Astria Ascending (Switch) Review | Nintendo Life

At the end of 2015, a new game came to iOS called Zodiac: Orcanon Odyssey, offering a reasonably high quality classic JRPG experience. Although it was originally slated to somehow make its way to the PlayStation consoles of the time, this console project never took off and was subsequently canceled. Now that project has been revived by Super Neptunia RPG developer Artisan Studio and reinvented for modern consoles like Astria Ascending. This reworked version essentially deconstructs the original version and rebuilds it in a way that feels more in line with typical RPGs. Some may be wary of the origins of mobile gaming here, but we’re happy to report that it feels like a quality, full-featured JRPG that should give it a fair chance.

Astria Ascending takes place in the land of Orcanon, where you play as a cast of demigods called “The Fated Eight.” See, in Orcanon, the world is largely at peace due to a magical fruit called Harmelon that makes people live in harmony with each other, but things naturally don’t always go according to plan – that’s what demigods are for. Each of them represents one of the eight main races that live in Orcanon, and being a demigod carries great power and prestige, but there is a small catch: at three years, all the demigods die and are replaced by eight others who compose the next class.

The world itself and the plot certainly set seem interesting and original enough, but the main problem with Astria Ascending is that it does not offer the player a very compelling way to enter this narrative. This completely new world, complete with all sorts of races, rules, and very important capitalized words that you don’t know, is imposed on you with hardly a word of exposure.

Furthermore, the eight demigods present themselves together immediately after they have performed their duties for nearly three years, and are expected to infer how they all know and feel about each other. This is clearly a dense world with all kinds of interesting potential, but it seems that Astria Ascending is the third or fourth entry in a long-running series. Eventually you can start putting things together and making sense of it all, but your experience with the story never feels like you’ve come to know and organically care about these characters and the world they are in.

For a JRPG, that can be a pretty damning problem, and it doesn’t help that the writing itself is pretty flat. The characters feel superficial and most of them rarely bring anything meaningful to whatever the current scene is about, leading to a lot of moments where this whole gang walks in to talk to one person and most of them just they stare tough or they chime in with one. or two comments that add nothing to the discussion.

In this regard, Astria Ascending is a good example of why most JRPGs will slowly introduce you to group members as the story progresses. Having them all present from the beginning is not impossible To pull this off, but it takes skillful writing to give each member of a relatively large main cast a compelling reason to be there and feel like the gang is more than just a collection of mannequins. It would have been better if Astria Ascending reduced the cast to four or more, or structured the story around the slow introduction of each of the members so that you could better understand each character and how they relate to each other.

Your missions will take you across the entire land of Orcanon, which is laid out in a way that is vaguely reminiscent of the world of Child of Light. All dungeons, towns, and environments are arranged on a strict 2D plan, which sounds restrictive at first, but proves to have good depth over time. For example, dungeons are generally featured as a series of large rooms connected by doors, with each room featuring a decent amount of light ambient puzzling, hidden treasure chests, and wandering enemies to fight. The areas aren’t quite as meandering and labyrinthine as a typical Metroidvania map, but there’s plenty of room for exploration here, just enough that it doesn’t feel too ‘A-to-B’ in its layout.

Combat takes place using standard turn-based rules, but there are some nice wrinkles that help make battles more interesting. The most notable example of this is the FP system, which is similar to the Octopath Traveler BP. The party shares a gauge of up to ten FPs at a time, and it can be lowered four points at a time to do things like increase the damage dealt by attacks or the amount of health it can restore. Enemies and party members have various elemental strengths and weaknesses, and if you hit an enemy’s weakness, you’ll get 2 FP.

However, if you hit an enemy with something he resists, or if he hits one of your weaknesses, you will lose FP. We really appreciate the inclusion of this mechanic as it makes battles (especially bosses) much more strategic and focused on planning. Betting all the time is sure to make you gain body, so you should know in advance what each member of the team contributes and how it can best be used to accelerate a victory.

Once you’ve earned loot from your battles, you can invest any SP earned on each character’s skill grid, each of which features a different arrangement of stat gains and new skills. Like the Sphere Grid from Final Fantasy X, you start at one node and then you are given the option to expand from there to several others, which means you need to think a bit more about how you want each character to develop. Things get even more complicated when you finally unlock up to three new jobs for each character, each of which brings with it a new skill grid in which you can invest your precious limited resources. You can get by just fine with the base class grid and not even touch any of those other jobs, but they’re there for those of you who really like to get into the undergrowth of pushing RPG characters to their full potential.

Those of you looking for a large amount of content will be delighted to know that Astria Ascending has quite a bit of meat, between about 25 and 75 hours, depending on how complete it can be. The typical forgettable side quests are here and taken into account if you’re looking to get additional resources as time goes on, but there is an ongoing questline where you can draw contracts to hunt special monsters that add quite a bit. interesting flavor to the main loop of the game. These hunts are usually a bit more difficult than a standard boss fight at your current level and require you to backtrack to previous areas, but they offer an exciting challenge and some tasty rewards if you can beat them.

In addition to this, there is a full card battle minigame that makes for good fun. You can fight a lot of the NPCs you come across on your journey and bet cards on the winner, and there’s a great deal of depth to a simple side game. The basic problem of the game, called J Ster, is that each one has a deck of six hexagonal cards that are played on a small board. Each card has a numerical value, while each of its six faces has different modifiers that will increase or decrease its value when played. Placing a card on the board starts a ‘fight’ between your card and any adjacent enemy cards, and if you played well, you will flip the enemy cards to your color. After a few turns, the player with the most cards on the board wins the game and usually wins some of the opponent’s cards in the process. It may take some time to sink in, but J Ster offers a fun experience that adds significantly to Astria Ascending.

We would be remiss in ending the review without discussing the exceptional art direction. Every frame in this release, be it a battle or somewhere in the world, seems straight out of the concept artist’s sketchbook in the best light. Characters and monsters are drawn with impressive detail, and it’s hard not to be surprised by the level of effort that goes into achieving the perfect combination of form and function. Each part of the world is visually distinct from the next and splashes a lot of color, making for an absolutely beautiful visual appeal, whether you’re gaming on the dock or on your handheld.

Plus, Hitoshi Sakimoto’s score brings just the right amount of that Final Fantasy-style magic. It’s not a particularly memorable soundtrack, but it fits the gameplay and world like a glove and it would be hard to ask for much better.

conclusion

Astria Ascending may not be a flawless launch, but the robust combat system, spectacular visuals, deep character skill development, and sheer amount of content create an experience that JRPG fans will feel right at. home. We’d give a recommendation to anyone looking for an original RPG to sink their teeth into; The writing and plot could have worked with more development and attention, but there is a lot to love about Astria Ascending and we can’t wait to anticipate whatever Artisan Studios does next.