Astral Ascent Reviews

this is the perfect 2d side scrolling roguelite action hands down. just top notch combat with SO MUCH VARIATION on builds. i have 30h on this game and possibly just the last 3h i started repeating builds, since i was already on 6+. the scenarios are amazing, just a cool vibe to it that is really hard to capture and creates really imersiful rest hubs to your run. if you ever watched saint seiya, this is a beautiful hommage to it, but with a different vibe the combat and the movement is so fckng smooth and precise. you have ABSOLUTE control over your character with tight controls really can't recommend this enough, a hella of a roguelite masterpiece, the only con i can think about it is the grindin part just before the end game, but that's about it. easy 10/10

Amazing game with so much variety to gameplay and cool character interactions

I was expecting something worse for some reason. I bought it on discount and I was pleasantly surprised with the quality of the game. As many people have already mentioned, the art is simply stunning. The animations are really cool, especially the final boss. Gameplay is fun, although I'm not the type to replay for too long so I stopped after completing destiny 6+ with one character. The game also throws a million boosts, spells, auras, and whatnot at you, so you will become overpowered pretty fast unless rng. In that sense, I think it is easier than other roguelikes. Although it's true that it has difficulty modifiers, I am assuming that the path to the real endings is the intended experience, which is easier compared to other games in the genre. Overall I would recommend it only on discount if you are like me and only want to reach one of the endings. If you are the type to replay roguelikes with extra difficulty modifiers, then even at full price it may be a good buy.

Very good. Cool spell system, gambits and imprints combined with auras make for a very fun build crafting (and also additional weapons and their passives). Spell variety is pretty good, but the more you unlock, the more characters start feeling very similar. Characters are nice, very similar to Hades, and their voice acting sounds good. Difficulty is alright, destiny level 5 kind of kicks my ass. Art is cozy, love the hub NPCs. My only complaint is unintuitive controls. For some reason, we can't use our mouse for most of the in-game upgrade menus. Not remembering whether you have to press R, E or F to interact, or R/E to confirm something in a menu.

my favorite Roguelite. The way that your character automatically moves towards enemies when attacking feels soooo good. just got all the achievements and i still have stuff to do and unlock in game. I see some people here complain about difficulty being inconsistent, too easy at the beginning then the final boss wrecks you. I found that to be the case too, but after you win a couple of runs and start increasing the difficulty with the Destiny system, the curve quickly fixes itself. Id recommend this game to people that enjoy hack and slash games, especially those that require timing, like dodges and parries. Some people also complain about the combat being simple or spammy, but thats because when the difficulty increases your focus will be avoiding damage by dashing and positioning, so its fine and engaging enough that there are only 2 buttons to press. the mobility is this game's greatest asset. when you attack your character automatically dashes to enemies, hitting an enemy refreshes your jump, you can dash in between jumps, you can attack up or down to control yourself in the air when surrounded. This game fundamentally feels good to play and move around in, while also being flashy and satisfying. Story is meh, but that's not what i come to this game for. Art is good I think, but im no expert

One of my favorite and most responsive games. They put work into the visuals and the audio carries its weight in a way that also ties the whole thing together with the speed and pacing. Fun characters and weapons, great late game challenges. GREAT late game challenges. The kind that keep you coming back weeks or months or years later. Really cool game. love the team that made it, wish them the best. Look forward to purchasing the steam deck just to play this game more in a different way.

after 460+ hours i feel i can write a review on this game. the main game (think of it as "killing mom" in binding of isaac, or the first time u defeat hades in... well hades) is about 3-6 hours long, then what I am going to call "midgame" - think of this as all the bosses after mom in isaac, or leveling up the "hell meter" or whatever its called in hades, is probably another 20 hours-ish, and finally maxing out this game's version of the "hell meter" and beating it for the final true ending probably takes around 200 more hours. The bad part of this game is that it looks like there are 500 secrets. There are "things" that do nothing, a LOT of them, and it looked like if you play enough they well get unlocked. However after 460 hours and talking with the devs I can say that as of this review only about 1 in 10 of those things are actual secrets. There are no hidden areas in the stages, no hidden anything. There is 0 point exploring. Your main objective every run is to get from the beggining of the stage to the end of the stage, and unlike in 90% of other roguelikes u arent required to kill anything. However I can say that after speaking to the devs and looking at the patch times and list, as well as being active in the discord. This game gets updates routinely and it seems that the game now, at the time of playing, is 10x bigger than the game when it came out. So I have a feeling this will be a 10/10 with some polish, as of right now, it's 10/10 for the first 10 hours, then 9/10, then a solid 7.5/10 anywhere that is after the first 100 hours of gameplay.

