Ash of Gods: Redemption – PS4 Review

by The King

Ash of Gods: Redemption is a game developed by  ArumDust and written by Sergey Malitsky, titled as a adventure RPG strategy game it mixes a blend of live your own visual novel, tactical combat, turn based battles, fantasy RPG and elements of magical card games.

On first glance Ash of Gods: Redemption goes hard with the highly stylised ‘hand drawn’ visuals in the opening cut scene and it is utterly amazing.

They do not just stop there as you get the same stylised visuals in the in game backdrops and the character interactions.

Couple this with the well thought out story, well written lore and the tactical combat and it shows itself to be more than just a flashy visual novel and it becomes a well produced and beautiful looking game.

Game overview

You begin the game and are greeted with a glorious cut scene, battle commences beautifully visualised in its hand drawn style.

Flash forward one thousand and two years specifically (those two years are important !) and you have your first playable character available, ‘Hopper’, a warrior who you recognise from the cut scene in the beginning, he seems troubled and concerned.

Once you are handed the reigns you are thrust in to battle and then deep in to a plot that will change the world of Terminum for ever more, as ‘the Reaping’ has once again returned to threaten you all.

As you progress throughout the story line you are opened up to the lives of more characters, by way of a small story sections, such as Thorn buying a gift in town for his wife who has been unwell, accompanied by his daughter, the 2 discuss what to buy as well as current events,  even in these interactions you are given the choice as to how you react and the outcomes can have an impact on those around you.

Each character has their own outlook on the events taking place and their own set of skills in the battlefield making each interaction and battle different.

The turn based battle mechanics make for an interesting and challenging gameplay, especially as you face the enses and reapers, but the battles are enjoyable and addictive from the moment you begin as they involve skill, tactics, chance and also there is a card system for magic abilities.

Your enemies are varied in style, bandits, enses, reapers, etc as well as in skills, some will come at you with unskilled waving of their swords, others will use magic, others will be highly trained mystic swordsmen who’s swords are made of shards that move as they see fit.

The Story is based in deep lore and makes you feel  for your characters and those you come in contact with, as you travel you will need to manage your inventory to the best of your ability in order to make sure your party are kept safe and well from the reaping, from low morale or other items that may attack your party.

You can and you will lose members of your team (RIP Brett) .battles will leave their scars. plus as you travel along you may lose health or fall to the reaping, meaning that even important or main characters may die if you are not careful.

Aesthetics

The game is beautiful, from the very opening all the way to the battles and interactions.

In particular the character movement in battle is fluid and sublime, reminiscent of the fighting dances in Brazil, the Enses (an enemy type) are another wonderful addition visually as they command shards with their minds to defend and attack mid battle which comes across amazingly sequenced and looks just beautiful

In the interaction points the characters have still images that has been painstakingly worked on, the back drops of the almost side scroller type scenes as you move along villages and choose who to speak to are like oil painted pieces of art, the gorgeous cut scenes, the wonderfully designed map that you use to traverse Terminum are just all so well put together and pleasing to the eye.

All this and more equals to a beautiful game that captivates you with its looks as it intoxicates you with its story.

Overall opinion

Immediately the visuals had me in awe, the story was not completely ‘new’ , I.e. the world is in fear of a pending apocalypse and there are only a few that can stop it, but this does not feel overly hashed and was written / told in such a way that it was original and captivating.

The characters are relatable and made in such a way that losing a team member is more than just a formality, it is felt, to the point where as I was live streaming this I was doing separate voices for each character.

It is a well produced, very stylish game that is likeable and enjoyable.

The choice system that affects the way the world evolves arounds you makes for an interesting and ever changing game and creates some real hard decisions to make, such as where my party, tired and short of time passed the bodies piled from a slaughtering of a town and within the masses there is a pregnant woman, badly hurt, your choices determine her fate, the child’s fate and the fate of your team.

Downsides, the game can feel a little slow at times but is completely understandable for this style of game and with the amount of dialogue to go through, my only real complaint would have been I noticed a small number of spelling mistakes and grammatical errors in some of the character interactions.

I cant not say it enough the visuals are sublime, the story is deep and enchanting and the game play is addictive, if you are in to intricate worlds, in depth lore and interactions that affect the outcome of the story then this is a game you deserve in your collection.

Overall Score – 9/10