The way battles are performed and growth is accomplished is certainly one of the better, more inventive parts of Astria Ascending. Being able to change up to four jobs for each, it gives a lot of room for experimentation for each character to build a team of versatile warriors that are prepared for anything thrown at them, but being able to do so will be a massive grind thanks to resources being on the limited side of things, with currency, experience points, and stat orbs feeling like a bit of a luxury from level to level. It has its pros and cons to it, but it’s overwhelming spending the first few hours of Astria Ascending getting the hand of each character’s traits which are only expanded further through more job and class acquisitions that alter and increase the flexibility of each character’s abilities and strengths. Not having to worry about any new characters along the way also makes it so you can spec as you go versus meeting someone later down the line that may even exceed party limits and then have to worry about who and when you want to switch out party members. On the positive side, with being introduced all the characters from the get go (and I use “introduce” loosely), it at least makes party management something you can take care of from the start and one that you can familiarize yourself through the countless battles in and out of dungeons you’ll go through in the world of Orcanon. With so much happening at once and each character trying to get their say to showcase their personality, strengths, and weaknesses, it can overload the plate for the player when they’d like to get to know each demigod. Then when things become interesting again, they just as soon lose traction. The voice performances themselves are perfectly fine, but even in the more intense moments and clashes of pride, honor, and comradery, the dialogue is questionable, and the narrative structure of the game is something that is frequently inconsistent and poorly paced to the point I lose interests at times I should be interested. It’s a shame that for all Astria Ascending does do well – from its impeccable UI, management systems, art direction, and battle system – its narrative structure and world building give very little to invest in as the game sort of throws everything at you and expects you to have any semblance of emotional attachment to the characters. It seems like a storyboard was set down with routes of who should do what and how it impacts each particular character, the race they represent, their honor, and their story, but was done without any real drafting and instead kept the mentality of “the first idea is the best idea”. It can feel rather overwhelming at first which leads to this odd misbalance the game has of being both focused and lost simultaneously.
Astria ascending gameplay portable#
It’s a perfectly solid portable experience that’s worth the few drawbacks if you can forgive Astria Ascending’s dented package.Įverything in Astria Ascending just takes you off to the races right away without any real transition easing you into its world, characters, and events. However, despite the blur and reduced frames, it’s not especially egregious as the stunning art direction is strong enough to make up for a few faults and the turn-based nature of the game doesn’t necessitate a high refresh rate.
The visuals themselves scale nicely and the renderings in menus and exchanges look really fantastic, but when in motion a lot of assets seem less than sharp.
It hearkens back to some absolute classics with undeniable influence from the likes of Child of Light and Octopath Traveler with how its systems and mechanics carry out its gameplay.Īstria Ascending is a beautiful looking game, but overall performance and visuals on Switch, while not bad, are still diminished enough that it takes away from how crisp and beautiful it can really look on a vibrant screen compared to other platforms. Astria Ascending in particular is especially interesting because of its mobile beginnings that got scrapped and ultimately revived into the product we have today, which lends itself as a mostly competent JRPG experience. It’s no secret that a game ultimately runs depending on how well optimized it is regardless of art direction of 2D or 3D.
Astria ascending gameplay Pc#
Astria Ascending is an interesting review given that we were granted our copy on launch day, so as someone who loves to research and dive in as much as possible into how each game is optimized for particular platforms, I’ve cross referenced with the Xbox and PC versions as well to see how the Switch version holds up given the lenient graphical demand of the title.
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