Which Pedigree Astria Ascending brings to the table. You have Kazushige Nojima, Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy VII Remake, who writes history. Then you have a partition of Hitoshi Sakimoto de Final Fantasy XII and vagrant story to raise your musical experience. Finally, you have artisan studios, a French studio, who knows exactly what he does.
This is a J-RPG on the other hand, and it is pretty good at that. But that s not without some of the faults that can afflict the genre. Fortunately, Artisan Studio allows you to better meet the experience. Let s enter.
The first thing that will distinguish Astria Ascending when you start your adventure are the visuals. This game is bluffing. Since Child of Light, I have not found myself in a 2D RPG that was visually a treat to watch. From the design of the characters to the environments through the meetings of Grotesque and unusual boss, Astria Ascending is in a class apart with respect to hand drawn artistic style. I would say that art here is stronger than the 13 sentinels of last year: Aegis Rim. You will often stop to study the small details of the characters or admire the view that takes place behind you. All animations (especially the race and jump in the exploration of the dungeon) do not hold, but it s so pretty. Heck, even the photos of the items are a treat to watch.
It s a shame that the musical partition does not increase to match displayed visuals. I struggled to distinguish between songs, and combat music is not very trainer. Everything seemed pretty generic in terms of orchestration. I would have appreciated a main theme or a boss theme to really hang me.
In Astria Ascending, you play a group of 8 distinct heroes known as Demigods. In fact, you are the 333rd version of the half-gods, and just like the 332 that preceded you, you will soon die, to get up and make room for the next generation of heroes to take your place - a cycle that seems to change all The 3 years.
It is an interesting configuration that allows the story to unfold with mortality, sacrifice and do what is right to maintain the peace of a world. Of course, nothing can stay peaceful, and from the beginning, you will meet enemies known as Noises (yes, not the best name) who want to sow discord and disrupt the harmony of the world and its inhabitants. Throughout your adventure, you will meet a wide variety of people: there are stupid servant creatures known as migmies, a breed of agile birds, giant beasts, tiny fish with water helmets, And ... Well, you see the idea.
Although the story never quite landed for me, because I often disagree with the characterization of the main distribution, it is quite entertaining with some moments of introspection that help to expand the whole. Each character receives his due during the game, further exploring his story as you travel in various cities who need your help and you will quickly find your favorites.
The characters themselves have been together for some time, so as a new person entering the story, you sometimes feel like a stranger who looks and tries to unpack his dynamic. It does not help that the dialogue can do a bad job of being told, often relying on cheap characterizations or jokes to make a message pass. Hey, this character is the Bourru because it has a deep voice and grunts! This character is a mad in love with a goddess. This other character here is upset all the time (probably because of his helmet of water).
While most do not land, the Japanese voice is excellent. So much so that the distribution of English voices should almost not have been included. Anglophone actors are often stiff and nauseating, and some are so flat in their performance that it is completely shocking in a scene that is supposed to be moving. Indulge yourself and stick to Japanese actors. You will not regret it.
When the game does not speak of half-gods, harmony and noises, you will find a minute gameplay per minute consisting of fighting in turn, interrupted by a small dungeon exploration. Often, the configuration will give you a quest, this quest will force you to travel to a specific destination, then you will find a dungeon that must be explored, leading to a final fight against a boss to test your power, and maybe some sprinkled puzzles to do good measure. If it seems quite familiar to you, it s because that s the case. And Astria Ascending does not provide much to deviate or elevate this formula, apart from sprinkling occasional secondary quests in the mixture and hunts at the monsters.
The dungeons themselves are simple from left to right, right to meet the navigation challenges interrupted by riddles or key capabilities that you find as and when. Unfortunately, the card used to spot you, even if it seems great, is really difficult to use and makes sense in some of the most recent and complex areas. If you played Bravely Default, you will quickly master the combat system. The main hook is that you can skip towers to accumulate focus points. You can then spend focus points to boost attacks or spells, giving you an advantage. Some new differences are welcome, for example if you use a capacity for which an opponent is low, you will get free focus points. If you use something against which they are immunized, you will actually give the opponent the concentration instead while losing yours. It s an interesting push and sweater that, although a little underutilized, keeps the tension in the Big Boss fights.
Your heroes start with the usual job class system of any Final Fantasy game. You have mages, warriors and healers, to varying degrees between the two. Where Astria Ascending becomes very interesting, each character can have not only a basic job, but also a main job, a support work and a sub-work. Each job has its own skill tree to fill and with 20 classes, you bet you want to work to get all this soft power.
Some jobs are free, like mixing a type of captain fighter with a guard to absorb the blows. Or by adding a black mage to another Magic job, you have a wide range of spells. This is where Astria really shines, because the combinations and the way you specify each will really add to the depth and experimentation. The combinations seem infinite.
Although the battles are business in turn, I would have appreciated a larger jrib that the most modern JRPGs generally include. It is sometimes difficult to plan a fight when you do not know who must go then and if you had a plan but that the boss intervenes with a powerful area of effect to almost erase your group, Well you will feel quite upset nothing has not been telegraded. Also, the difficulty is sometimes uneven. Some packs of monsters on which you will roll without a second look. Others, given their unique combination, will decimate the bad composition of the party, leaving you perplex as to what happened. The same goes for some boss fights. I crossed some subsequent fighting to get me trampled because I missed a spell or object.
The game is tolerant, but with difficulty settings that you can edit on the fly and the ability to return to town in a moment to fill up on supplies. You can even exchange group members during a fight, so if a composition does not work, you are not locked up in a long and slow death. It s a JRPG but he knows not doing the boring things that arrive most often.
Overall, I really enjoyed my stay with Astria Ascending. While some parts seemed long and grumpy, the English distribution is appalling and the design of dungeons left more to be desired, Astria Ascending is still a solid entry into the kind JRPG. He does what he proposes to do and at his price, he does it pretty well. Although it may not be reached quite the heights of some of the ancestors that it tries to evoke Square Enix s past, its more friendly price makes it an excellent entry that can fly 25 to 30 hours of time. Do not expect it to influence you if you do not already like gender. As his tendency to become creamy and his overlooked characters may not change your mind.
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