Astral Ascension Steam Charts & Stats

It's great. Luna best girl.

As always a rly good VN by PixelFade!! Slowly they have set a unique style to their VNs that u notice specially in their characters n world building, i like it a lot c: if u liked one of their other VNs, u would like this one aswell

Another great visual novel. I've read through all other VNs from Pixelfade before and I'm just as happy with this one. The most two positive things for AA are in my opinion the art (both character CGs/sprites) and especially the little after story. I was surprised when, after I felt like the story was wrapped up, there was still quite a bit of hanging out with the gang to do. I do have to concede that I'm not a big fan of the actual background art. It looks all a bit too rendered. It's not a problem if it actually is rendered, but I felt like it didn't fit the VN style as much. Maybe some filters or effects could have been added to them (or maybe more of them). However, they're not important enough for my recommendation not to be positive! Absolutely going to check out other routes (Iris best girl).

Having played all the other PixelFade games (minus KAS for some reason), I had fairly high expectations going into Astral, and I must admit many of them were met, but I also have a few criticisms. I could see Astral build from previous titles, refining and including some of the aspects I really liked from those games. I could see subtle influences from the cast-building from Ace, with each character feeling fairly well-played. I have no real complaints on this front. Next, the overarching plot and grand adventure features were quite entertaining for I'd say the first half(ish) of the story. But unlike Crystalline, I felt like the long-term direction of the narrative wasn't well framed, and didn't feel so continuous or important. A lot of the missions felt self-contained and like they didn't achieve enough to be narratively-weighty. I liked the dynamic relationship system (and the hells that can land you in), but the more I played, the more uncanny this felt. It feels almost like the long-term consequences for your social choices are highly muted. I betrayed everyone's trust, got confronted, said sorry, and nobody ever mentioned it ever again and no grudges were held. It almost felt like what I did was futile and pointless. Additionally, being in a relationship with one of the characters seemed to mostly only effect dedicated scenes to them, effects to other dialogue felt restricted - unlike Ace, where choosing a character put you into a story far more centred around your romantic interest. The world-building was nice, but I feel like Crystalline did it better as it felt more immersive into the world in of itself. Oh yeah, did I mention I really love the characters? I would've liked to see more content involving them and exploring them as people. Astral had a lot of content compared to previous titles, but I feel like a lot of it could've been better used - either to better explore the characters in-depth, or to spend time to introduce little details to make the world feel a bit more vibrant. Gripes aside, I did actually enjoy Astral as a whole, and would recommend picking it up, especially if you enjoyed previous PixelFade titles.

