Game: Guild of Ascension
Genre: Adventure, Strategy, RPG
System: Nintendo Switch (Also on Steam (Windows))
Developer|Publisher: WhileOne Productions | Plug In Digital
Age Rating: EU 7+ | US Everyone
Price: US $16.99 | UK £15.29 | EU € 16,99
Release Date: January 19th, 2022
Review code provided with many thanks to Plug In Digital.
Runaway Train of Rogue-Lites
Guild of Ascension is a tactical action RPG with rogue-lite elements that manages to put a unique spin on the formula by mixing action gameplay and turn-based combat. Yes, another video game with rogue-lite elements in a genre that feels like quite the runaway freight train… nothing will derail it.
However, I have noticed interest in the rogue-lite genre starting to wane in some circles on the internet. That’s still not the case for me though. The concept of playing a game in short bursts, learning from mistakes and gradually upgrading per run still feels like the evolution of the arcade genre I loved when I was a sprog. So let’s dive into my first rogue-lite review of 2022 and see what makes Guild of Ascension quite the gaming gem.
It’s The Climb
You play as two plucky warriors on a quest to challenge the Ascension Tower. A mysterious tower in the centre of town where adventures enter hoping to climb to the top to find epic loot and treasures. But the climb is not easy, on each floor of the tower monsters both small and large will make your climb that ever bit more arduous. But then nothing that’s truly worth having comes easy.
The plot is kinda bare-bones, between runs the townsfolk will provide little text snippets of the lore. The focus here though is more on gameplay than story, which usually appeals to most players looking for that quick rogue-lite hit. That being said, I have to say I really liked the conclusion of this game and the surprising message associated with it. Of course, I won’t spoil that in the review but for me, it showed some surprising heart to the challenge it took to reach it.
Find the Key
The goal of the game is to move from floor to floor of the tower searching for a key to unlock the boss room in order to progress. Before you begin a run you can equip each character with a weapon such as swords, hammers or bows. Each weapon has some pros and cons and my preferred choice tended to be to have one character melee-based and the other ranged. But it was a lot of fun playing about with the builds. When you first enter a floor you are presented with a mini-map where you can only see adjacent rooms to warn you what is ahead and what reward you receive.
Avoid Hazards
Most rooms are battle rooms but you may find a vendor to spend some acquired currency, to gain character buffs or possibly a challenge room where you need to destroy some dummies or collect some crystals while avoiding hazards. The better you perform, the higher the reward. There is an incentive to search every room on the floor to gain as many rewards as possible. But lingering too long will increase the threat level in the top right of the screen making enemy encounters much more challenging. Sometimes finishing the level sooner is a wiser choice than trying to find absolutely everything. It’s a risk-reward design that made the game quite appealing to me.
Battle Mode
When you enter a battle room the level is presented as a board a bit like chess, but the game really doesn’t play like a board game. The goal is to eliminate all enemies on the board. When you begin your turn you choose which of the two characters starts. You then have a few seconds to observe the board and plan your move followed by several more seconds to carry out your action in real-time. Within this time you can move your character around the board, attack enemies or charge up your blue dodge bar.
Once a character’s turn ends you repeat the same for your second character. After that, all present enemies on the board take a turn and you repeat the process until you either come out victorious or fall in battle. The dodge bar is very useful as it will take any incoming enemy damage but once it is depleted it drains your health bar.
On the Attack
When you attack enemies or receive damage, a yellow bar fills which can be used for one of four moves against the enemies when it’s your turn. Charge it long enough and you can unleash a more powerful, devastating move on the enemies. As the threat level increases, enemies will start using counter moves if you hit them too much. You often need to regularly change your strategy to succeed which I really enjoyed. As the threat further increases the ‘goddess’ will also intervene in battle, where a random event will occur such as a health gem being dropped or a random lightning strike damaging random points on the board. The latter feature feels too random and kinda cheap from a design point. This mix of action and strategy may feel a little odd at first. It took me a few battles to really get my head around the mechanics but I found it to be a very rewarding design once it clicked.
Upgrade
Once a battle concludes you get to choose a buff to upgrade one of the characters. You do need to make sure to revisit base camp to level up the characters. What I liked here is that you can choose for your characters to level up automatically from set builds like balance, aggressive or defensive. But you can choose to up the stats manually. What was kind of a pain is you need to revisit the camp to level up often when it feels it should just kinda happen automatically after a battle. You can also use camps to heal and revive your partner provided you have the right items.
Choose Your Performance
Graphics are colourful 3D designs with the standard enemy and environment designs. There are three biomes to explore in the game from forest, mountain to the swamp. How these appear in the tower I’m not quite sure but I just kinda rolled with it. It is a simple fantasy setting with enemies like boars, bears and of course spiders. There are some pretty unique boss designs like golems and ents. The latter I swear is making some grand resurgence in video games over the last few years. It’s worth noting boss characters also become regular enemies the further you progress.
The soundtrack is a pretty standard affair, like the graphics, it just does the job. Not bad but nothing special. What I did appreciate is the ability to choose how the game performs in the options menu switching to performance mode, graphical or a balance of the two. A feature that still feels underused by developers. I mostly played the game in performance mode myself as that’s just a personal preference but when I dabbled in the other two settings the game performed just fine in handheld and TV modes with no notable glitches or bugs.
The further you progress up the tower the harder the game becomes. Enemies become more difficult and grindy. As mentioned, boss characters also become regular enemies. Some of the enemies counter moves become a real pain later in the game. Spiders run away after a few hits and there were these turtles that used this irritating defence buff. These features just slowed the game making the experience a bit tedious. If the difficulty does get too much the game offers difficulty tweaks for the damage you take and receive as well as reviving you if you fall.
Failure is Certain
As a rogue-lite, failure is a regular occurrence in this game. The good news is it does a very good job drip-feeding you new content between runs whether you succeed or fail. You unlock new weapons, relics and even pets. You can experiment with various builds for each run. Unlike a lot of rogue-lite games, you don’t have to start right from the beginning of the game. Once you complete a floor you simply restart the floor you were on subsequent runs making failure a little less painful. However, there is an incentive to replay old floors. The townsfolk give you various quests to complete in order to unlock yet more gold and loot to assist with further runs. It’s also kinda fun just to replay old levels with a more powerful build.
Conclusion – Rising Up
Guild of Ascension ended up really clicking with me. Its unique blend of action and strategy proved to be an entertaining formula that I really enjoyed whether I could only do a few battles or possibly an entire run. The game does get really tough and kinda repetitive the further you climb the tower. But once I reached its summit I was pretty pleased with the journey I had been on and even felt compelled to return to complete quests I had missed. If you like your rogue-lite game this is another unique spin on the formula that I would recommend.
Final Verdict: I Like it a Lot