An absolute gem of a game. Every aspect of this game is stellar, when it comes to the music, the art style, the combat, enemies, characters, voice acting -- nothing feels second-guessed. This game flew under my radar during its release, and I only found out about it last month. Within the first few days I had already sunk 20 hours. It is that gripping and that fun. The characters aren't locked to major stages of the game and I found it convenient and nice to be able to play all the characters so soon. The gameplay is surprisingly deep with the number of spells, upgrades, gambits, unlockable weapons, and the special abilities. I found myself recommending this game to my friends and even played local co-op with my cousin who was visiting, and they also gave good reviews on the game. After 30 hours, I have yet to unlock every single character ending and have yet to purchase the DLC. I believe this game is just so incredibly replayable, very akin to Hades in that sense. This game was genuinely worth every single penny and more. Every pixel of this game feels like it was made with intention and care. Each character is, for the lack of a better term, characterized well. The music is SWEEPING and caused me, multiple times, to just pause before beginning a new run. The bosses are INCREDIBLE. From their designs to their movesets, you WILL be surprised at the creativity and I swear each boss will show you at least one thing that you haven't seen anywhere before. World and level designs are also beautiful. I only have two criticisms. One is it feels like the beginning phase of the game would be rather confusing or difficult for some players. As an avid roguelike and roguelite player myself, I had very little issues understanding the mechanics; although I can see how people who are unfamiliar with the genre may be confused with some aspects that may not be thoroughly explained such as the gambits. My second criticism pertains to the endings. Some of them feel rather disconnected or unrelated, where some characters feel SO REAL in their motivations and backstory that their endings make you go "Huh? Oh.. okay, I guess that makes sense?" I felt this the most with Octave, my favorite playable character. But even with other characters, both playable and not, it feels like some of their endings just either don't make enough sense or don't feel rewarding enough with how much you have to work to actually reach the end of the game under their specific conditions. These criticisms are in NO WAY enough to discourage you from playing this game. The plot that it works with is simple, but not to its detriment. It expands upon it with authentic-feeling characters who aren't main characters and bosses just to be main characters and bosses. This game honestly may go down as one of my all-time favorites and I am so excited for the coming update and the devs' newly announced game. This game blew all of my expectations away and I am sure that you will have a blast as well,

Are the people who implement game achievements aware of what they have done? Do they care? Astral Ascent is a richly-featured and well-implemented action roguelite game with clever mechanics packed into every available bit of space. Every basic mechanic has several layers of passive abilities that can affect it, and the large pool of potential passive effects encourages the player to roll with what they receive and figure out new synergies rather than try to shoehorn the same build into every run. Astral Ascent's available achievements range from challenges which must be completed once, to collect-a-thons which must be accomplished over the course of many attempts. One such achievement, requiring the player to collect some hundred-odd colors with which characters' appearances may be customized, is listed at a 5.8% player completion rate at the time of this writing. Third-party websites estimate Astral Ascent's sales at somewhere north of 200 million; third parties also estimate that out of all Steam games purchased, about one third have never been launched; so we might finally estimate that eight thousand players or so have earned this achievement. Most action roguelites focus on mechanics and gameplay, with only sparse tidbits of story trickled in between runs. In this regard, Astral Ascent is more interested in being like Hades or Children of Morta than it is interested in being like Enter the Gungeon or Binding of Isaac. The game juggles a cast of four (or five, depending on DLC) playable characters, thirteen adversaries, and some dozen supporting characters... and every one of the playable characters elicits different fully-voiced interactions from both friends and foes according to the character's background and personality, some of them reactive to the player's progress or successes or failures, culminating in a series of endings that briefly explore the post-game trajectories of nearly everyone involved. Personally, I struggled to keep track of all the names and intertwined backstories being referenced in pre-fight conversations and team-up banter, but I appreciated the attempt to tell a nuanced story that dovetailed with the mechanical structure of the genre. Despite the many layers of strategically-interesting unlockables and escalating difficulty modes, eventually a dedicated player will have done everything meaningful that there is to do; all the bosses, all the individual-challenge achievements, all the weapons and their unlockable extra gimmicks, all the endings; in short, having partaken of all the available story-content and all the available gameplay-variety. At this point, a wise player will put the game down and move on. An unwise player will review the achievement list and take stock of what checkboxes remain unchecked. Unlock all the spells; unlock all the auras; unlock all the colors. All the colors. A player of reasonable roguelite skill and experience will at this point discover that they have acquired less than half of the colors, with some sixty-plus remaining to find, by the time they have finished all the game's non-collect-a-thon achievements. Colors are acquired as random drops in 'exploration rooms', and their drop rate cannot be obviously manipulated apart from choosing exploration rooms at every opportunity. Even so, a player who selects exploration rooms at every opportunity will sometimes obtain as few as one (1) colors over the course of a forty-minute run through the game (though rarely as many as seven; it seems fair to assume an average of four). This means, in summation, that after having done everything interesting or novel, the player is implicitly invited to continue mindlessly running through the same levels over and over again for an additional fifteen hours if they wish to have the honor of having completed all the achievements listed by the game. And eight thousand players, it would seem, have seen this endeavor through, amounting to a pessimistic one hundred and twenty thousand aggregate hours of rote platforming-- more than twelve collective years of recreational time spent doing a boring rote task when players could have been pursuing some interesting or thought-provoking other challenge elsewhere instead. Players' actions are their own responsibility, but an achievement designer might still stop to consider the sheer amount of human time that might be diverted to a boring task just by assigning a poorly-considered completion value to a single achievement. By all conventional roguelite measures, Astral Ascent is a stand-out game. I'm not about to give it a negative review just because I'm one of the eight thousand idiots obsessive enough to waste my time collecting colors just because a shiny 100px icon in the Steam client encouraged me to consider doing so. But this one design decision ensured that a large fraction of my overall playtime was spent doing something completely uninteresting, so it hardly seems inappropriate that a significant fraction of this review reflect it as well.

