The Ascent Reviews
The Ascent is a technically impressive and rather gorgeous cyberpunk twin stick shooter held back by a number of issues. This includes the basically broken coop, the mind boggling checkpoints and the insane difficulty spikes.
There’s just a lot of technical restraints that drag The Ascent down, and I do praise Neon Giant’s hard work they’ve put into the game, but it’s difficult for me to recommend a title that’s so unpolished when you want to play the game on couch co-op. However, if you’re up for instant, fluid twin-stick shooting gunplay with easy-to-grasp mechanics and a massive arsenal of weapons, and a game that accurately evokes the cyberpunk theme then The Ascent is undoubtedly a game that may be worth your time regardless of the technical issues it has.
Considering it is the debut game of a new Indie developer, The Ascent having visuals this good is like a dream come true. Yet if you were to try and explore its depths, you will soon find out it is a pretty shallow game.
Review in Turkish | Read full review
The Ascent game is fascinating and entertaining, and especially co-op offers a pleasant and memorable experience, but unfortunately the game suffers from many problems large and small.
Review in Persian | Read full review
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’s excellent atmosphere and gameplay might just save it from a weak story and a lack of polish, wherein the whole is just less than the sum of its parts.
The Ascent is a great game, and although Its problems are hard to ignore, I can't pretend that I didn't have an amazing time with it.
The relatively good scenario works procedurally, while the attempt to belong to more than one species, leaves us at best indifferent.
Review in Greek | Read full review
It's a shame "The Ascent" could be more fun game. Its structure was not interesting compared to the attractive cyberpunk world in it.
Review in Korean | Read full review
For [US$20] or so, you’ll have a jolly neon-filled dystopian-blasting old time with The Ascent. Just don’t expect a grandeur tale ala Cyberpunk 2077, though you’ll have a meatier action RPG experience.
The Ascent’s setting is remarkably striking, and it’s quite fun to play to boot. But the aspects that are either lacking, or entirely non-existent in the game’s design, have a large, detrimental affect on the overall quality of the experience.
The Ascent is far from perfect. It has so many issues that normally I would not give it a second look. Despite all the issues and the fact that the gameplay is pretty basic, the story completely forgettable and it lacks any depth, I had fun with it and once I started playing it I was lost to the rest of the world.
In terms of the overall gaming experience, the creators have designed a very exciting and engaging campaign for The Ascent, which doesn't lose its excitement until the end of the game by tearing enemies apart using a variety of weapons or special powers.
Review in Persian | Read full review
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 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.
The Ascent equally frustrates and impresses me, one moment dropping my jaw with the city's neon-soaked beauty and the next making me clench my fists in anger. Veles is a brutal, unforgiving world, but it's one I enjoyed blasting my way through...when the game was being fair about it. Navigating the menus is a chore, but building a character is fun and the story is interesting enough that I don't mind the technical issues that pop up. It's not a perfect game, but if this is the beginning of a new franchise then it's a solid foundation from which to make its Ascent.
A twin-stick shooter that looks and feels great all the way through, but doesn't do enough new to keep your attention as you invest more time in its RPG systems and world.
The Ascent’s savviest move is making the arcology its main character. Trains run on their own schedules, NPCs carry on conversations whether you stop to listen to them or not, and there’s no exposition for concepts like “Escher loops” and “the First Law.” You’re not a hero, only a replaceable employee. The commune of off-the-grid coders aren’t relying on you, and there’s nothing you can do to help a traumatized recent arrival who woke to find that his family of 70 years was merely a cryosleep-induced dream. And so you look, listen, and empathize with the concerns of this vibrant, lived-in arcology. It’s a terrible place to live, and a terrifyingly believable premonition of where we might end up, but a wonderful one to get lost in.
Although The Ascent is far from perfect, it gets more right than it does wrong and is most successful at creating a world that is filled with interesting characters and fun to explore. The sections that require some grinding might frustrate, but there is enough variety in the combat to keep the gameplay from becoming stale thanks to the wide array of weapons and the cover mechanics. Add in the possibility for co-op multiplayer with some friends and The Ascent can certainly provide hours of riotous fun, especially with a release on Xbox Game Pass day one.
The Ascent's a solid, if somewhat repetitive shooter, propped up by eye-popping environments and a reasonable amount of RPG depth. If you can stomach some grindy mission design and the occasional buggy interaction, then there's explosive fun to be had here.