TLDR: I enjoyed playing this game, while it's not great, it's not bad either. If you're looking for a game with a good and well-told story, excellent world-building, and intriguing and evocative dialogue, you won't find it in this game for the most part. If you've played previous PixelFade games or you're looking for a game with witty dialogue, funny interactions, and good characters, then you'll probably enjoy this game. Astral Ascension lacks depth to its interactions and writing outside of romance routes except for a few standout cases. VAs are overall great, good characters are always a staple of PixelFade games, and this game hardly disappoints compared to previous ones. The space setting is interesting, but without much world-building being done or explored, it lacks any staying power. The game is paced way too fast and needs more time to flesh out missions and interactions instead of blazing through them. Needs less quantity of missions and more energy put into the [b] quality [/b]. Iris is best girl. That is all for my brief summary of my review. If you want to read more, then continue on, I wrote quite a lot. If you are looking for the full review, it's on my backloggd as Steam has a character limit for reviews: https://backloggd.com/u/ExtinctDragonOG/review/3007724/ I played Ace Academy and Crystalline so long ago, but those games I still remember fondly, Crystalline especially. So, I am no stranger to PixelFade's writing and the types of games/stories they tell. Astral Ascension had a lot of potential in my mind, but it feels unrealized, in some places rushed and incomplete. My biggest issue with the game is the lack of a compelling main story; this is a massive disappointment to me. The main story provides a background to the character interactions and is basically neglected the entire time. The story writing is bland and uninteresting; basically, nothing happens for most of the missions. They are only used as set pieces for dialogue and interactions between characters, which is fine if they were even remotely interesting and compelling. The only exception being the Akksari mission with [b] good [/b] writing, not only for the main plot and mission itself, but the characters. There are even two branching paths on how you take on the mission, which give two [b] completely [/b] different experiences. The writing is really good here, so why was it so poor in all the other missions, which felt shallow and uninteresting? I think a lot of the problems with the story and the interactions is the pacing; it's incredibly fast, with not much time spent between missions and character interactions, which usually last only a few minutes at most. I don't read particularly fast, and I always let the VAs finish their lines before I proceed to the next line, so there's no excuse for why the pacing felt as fast as it was. I think the game needed to cut down on the [b] amount [/b] of missions and instead focus on the [b] quality [/b] of them and the interactions that stem from it. I feel that would have improved the game so much. When I refer to the lack of a main story, I am primarily talking about the MC's backstory and how it's tied into the ending of the game. It's the biggest difference between a traditional VN and PixelFade's other games, which if I recall, have more cohesive main stories. This one feels like it's slapped on and only gets going when the writer/writers want it to, which is practically near the end. It goes absolutely nowhere and is disappointing that it's not explored nearly at all, given that it could have been interesting. There are absolutely no stakes in this at all. At one point, you get offered to take money, go live your life in peace, and keep quiet about something, or to ignore it. You're allowed to keep quiet with [b] no consequences [/b] at all. If they were willing to pay the MC to keep quiet and live their life without burden, why weren't they willing to silence or threaten them to keep it a secret? Why was it that it only mattered at the end, when the MC figured everything out, that they attempted to silence the MC? Why would they take that risk in the first place? It shows a distinct lack of consequences for choices and a poor attempt at making a well-thought-out story. It was built on the concept of the antagonist being incompetent and stupid, which is never a good thing in any story without a good reason. There is a reason, but it's not a good one at all imo. Now, onto the relationship system, this has gotten a little bit of criticism and I think I might understand why. This game benefits very much when you lock into a choice of girl early on. It's not too complex in that it's basically a point system; if you back up your girl during conversation and say things they will like, you will gain points with them. Once you have enough points, you are pretty much locked into it as far as I know as long as you don't royally fuck it up. I think that the game would benefit more from time spent on learning the characters before needing to worry about points. Especially because Luna doesn't get interesting until halfway through the game in the Aetos hangar scene, if you've played the game, you know the one. You're just starting to figure out who the characters are and their personality. If you take too long to pick your favorite, you might have screwed yourself out of the route already. It's not a great and friendly system, but it's not too harsh either. Iris doesn't like wishy washy behavior. If you want to romance Iris, you need to commit to her and show it by supporting her through dialogue choices and being consistent. Luna very much likes flirty, teasing, sarcastic, witty, and choices that challenge or press her. Also there's no easy way to replay other routes, you practically have to start from the beginning of the game and skip your way through and choose the right dialogue. I think this is the main negative of having a point-based romance system vs. a choice system that locks you on their routes like most other VN's. It also makes it harder to make guides on how to romance a character. You have to know what exactly each choice does, does it gain points with a specific character, multiple characters, or is it harmless? The Voice Acting is mostly a good point of the game, the only exception being Luna's. Luna's VA is great, don't get me wrong. I'm aware of who voiced her, and I like Sydney, but her recording setup is really bad for her lines; it stands out so terribly when 90% of her voicelines, you can hear an echo or reverb from her recording setup, and the blatant switches in recording sessions are VERY obvious, sometimes even between lines. It got better as the game went on, but by the end, the damage was done by that point. The other VAs don't have this problem, they sound, and are genuinely great, Iris and Kai's especially. The music is serviceable, nothing to write home about, really. Not surprising for a PixelFade game, but definitely a bit disappointing coming from The House in Fata Morgana's soundtrack. The art is astounding in this game, no complaints there, whoever worked on them did a great job, the environments felt alive and filled with detail if you looked closely.

Nice voice acting, a good story, but it's kinda short (22 hours for all routes).

Great Game. i love how pixel fade continues to grow and develop. You can see this in their latest game, Astral Ascension. It has been a great game and I'm enjoying the story. Thank you Pixel Fade!

とても楽しくプレイさせてもらいました。ボイスアクティングも聴いていて面白かったですしLive2Dの演出も楽しかったです。自分もビジュアルノベルを制作しているので、他の方がどんな要素や物語を作るのかを見るのはいつも興味深いです。ルートもどれも面白くて、全ての選択肢が物語に大きく影響するわけではないとしても、それでも十分に物語に引き込まれました。時々セーブを遡って、選択を変えてどうテキストが変わるのか見るのも楽しみの一つでした。特にVaelaちゃんというキャラクターがとても好きで、彼女の物語にはすごく共感できました。確かにゲームの要素の中には少しありがちだったりシンプルに感じる部分もありましたが、むしろそれが身近で、あまり気になりませんでした。毎日がドラマチックなわけじゃないですしね。物語としてものすごく深いというわけではありませんが、週末に気軽に楽しめるビジュアルノベルとしてとても良かったです。別に衝撃的である必要はなく、普通にいいゲームでした。

Definitely one of the best PixelFade VNs. Personally I think I still prefer Crystalline, but I think that's more because I like the setting/world of Crystalline more than the space adventure setting of Astral Ascension. Great quality VN either way. PixelFade is my favorite Western VN dev.