Astral Ascent is a beautifully crafted roguelite that mixes fast-paced action with deep customization and striking pixel art to deliver a satisfying and stylish experience. Set in a magical prison called the Garden, the game follows one of four protagonists—each with their own combat style and story—as they attempt to escape by battling powerful celestial guardians known as the Zodiacs. With every run, the narrative unfolds a little more, revealing layers of mystery and emotion behind the characters and the world they inhabit. The core of the game is its fluid and skill-based combat. Players juggle basic attacks with mana-fueled spells that rotate through a customizable queue, creating a flow that is both rhythmic and tactical. The spell system is where Astral Ascent truly shines. Each spell can be modified using Gambits that alter its properties and effects, and combining these strategically can lead to devastating synergies. The combat feels responsive and flashy, rewarding players who experiment with builds and adapt to the unique enemies and challenges of each run. Progression unfolds across a series of procedurally generated rooms, offering a mix of combat arenas, exploration zones, shops, and special events. The path you take influences the resources you gather, the types of enemies you face, and how well-prepared you’ll be for the Zodiac boss fight at the end of each area. These bosses are a highlight of the game—beautifully animated, challenging, and distinct in their mechanics. Mastering their patterns becomes a rewarding dance of timing and reflex. Between runs, players return to the Garden, which acts as a central hub for unlocking new abilities, spells, and narrative content. Resources earned during gameplay feed into permanent upgrades, ensuring that even failed attempts contribute to overall progression. The Garden is also where character interactions unfold, gradually deepening your connection to the protagonists and hinting at the wider lore of the universe. The storytelling is delivered in a thoughtful and measured way, not overwhelming the action, but giving it context and heart. Visually, Astral Ascent is nothing short of stunning. The pixel art is crisp and expressive, bringing both the environments and characters to life with vibrant detail and fluid animation. The game’s color palette and visual effects help maintain clarity during chaotic battles, and the Zodiac designs in particular stand out as artistic showpieces. Accompanying the visuals is a sweeping soundtrack that ranges from quiet and contemplative to tense and dramatic, enhancing the mood of each encounter. Despite all its strengths, the game has a few rough edges. The learning curve can be steep, especially for new players unfamiliar with its spellcrafting systems. Early runs might feel punishing, and the flood of customization options can overwhelm. Some of the room designs and biomes start to feel repetitive over time, and the basic attack mechanics occasionally lack the weight and impact seen in other roguelikes. The interface, especially when managing spell queues, can also be a little clunky under pressure. Even with these minor flaws, Astral Ascent stands out as a thoughtful and polished entry into the roguelite genre. It successfully combines the thrill of action combat with meaningful player choice and progression, all wrapped in an eye-catching artistic package. For those who enjoy the structure of games like Hades or Dead Cells but want a fresh setting and a more strategic take on ability customization, this game is absolutely worth your time. Its blend of aesthetic charm and mechanical depth ensures that each run offers both challenge and discovery. Rating: 9/10