An amazing indie game and an absolute piece of art. I love the combination between souls-like and companion. I feel like these two features work really well with each other where the souls-like difficulty enhances players' relationship with companions and companion combat encourages players to push through difficult fights and areas. The music and art style are so satisfying, and the environment and some of the large creatures are jaw-dropping. However, I do feel like the anticipation frame for enemies/bosses' attacks are too short for players to recognize and react properly. The enemy placement in some areas and the attack moves of some bosses make it really hard to avoid damage, and there are not enough check points in endgame areas. While these are easily missed in the normal mode because the stats are very player-friendly, and taking damage is not too punishing, these problems are especially visible when playing in hard mode where the stats are so unbalanced that almost every source of damage will one shot you. Overall, Ashen is an amazing game, and it's surprising that an indie studio is able to produce a game of such quality

An amazing indie game and an absolute piece of art. I love the combination between souls-like and companion. I feel like these two features work really well with each other where the souls-like difficulty enhances players' relationship with companions and companion combat encourages players to push through difficult fights and areas. The music and art style are so satisfying, and the environment and some of the large creatures are jaw-dropping. However, I do feel like the anticipation frame for enemies/bosses' attacks are too short for players to recognize and react properly. The enemy placement in some areas and the attack moves of some bosses make it really hard to avoid damage, and there are not enough check points in endgame areas. While these are easily missed in the normal mode because the stats are very player-friendly, and taking damage is not too punishing, these problems are especially visible when playing in hard mode where the stats are so unbalanced that almost every source of damage will one shot you. Overall, Ashen is an amazing game, and it's surprising that an indie studio is able to produce a game of such quality