Ashen Reviews
Dark Souls serves Ashen's premise but does not define its conclusion. By instilling senses of community and devotion inside its narrative, Ashen proves Souls' discourse expands beyond punishment and brutality. Once separated from its inspiration, Ashen has plenty to show off inside of its common space.
Ashen tries too hard and not hard enough to be both a Dark Souls clone and something different, and loses a lot in the process.
Basically, Ashen is like a Souls-clone and of course a highly recommended game for souls like fans and hardcore gamers. Compared to the best games of 2018, Ashen is an average game and for sure, it's not a game for everyone, but if you are a souls fan, don't miss it at all, because death is so close to you in Ashen! You can feel the death shadow in every steps and every battles of this game.
Review in Persian | Read full review
Ashen is a game that saddly ends being halfway between what promised and what it actually delivers.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Aurora44 managed to build a distinctive and unique game on mechanics, which has long become familiar. Do not blindly copy other people's achievements, but embody familiar things in your own vision. I look forward to what the authors will do next.
Review in Russian | Read full review
Ashen's subtle additions to its obvious inspirations make it greater than the sum of its parts. If you're a fan of Dark Souls or found it and many games inspired by it too daunting, Ashen is well worth checking out.
As I continued to make my way through Ashen a calm of complacency washed over me. It doesn't have quite the same highs as a lot of its predecessors, but it maintains its tranquil equilibrium throughout. If you have an adventurous spirit and the patience and time to put into it, Ashen will pay dividends.
Through an embrace of more traditional game design, Ashen's take on the Souls formula ends up feeling welcome, even after countless imitators. A solid quest structure and top-notch world design make this beautiful low-fi title a worthy homage to a quickly aging series.
Ashen is a soulslike, but to call it a clone would be a betrayal of the awesome job A44 have with their debut project.
Ashen was just a brilliant surprise at the last days of this year. It's a perfect balance in the genre of Souls Like games which both please the fans and also gives newcomers a chance to know what they were missing.
Review in Persian | Read full review
Ashen is a very good action-adventure game sporting interesting lore, good character development, and solid gameplay features like combat and exploration. Unfortunately, the game does almost nothing to separate its gameplay loop from the one seen in the Dark Souls series and therefore ultimately feels like a lite version of the series developed by From Software. The well-made overall experience does make it easy to look past this issue, but if you're looking for something innovative, you won't find it here.
Ashen could have done more to make itself stand out, and also could have been optimized better for the Xbox One, but at the end of the day, it's still a great game.
Ashen is one of the best indie games of the year, drawing heavily from past RPGs like Dark Souls and Legend of Zelda.
Ashen manages to take a hardcore genre of games and make it accessible and approachable to those who are not fully experienced.
Ashen is a quality Soulslike with a nice art style and some great ideas about seamless and anonymous online co-op. The dungeons are memorable, the evolving town is awesome, and the increased focus that quests provide is a nice touch.
Ashen's slant on the Soulslike subgenre isn't revolutionary, but is a wonderful example of the familiar formula executed well. It's thoughtful, gorgeous, challenging and a dream to explore.
A lighter souls, yes. But not a lesser one.
Ashen feels like it's trying to be too many things at once, and perhaps because of that, it ends up tasting like a bland pot of soup without any punchy flavors to really catch your attention.