Astria Ascending is a beautifully hand-drawn JRPG with tactical and strategic combat, rewarding dungeon exploration and a versatile ascension tree to specialise your party.
Astria Ascending is a hand-drawn 2D turn-based JPRG developed by Artisan Studio and published by Dear Villagers. The game will release on PC, Switch, PlayStation, Xbox, and Game Pass on September 30, 2021. I previewed the game back in August and was attracted to the incredible detail in the hand-drawn environments and characters. Once I started playing, the tactical combat and focus points system intrigued me as I slowly developed and specialised the characters in my party. I have not yet finished the game, so this is a review in-progress, however wanted to highlight the features I’ve enjoyed so far.
In a world where chaos looms, players take control of the Demigods – a motley crew of eight heroes charged with the fate of the world of Orcanon. Five races exist in Orcanon which consist of Awisi, Peyska, Arktans, Zefts and Meryo. The banter between the different characters early on shows that, while they may not always get along, they’re all in together to take out the Noises, grotesque creatures spread throughout the lands. Each character has their own story with 20 possible classes to develop through the ascension system while you explore five cities, twenty-five dungeons, many side quests, puzzles, and mini games.
Those of us with early access had to use a controller to play the game which was fine as the controls are relatively simple, however mouse and keyboard support will be added on day 1 of the game. The game is played as a side scroller, so you only need to worry about moving left to right and interacting with characters or items with A. Once you collect your first quests, pressing Right Stick will show you the quest log and the world map can be viewed with the Select button which shows any teleporters you have activated. It’s not long before you enter combat which is turn-based and starts off easy but gets more complex and difficult as you approach the first of the games many bosses. These early fights are good to test our which of the eight characters you like using the most.
One of the great aspects of combat in Astria Ascending is the ability to switch out party members during the fight. Swapping characters ends the current turn, so you’ll need to be strategic about it, but initially you are not aware of the enemy’s weaknesses without first testing various elemental abilities on them. Later, you can unlock a scan ability which will show their weaknesses, but in the first few hours of the game you will need to work this out for yourself, and sooner rather than later. This is important because once you know their weaknesses, you can exploit this to earn your party focus points.
Focus is one of the key additions to Astria Ascending and can turn the ride of battle in your favour, but it can also be used against you. Once you know an enemy’s weakness and start hitting it with that type of damage, you’ll start to earn focus points. You can use these points on an ability to make it stronger or the active character uses the Focus command to give up their turn to increase efficiency for another character. Further to this, eventually one of the party members, Alassia, gains the ability to summon Astraes which are boss-like characters that will replace your entire team. Astraes are just like any other character with HP and MP and once their HP hits 0, your group will be returned to the fight, but they use focus points to use their powerful abilities. Using these at the right time can certainly swing the battle your way, especially against some of the powerful bosses.
The bosses I’ve encountered so far have two phases and they can be super frustrating, especially as I would usually encounter them when I was very low on MP across most characters. Often the bosses would do huge damage or cast curse or other such negative effects. Curse is a real pain because it means your party members have a chance to attack your team. If your group is wiped in battle, you have the option to retry the battle straight away which is fantastic. You don’t have to worry about not having saved the game for 30-minutes or more and can get straight back into the fight knowing the enemy’s strategies. It can also be advantageous to flee if you know the battle is lost, but this has a chance to fail.
One advantage to fleeing is you can utilise the teleporters to go back to town, stock up on potions, shop for better weapons/armour, then go back to the fight and try again. This was very useful when you start heading into the multi-level dungeons in the game. When you’re in a dungeon, your HP will regenerate after each fight, but your MP does not. There are lots of battles to be fought as you progress your way through the dungeons so don’t be afraid to head back to town to restock on potions. Early on I tried to just keep pushing on and work my way through the regular fights, but when it came to more difficult enemies or boss battles, I would be struggling with very little MP to use and dwindling potion supplies which meant many frustrating defeats.
Another aspect of Astria Ascending is the outstanding implementation of the dungeon maps that I’ve not seen before. Each room is added to the map as you discover it, showing the door or entry you came in and records and doors that you discover. Going through a door to the next room adds a layer to the map and a trail showing how the doors connect to previous layers. As you progress through the dungeon, you’ll see any doors you have missed as they’re not connected to other layers, allowing you to go back and explore that new area. There’s a percentage completion at the bottom of the screen which helps you know how much further you need to explore. It was very helpful when I got stuck to work out where I hadn’t been to progress through to the end of the dungeon.
Through combat and completing quests, you’ll earn currency, experience points and skill points as well as levelling up your party. Each character has a primary job/class and can learn three other jobs eventually. The ascension tree allows you to specialise each individual character how you’d like them using stat orbs and skill points. Some early choices might add either HP or MP, while others might give you a choice of boosting one of four stat points or unlock different elemental attacks. This allows you to really mould and specialise all eight of your party members to suit your playstyle and gives versatility to combat.
Outside of combat and in between story elements, some npcs you come across have an option to challenge them to a game of J-Ster. This is a cool fantasy token-based game where you have a deck of hexagonal tokens that have a power value as well as symbols on each side of the token. If you meet or beat the power of a token and match the side it is placed, you will flip the enemy token to your side. The person that can flip the most cards over 5 turns wins the game. Depending on the game’s winning conditions, this could mean you gain or lose tokens. Arpajo has an ability where he has a chance to capture an enemy into a token for use in later J-ster games which was a cool way to build your token deck. I’m still not very good at the game, and as I progress the story, npcs have much better J-ster decks, so it’s best to go back to early areas and fight opponents there while you learn.
Overall, Astria Ascending is a beautifully hand-drawn JRPG with tactical and strategic combat, rewarding dungeon exploration and the ascension tree gives you much versatility in how you specialise party members. The dungeons are exciting to explore and the J-Ster mini-game is a good distraction between battles, if you can keep up building your deck. I am yet to finish the game so cannot comment on the overall story yet but so far I have really enjoyed my time in the game.
Astria Ascending will release on September 30, 2021, on PC, Switch, PlayStation, Xbox, and Game Pass and I’m very much looking forward to playing more. Even if JRPG’s aren’t normally your thing, if you’re into turn-based combat games, give this game a look.
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Written by: @ChrisJInglis
