Chronos: Before the Ashes Reviews

I can't recommend this. The controls feel incredibly clunky, the writing feels second-rate, the unique selling point- that you age a year every time you die- looks to only be setting you up to have your build shifted away from you the more you throw yourself at a challenge (a baffling move for a souls-like). The game has likewise surrendered its core identity (namely: Souls-like with firearms) and downgraded the human weapons to generic fantasy from the interesting "cobbled together with scrap from the old world" feel of their other games. Yes this is a prequel, but we're still post-apocalypse, here. The call-outs to Remnant 1 feel too on-the-nose to be organic. I keep feeling as though Gunfire is winking at me the entire time, and rather than build a cohesive world, this only serves to make me aware of the hand of the author as it ineptly tries to pat me on the head. Add to that a speech pattern that (depending on character) tries to do the "old-timey dialect" without committing to the bit (modern english slang and verbiage kept creeping in distractingly) and I honestly felt like I was playing a fan game. The whole thing feels like a generic souls-like, and functionally it is. You show up in a tunic with a wooden shield and sword or axe, you get your Estus Flask equivalent, you rub definitely-not-titanite on it, and then you play a souls-like like any other. Even a little worse, with how game-able the AI is, and how janky the hitboxes appear to be. Your heavy attacks can and frequently will carry you off in the wrong direction slicing at air, so the ideal appears to be block until you bait out the attack, either block it or dodge it, and then counter-swing. Again, and again, getting repetitive before you even move past the first level. Bosses shake this up somewhat, but have their own problems coming back to janky hitboxes, and the point at which I realized my opinion wouldn't change was when I discovered the instant-kill crush-you-underfoot attack could hit while you were safely outside the foot's animation. The art style is clean and stylized, but it couldn't even come close to carrying the rest of this game for me, not when it feels so clunky and awful to play. With how complete Remnant 1 was from a story perspective if you went secret hunting, and how Remnant 2 has expanded on the universe on its own, I'll go beyond other reviewers and say I don't even recommend this to people who love Remnant's universe. There is no soul here. This is a Remnant coat of paint on the most generic souls-like you could find. Add to this that you are on a grand quest to kill a boss from Remnant 1 and you already know exactly how this game is going to go. This isn't worth the money.

Didn't know what I was getting into. I didn’t even realize this was a prequel to Remnant. Went in completely blind, even though it had mixed reviews. Honestly, the puzzles and combat are both top notch, and the lore was genuinely intriguing. Got a solid 8 hours of fun gameplay out of it. My only gripe is that I wish there was more build variety, but for an 8-hour game, that’s understandable. 8/10. Definitely worth it, especially if it’s on sale.

I would say it's a solid game. Play it for the lore if you want to. The 3 unobtainable achievements and the devs negligence is what makes it a 5 out of 10. They have abandoned this game long ago cuz of success of remnant and remnant 2. They ain't coming back.

Short simple game, i played on mnk had no issues, trait thing was a cool idea but I only ever got to 1 trait slot though (beat the game at level 28), puzzles were very good I enjoyed them the most.

I fought relentlessly and beat the game at 20 years old, also tested the age limit to know how old you could get and it was rather interesting....

If you buy it on sale it's worth getting it, fun experience but with little depth. Controls are a bit wonky at times but combat functions well enough to be enjoyed, only the last boss has some weirder moves. Story isn't super clear or deep, it serves more as context for the other Remnant games. If you like to 100% games, this one is broken. There is no actual NG+ for the NG+ achievements so it's impossible to complete.