen is the most excellent soulslike I have experienced in a while and it’s my new gold standard when it comes to making games of this category or scale. There is a lot of aspects that Ashen does right and some of them are what other soulslikes seem to struggle with. First is the world design and this is the grandest world I have seen from a soulslike. It’s big, has a lot to unfold, can be really fun to just wander around aimlessly, and there isn’t just one path to get to a location. You can find easier routes or just take a longer path that may just end up being safer. The satisfaction of exploring areas in Soulsborne is opening up shortcuts to make backtracking less tedious, but in some of soulslikes I’ve played they sacrificed interconnectedness for linear level design. Ashen doesn’t have that maze design Soulsborne had, but it still manages to feel open without being a maze. It’s because the game is open from the very beginning.
Combat felt very satisfying with each attack packing the blow it needed, and none of the weapons felt bad to weild. There are specific attack combos that are much faster than mashing the same type of attack over and over, but overall it's fairly made with tight and responsive controls. Weapon upgrading does suffer the problem Dark Souls has with you ditching new weapons you pick up and gravitating towards the ones you’ve been upgrading the most. The artstyle has a very distinct look that makes it more identifiable than most soulslikes. A lot of games these days seem to focus on hyper realistic graphics, but once in a while you encounter a game with it’s own personality cause it was able to forge an original look. Ashen is simplistic and polygonish if that is a word, but it’s colorful and creates really unique environments.
The lighting is terrific and some areas are jaw dropping to look at. Sections where you navigate the dark are really fun as they make the player play more carefully, and they are balanced in a way where you aren’t too overwhelmed and if you are it’s because you ran ahead not being careful. It’s like dark lit areas in Dark Souls 2, but they put some actual thought into them. Companion journeys and overall progression was well paced and there is enough content to last the fifthteen or so hours this game lasts. The story itself is really interesting and there is some really compelling lore hidden beneath the basic plot. About mankind and what came beforehand to bring upon destruction.
Ashen is a fantastic soulslike and one of the best among the 3D soulslikes, but does it make it a masterpiece like the games it takes inspiration from? No, there are factors that kick drag the game down. Checkpoints in Ashen are very sparse and oftentimes you will be navigating long stretches to get back to where you need to go. The game is forgiving, but the real frustration comes back to having to fight the same enemies again along the long stretches. Some temples are made more annoying when you are carrying a high number of Scoria, and you lose it all because the way to get back to it was too long and you ran out of healing before reaching it. You can refill your gourd in little pots that make progressing through dungeons less tedious, but later on they become harder to find as temples become more complex and you don’t want to risk running into an ambush you can’t handle because you don't have enough heals.
The max number of times you can heal is eight which is a little strange especially near the end, and there is a perk that allows you to increase it to ten which is a weird way to do so. The AI that controls your companion will work about eighty percent of the time. They will do the job they are supposed to do, but during that other twenty percent of the time they might be struggling. Not knowing when to fight back, struggling to get you back up, or occasionally jumping off a cliff to instantaneous death. There are times when enemies get stuck in the level geometry, and there are a couple of bugs. Most of them aren’t game breaking though, so Ashen is mainly functional. All the bosses are fantastic, but there are only five of them in total. Which is the smallest I’ve seen in a soulslike. Besides those problems, Ashen is an absolute recommendation for fans of the soulslike genre. What it does well is incredible and I really hope to see a sequel one day as the potential is high. What Aurora 44 has achieved is beyond belief. In the end I am going to give Ashen a 9/10 for excellence at best. Ash always seeketh embers.
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