With the camera being as close as it is to your character, you sometimes get shot by off-screen enemies, and it can take you a while to work out where they are. I’d also like to see the range of enemies tweaked. If not adjusted, I could see those frustrating solo players, particularly as difficulty spikes could arrive in the form of random encounters as you explore the world (such as running into a bounty target). Those fights feel like they were made with co-op in mind, as you can easily imagine one player handling smaller enemies while the other(s) deal big damage to a boss. The challenge was well balanced in most encounters, but certain moments trump that in the AI’s favour with either incredibly tanky enemies, or a constant stream of melee fodder that stop you from landing consistent damage against a bigger ranged target. The game doesn’t offer any difficulty options, however, or really any way to make its various components more accessible. The Ascent’s difficulty helps these fights stay relevant. Enemies are smart enough to do the same, and some archetypes will try to flank you to force you to move. You can play it as a cover shooter, ducking behind cover and shooting over it, but the system is unrestricted enough that you can essentially turn any high-enough object into temporary cover, as you send your own fire down range and quickly hide from theirs. This isn’t quite a traditional cover system, but by holding right-click or the left trigger, your character raises their weapon to shoot above any obstacle in front of them. Witnessing rounds rend human bodies to shreds as their bones sunder never got old.Īs satisfying as gunplay is in The Ascent, it’s the game’s unique weapon-raising mechanic that’s worth highlighting. When you’re not power-slamming foes, you’ll be hacking their kit or even doing something as simple as shooting a red barrel or blowing up a car – everything feels like it’s reacting to you. Every one of those interactions is made more powerful by the damage they cause wooden boxes shatter, the ground deforms and cement blocks are reduced to their core in the few seconds it takes you to finish off your assailants. The destruction gunfire and abilities cause communicates a heft that’s often hard to convey in an isometric perspective. Animations are a big reason for this they sell the power of your dash and leap moves, and contort your enemies’ bodies in ways that can only make you light up with glee. Almost all of your abilities have a certain cyberpunk flair, even if they’re not always mechanically interesting. The Ascent leans harder into its combat and feel than it does numbers and role-play. Your earned skill points go towards those passive skills, and they help boost your HP and energy, make you harder to stun, and improve your accuracy. Here, they take the form of fun abilities, some of which are destructively offensive and others are simple passive boosts. It feels like the most obvious thing to mention that RPG elements exist in any moderately big game released today, like saying it has mechanics - but they do exist. The Ascent is, at its basic form, a cyberpunk top-down shooter with RPG mechanics. I would have been content with The Ascent being among the latter it’s what I went in expecting. There are too many of them - usually with a pixel-arty look, but simultaneously not enough - the kind that used to push visuals and environmental detail to the point that you’d want to hack in a first-person camera just to get as close as possible to their worlds. I don’t know what it is about the top-down shooter genre that endears it to indie developers.
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