Ashwalkers Reviews
I started following the development of Ashwalkers long before it hit the stores. So naturally, I jumped at the chance to get my hands on a copy to review. Unlike many games I take, I had high expectations going into Ashwalkers. The real question is, does it live up to the hype I built for it, or did my enthusiasm disappear like smoke? Keep reading this rapid review to find out.
Ashwalkers is just a few inconvenient bugs away from being an “eShop essential.”
Ashwalkers does a good job in presenting a wide variety of possible endings as well as creating a gloom, somber post-apocalyptic world for the players to dwell in. Ashwalkers doesn't deliver the same positive elements when it comes to technical execution and controls, thus contributing for a rather frustrating experience that makes it difficult to explore and to try to find all the different endings, while also harming the player's connection with the characters.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
What could have potentially been a good hybrid of walking simulator and multiple choice adventure is instead buried under boring gameplay and eye-straining visuals. Ashwalkers squanders any narrative replayability by being an all-round drab experience that is as uninspiring as the wastelands it’s set in.
The honesty and delicacy with which Ashwalkers builds its world is truly remarkable. The conflict is presented by its mechanics, which manage to keep us distant from what should be a survival experience worth remembering.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Ashwalkers had the potential to be a very peculiar experience. Unfortunately, its sluggishness and superficiality end up turning its excellent proposal into something very limited. To make matters worse, the Switch version still has performance issues that make everything noticeably slower. Thanks to all these factors, it is a game that is difficult to recommend, but one that players more inclined to intimate and solemn adventures may still be able to enjoy.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Ashwalkers toes a fine line between survival and story and does a great job of it. The storytelling is just enough to tease out a unique ashy apocalypse without getting burdened by too many specifics, while the survival aspect is stressful but not impossible to overcome. While playing, I found myself invested in not only the Squad’s survival but the fate of those 250,000 souls back in the Citadel, only satisfied once I got an ending with a hopeful note. If you enjoyed the scouting section of Frostpunk and wanted to see that mechanic expanded upon, look no further than Ashwalkers.
Ashwalkers is much deeper than just a walking simulator, with it’s survival elements and choices that affect the outcome of your party and the story. It really is a choose-your-own-adventure game while you manage the survival of the squad and leading them to safety.
Ashwalkers is a pretty good survival journey. It is both simple and difficult at the same time managing the group is easy...if you have the resources. If you are the least bit curious, I'd give Ashwalkers a shot, especially with 34 different endings, you're going to have different experiences for a few playthroughs!
If I had to use one word to sum up all of the paragraphs above, it would be “boring.” Ashwalkers takes some intriguing prose and some truly difficult decisions and casts them all into a dull world design with tedious gameplay. The visuals and interactivity presented here do so little to prop up the relatively decent writing that I can’t help but wonder if this game would’ve been better off as a book instead.
Ashwalkers feels like several games in one, incorporating various unique gameplay elements pulled from the survival and choose-your-own-adventure genres. But where this may seem like cause for concern, it expertly brings them together to create a special experience unlike anything else. My time with Ashwalkers was brief, but enough to leave a lasting impression that has me yearning to go back and play it all again.
Ashwalkers is a rather unique take on the survival genre that relies on narrative and choice rather than outright combat. Sadly, its slow paced exploration can quickly wear out its welcome, pushing players away before they complete their journey.
The gameplay may be a simple run-of-the-mill survival design but the beautiful art style and the non-linear storytelling with its melancholic atmosphere make Ashwalkers a very enticing proposition.
Review in Persian | Read full review
Ashwalkers provides a great first impression through its atmosphere and mechanics, but each playthrough weighs on that experience. The repetitive nature of this adventure simply has you playing until you wear yourself out after so many of the different endings are similar to each other. These 2-hour game loops had me wishing for longer paths or something else because there’s a good foundation here but it’s repetitive nature ultimately leaves the adventure unfulfilling.