Ash of Gods: Redemption

I bought this a couple of days ago and haven't completed it as yet. So far I've found the game to be pretty good -- art work is great (same style as The Banner Saga), the story line is engaging and combat can be tricky (hint, kill the archers first). I think the voice acting (well grunting) could have been done away with though and some of the narration grates a bit. The sound track is good and very atmospheric; suites the game well. Its an enjoyable experience for $25. If you enjoyed The Banner Saga then you should enjoy this.

First of all I think in many respects this is a better game than Banner Saga. This title I think easily has the more interesting lore and characters (and art! and music!), and has some interesting tweaks to the tactical aspect, but suffers from a critical flaw - the scene to scene writing. I'm not 100% convinced it's a problem merely of translation (from Russian). Some concepts appear to be under explained before suddenly becoming relevant, lines of dialogue have a different result from what is expected, etc. Occasionally there is a line that seems inspired in English, and then others fall flat, as if translated by committee of five year olds. This is compounded by the fact that most of the game is dialogue trees. I personally found the lore and story pretty enthralling, but I'm also convinced that the translation into English (and I suspect every other language as well) should have been from scratch, with ideas to be achieved scene by scene shared but the dialogue itself a rewrite with someone who knew what they were doing. If you can fill in the considerable blanks and missteps in your own mind, though, it's captivating. The source is interesting, execution less so. The combat I think is an improvement over Banner Saga. Gone are dice rolls, every attack does what it says on the tin, so it's more tactical in that respect. Team size has a huge impact on how battles play out (small teams will have each member act multiple times in one round compared to a large team), but once you get the hang of it this is another tactical arrow in your quiver. The game does not hand hold or explain valid tactics, so its trial and error (same goes for the interesting but occasionally opaque levelling and builds), though selectable difficulty and the much more generous save game regimen compared to Banner Saga is a blessing. All in all, a title worthy of a sequel, and a fascinating world to explore, if you're prepared to use imagination to fill in its shortcomings yourself.

+ Created world + Characters ++ Music ++ Story (the whole Reaping plot) +++ Graphics +++ Climat -/+ > quile linear (with some choices), but I was ok with that - it was like a interactive book, - > fighting system - had to understand how the healt/stamina system corelates or die in each battle (this can be adjusted by changing game difficulty, so no stress)

I love this game : beautifull musics and illustrations, a story as we like it in a fantasy world, and characters very specifics (personality, background...). People who played "Banner Saga" will be enchanted by Ash of Gods. - Every decision is important, this is addictive and frustrating, because some of them have their repercussions later during the game. - Your characters can die because of your decisions or during a battle. - Alternate the modes : map - battle - character interactions - RP choices, give some dynamic to the game. - You can chose your difficulty : for exemple if you prefer to follow the story lines without a dead character during a battle And this game is in french ! THANK YOU !!! Because, yes, reeding is the basic to play Ash of Gods. Bad points : - Some bugs : zapped decision's windows and dialogues : and then, a choice was made without I knew it. - No voices : to bad, that could made this game more dynamic, because the characters are not animated at all during the dialogues and interactions.

Ok, i like turn-based games, i love story-based games. Some elements of hard-core choices are also good to make game immersive. But in the end game must not be so frustrating. It's all about very strange balance, strange battle mechanic and very not obvious choices. So, please give my money to artists and writers, but not to gamedesigners of this sh*t mechanics. I really found hate in me while trying to keep successful walkthrough. You have no chance to smooth learning skill of whole buch of characters, so battles feels too silly unbalanced, and it's not feeling as story-driven looses, but like gameplay mistakes. You can turn battles off and remove this strange feeling, but if it's a game it need a gameplay. Unfortunately now gameplay is a piece of randomness.