Ascendant (2025)

STAY AND READ ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW: THIS IS A "DONT DO THIS TO YOURSELF" TYPE REVIEW, IF YOU DONT HEED MY WARNING, YOULL BE OUT OF THE REFUND WINDOW BY THE TIME YOU FIND OUT THIS GAME IS CR*P Now, if you want an explanation of what the game is, go to the bottom, for now, all you have to know is this is a roguelike dungeon crawler. I'll start by the reasons you shouldnt buy it: 1- no pre run preparation, no upscaling loop of any kind, just you, your skills, and the same character from start to... end? 2- no progress other than through loot 3- boring unimaginative bosses 4- monotonous maps 5- the price 6- Other than ONE boss, nothing is ever cool, epic or mildly interesting, characters dont get developed, you get some story at the begining and by the looks of it, just an ending after that. 7- My now customary Achievements read says everyone drops the game. Only 25% of players defeated the second boos, less than 15% defeated the 3rd, its THAT boring. 8- After the 3 boss, you get ANOTHER immediate boss with no story development and an unearned difficulty spike 8-and after ALL that tediousness and an unearned difficulty spike i find that...... the autosave checkpoints (there is no m…

Ascendant, developed and published by Imagisphere, is a fast-paced top-down roguelike that builds its identity around chaotic combat, layered progression systems, and the constant pursuit of powerful item synergies. It follows a familiar loop within the genre—enter, fight, collect, grow stronger, and repeat—but attempts to elevate that formula through its emphasis on build diversity and moment-to-moment intensity. The result is an experience that can feel exhilarating when its systems align, though it occasionally struggles with consistency and long-term variety. The game places players in a dark fantasy setting shaped by corruption and conflict, though its narrative remains largely in the background. Rather than delivering a structured story, it offers fragments of lore and environmental hints that suggest a larger world without fully exploring it. This approach keeps the focus squarely on gameplay, allowing players to move quickly from one encounter to the next without interruption. While this works well for maintaining momentum, it also means that the experience lacks a strong emotional or narrative anchor, making progression feel more mechanical than meaningful. Combat is the…

[h3]SNAPSHOT[/h3] A short game with more artistic flair than depth [h3]OVERALL - 4.5 / 10[/h3] [h3]PROS[/h3] + art style is very beautiful + intresting (albeit basic) spell upgrading [h3]CONS[/h3] - movement feels extremely floaty - combat has no real depth - game is still plagued by bugs [h3]FULL REVIEW[/h3] On its surface this looks like a really fun game, but playing it was a much different story. Everything about it feels cramped somehow - from the camera being zoomed in too much and the rooms being tiny (even when they're "big") to the UI which takes up far too much space and limited inventory space making you get rid of half the items you might want to hold onto. My initial reaction from the game's controls was that movement was way too floaty and the "parry" system was in dire need of a few more design iterations. All you really need to do in the game is circle around the room constantly firing spells until things die and the occasional parry for bosses to avoid dying instantly. On top of that, while you'll end up acquiring plenty of spell upgrades that might seem useful in the game, you're seemingly way better off holding onto the original one and strictly upgrading wi…

This game is very fun! Quite intuitive with movement and combat. The enemies are cheeky without being overwhelming. Overall it's quite a fun time. And of course, you have M'Lady. *doffs cap*

Tedious and shallow :(

I don't really know how to explain this but, the game seems pretty interesting with a ton of playable spells and really interesting fights that overall works pretty neat but at the same time... I'll be honest, can be boring from time to time. The fights when you understand the enemies are pretty boring (at least at the start of the game, I got annoyed of fighting the same 3 enemies over and over again, killing over 200 of them before the first boss) but also the main mechanics are way too forgiving and make the overall experience slow. The problem is that : - blocking doesn't have any effect when missed so you can just spam it 24/7 and lose nothing (you can still cast during it and it doesn't slow you down) - healing spells are way too easy to get and spam so you can just afk heal and spam shield and just never die. - the mana and spell mechanic feel great at the start but once you play more than 30 mins it gets hard to like it anymore. - diversity exists but you litteraly don't have any reasons to choose diversity over braindead, because if you try to not spam these broken blocks and heal you just die because some enemies are MADE to hit you whatever you do (so u NEED to block h…