Format: Xbox Series X
Genre: RPG
Developer: Neon Giant
Publisher: Curve Digital

The Ascent is one of those modern breed of games which uses so many triangles within its limited scope-- in this case, a largely fixed-camera isometric perspective-- that the art looks two dimensional, like the pre-rendered backgrounds popularized on the original PlayStation. While its graffiti and neon light-festooned concrete jungle dazzle at first, things start to look a bit "samey" after some time. The visuals do such a good job of creating the illusion of a deep, multi-layered city that the lack of an ability to fully traverse the backgrounds feels psychologically like a limiter, versus the thematically-identical-but-open-world "Cyberpunk 2077".

There isn't much to say about the audio in this title: there doesn't seem to be any music, or at least none worth mentioning-- it's like harkening back to the Atari VCS days! Interestingly, non-main NPCs use garbled speech during their dialogs, something not commonly heard outside of Nintendo releases. The gunfire and explosions are typical-- not bad, but they probably came out of a canned SFX library.

As a typical Diablo clone, this game doesn't add much beyond the usual formula, and will be instantly playable to people familiar with the genre. The only real change is that it's gun-based, specifically "twin stick", and the firearm can also be aimed high or low, as it's possible to crouch to take cover behind certain pipes. The core control scheme and play movement work fine, but the pacing is very bad due to the player getting often tasked with traversing long distances with painful movement, in between the points where the fast travel system can work.

The Ascent is a shameless Diablo II impersonator, with guns. And unlike that title or other top games in the genre, it lacks the variety, interesting content, and fetching sense of style to pull in the player. It's interesting having quasi-cover based combat in the genre, but too much mental energy on the project was probably spent thinking in a purely mechanical sense, and not enough on the bigger, broader picture. The best thing this game has going for it is its incredible scenery art-- but that alone isn't enough to lug the rest of the title along with it. Game Pass subscribers should check out the greatly superior "Minecraft Dungeons".