The Ascent Reviews
The Ascent is a tough game to recommend for solo players in its current state. Its buggy, tedious at its best and utterly frustrating at its worst. While I’m sure playing with friends will resolve some of my chief complaints, more fundamental issues like a rather boring overworld can’t be fixed with a few laughs with friends.
I know this is beautiful — how bad could it be — but please avoid it at all costs, no matter how cheap it is on sale.
Capturing the cyberpunk aesthetic perfectly, The Ascent is a fantastic example of twinstick shooters with a few tricks of its own. There are a few rough edges, especially with online multiplayer, but the RPG elements and gorgeous graphics and voice work more than keep you locked into this neon soaked universe.
The Ascent is for the most part a polished experience that's tons of fun to play and behold. The narrative will carry you along to many interesting places with different baddies to fry, though a few encounters feature enemies that are pure bullet sponges. You will need to pick the right equipment and keep up with leveling, but these issues can be overcome. Hardware requirements shouldn't hold you back too much, and glitches are few and far between. The overall quality makes this one a must play for cyberpunk and isometric shooter fans.
A few balance issues and questionable combat encounters do not mar an otherwise solid and memorable cyberpunk action-RPG experience.
A grim, dystopian future shock, The Ascent is an action-packed ARPG brimming with guns and ultra-violence. It's enormous fun, especially in co-op, but bothersome bugs and repetitive quests unfortunately put a dampener on things.
The Ascent proves why the cyberpunk genre is so popular right now. There isn’t anything exactly different or unique about its story, but it perfects the atmosphere with terrific environment art and an otherworldly soundtrack. Combine that with outstanding twin-stick shooter gameplay and elements of wall cover, cool-down management, and role-playing to deepen the experience. Blasting through crews of Rojins with a rocket-firing gun, the Astrosmasher, being among my personal highlights. It may have accessibility and minor performance concerns, but it’s still sensational, action-packed, and so much fun. The Ascent may be the best cyberpunk game in the last year.
The Ascent combines excellent worldbuilding, satisfying role playing, exciting combat, and stellar visuals to deliver an astounding action RPG.
Despite a few small issues, The Ascent is an incredibly fun twin stick shooter set in a dark, cyberpunk world with a lighthearted cast of characters and plenty of things to do. Neon Giant has a patch based on player feedback planned for mid August so hopefully the small visual and audio bugs will be worked out sooner rather than later.
The Ascent nails the cyberpunk aesthetic but doesn't really attempt to capitalise on its themes of corporate slavery. The solid audiovisuals and competent action-RPG twin-stick shooter hybrid gameplay manage to glue the experience together, even when glaring flaws such as lacklustre quest design and an overreliance on backtracking threaten to derail it.
Many systems that lack depth make it difficult for players to get the pleasure of brushing, while slightly monotonous levels are also easy to play with.
Review in Chinese | Read full review
From no two dinged up vehicles or future-rubbish bags looking the same to graffiti strewn walls to cracks and seams covering every inch of the future real estate you get to explore.
For the price it sits at… I think it's a decent purchase. There's a lot to enjoy even just in looking around the world that has been built here, there are plenty of battles to keep you going and there's the story to play through from start to finish. Scratches that neon lit cyberpunk aesthetic itch just right.
The Ascenti constantly reminds you of being an indie game, having both ambitious ideas you won't find in your typical AAA blockbuster and a not so brilliant execution. Despite the missed opportunities, it still is a fascinating universe and an enjoyable isometric shooter RPG.
Review in Italian | Read full review
While The Ascent is not going to be the next Diablo nor Path of Exile, it manages to craft an immersive and distinct experience, one that has familiar gameplay, yet a unique design. Whether your exploring Veles alone or with some friends, you won't want to miss out on this one!
Fans of twin-stick shooters and action RPGs are likely to get a good amount of fun out of The Ascent, especially if they have the patience to work though some of its issues. The fact that it looks so pretty, at least on Xbox Series X, means that some may find more of a reason to persist with it, too. With its merely passable story and small assortment of gameplay frustrations, however, it’s not quite the game it could have been. It simply feels a bit rough around the edges, though perhaps a patch or two could smooth them off.
The Ascent is a very impressive indie game made by a small studio of fewer than 30 people. Neon Giant has created a fantastic isometric shooter that’s just as much fun as the games it painstakingly writes a love letter to. I highly recommend you check out The Ascent as it’s been one of my favorite games so far in 2021.
The Ascent manages to create an unbelievably detailed and dirty cyberpunk world for you to explore and find your place in. All the while you’ll unravel cyberpunk-esque corporate schemes. I couldn’t stop playing the game, The Ascent is absolutely dripping with cyberpunk aesthetics and is a true love letter to the genre by clear lovers of cyberpunk fiction.
The Ascent strikes the right cyberpunk and action-shooter chords to make a strong impression as Neon Giant's debut title.