Game News Ash of Gods: Redemption Released

[Infinitron]

Tags: Ash of Gods: Redemption; AurumDust

Ash of Gods: Redemption, the lavish Banner Saga-like from Russian studio AurumDust that was successfully Kickstarted last year, was released today. Originally planned for release last year, the developers used the extra time afforded by its delay back in October to produce a series of impressive trailers and distribute a press build that yielded a few previews, some more positive than others. The game's real test of quality, of course, begins now. Here's its launch trailer and description:

Ash of Gods: Redemption is a turn-based RPG that combines tactical combat, CCG elements, and a constantly evolving story in which no one is safe from death, including the main characters.

GAMEPLAY

Ash of Gods is the story of three separate protagonists rising in response to a centuries-old menace once thought to be mere folklore.

Ash of Gods’ storyline is constantly evolving in response to players’ choices, sometimes even resulting in death. But, the death of a character is not game over. Instead, the story moves forward with the death of that character and previous choices continuing to impact future events.

Combat in Ash of Gods is a blend of both traditional turn-based strategy and CCG gameplay. While individual tactics will depend upon the skills and classes of your characters, you will unlock and accumulate cards that have the power to unleash powerful abilities, sometimes altering the course of an entire battle.

WHAT MAKES ASH OF GODS UNIQUE

• Decisions with Major Impacts
  Every decision, whether on or off the battlefield, has the capacity to alter the course of events and the fate of your party with major repercussions. But, even the death of your leader is not the end of your journey.
  
• No Random Dice Rolls
  There are no dice throws to determine chance-to-hit or the force of a blow. In Ash of Gods, true tacticians must master the skills of their classes and harness the powers granted by their limited supplies of cards, or suffer the consequences.
  
• AI that Adapts to You
  Ash of Gods’ AI adapts to your style of play to ensure a consistently challenging experience with no room for cheap tactics or invincible team builds.
  
• PvP Multiplayer
  Challenge other players and compete for a spot on the leaderboards. Unlock new characters, upgrades, and cards to customize your tactics even further.
  
• Rewards for Risk
  Expend your own HP for a last-ditch attack. Go into battle with a smaller team to get better cards and quicker rounds. Take the shorter, but more dangerous route to save on resources. Ash of Gods rewards those willing to take the risks.

AurumDust have done all the right things, but is there a market for Banner Saga-likes in 2018? Ash of Gods seems to have higher production qualities and its mechanics aren't quite as obtuse in their board gaminess, but I'm not sure it will be able to break through. If you want to give it a chance though, the game is now available on Steam and GOG for the price of $25.

 

[abnaxus]

Misread the title.

 

[norolim]

I wonder how much they managed to improve the writing.

 

[Blaine]

LITERALLY unplayable.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

Any feedback on this? I'm very tempted.

 

[Blaine]

Any feedback on this? I'm very tempted.

It's all you, champ. Be that day-one purchase pioneer and then report back to the rest of us.

 

[Pope Amole II]

Why is this news, though? It's not an RPG (and neither is Banner Saga).

 

[baud]

Any feedback on this? I'm very tempted.

There's a few feed back on the release thread: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/ash-of-gods-release-thread.120924/

Basically:

If you liked the Banner Saga, you will like this.

Still it seems the combat is a little better.

 

[baud]

Why is this news, though? It's not an RPG (and neither is Banner Saga).

There's C&C

 

[Pope Amole II]

There's C&C

Let's newspost visual novels then - there's also C&C.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

caveat: if you liked the banner saga for its writing, you may want to wait for the developers to edit the text some more. sometimes it works, but it's uneven and often reads like a not so hot translation (which presumably is what it is).

other than that, mrs. Lincoln, it's pretty solid.

 

[Blaine]

There's C&C

Let's newspost visual novels then - there's also C&C.

Careful what you wish for. Half the Codex staff are basically weebs.

Probably only two of them are actually weebs, but I treat everything as a worst-case scenario by default.

 

[Iskramor]

There's C&C

Let's newspost visual novels then - there's also C&C.

You should beg obsidian for early preview deadfire keys lol

 

[Pope Amole II]

You should beg obsidian for early preview deadfire keys lol

Lots of people enjoyed what I did with my beta preview. And who enjoys your babbling here, faggot?

 

[HeatEXTEND]

There's C&C

Let's newspost visual novels then - there's also C&C.

Yes, let's.

 

[HeatEXTEND]

anime trash excluded of course

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

I’m in chapter 2 now. I don’t want to make the writing sound like it’s all terrible. Some of it is very good. It’s just that the dialogue can be uneven at times in a way that’s a bit jarring.

Other than that, I think it compares pretty favorably with TBS.

Edit: the infrequent voiced parts are quite good.

2nd edit: love the music

 

[BlackAdderBG]

This hits all the marks of a shit game, the day one buyer is talking about writing, dialog, music and all other pointless stuff and no word on the gameplay.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

This hits all the marks of a shit game, the day one buyer is talking about writing, dialog, music and all other pointless stuff and no word on the gameplay.

I mean, it’s a Banner Saga clone. So far I think the combat is better. Rather than TBS’ strength and armor system, AoG gives you HP and energy points. You can consume energy points to travel extra distance in a turn, and you can attack an enemy’s health or their energy. If your energy drops to zero, every additional hit causes double damage to health. It’s more what you’d expect from a typical turn based tactical game than TBS, where your HP was also your attack power. The system is more intuitive but you also have more things to keep track of.

Two more points of differentiation: you have special attacks/abilities that can consume HP or energy points or both. Some can be used every turn, the more powerful ones have 2 or 3 or 4 turn cooldowns.

There’s also a card element but it’s not very significant. I don’t know what to compare it to because I’ve never played any card games. You have a small number of cards that are magic spells; you can use a turn to cast one each round—that is, your whole party needs to reach its second turn before you can cast the second spell. So far they’re pretty minor: do 10 damage, heal 10 damage, boost one character’s attack power by 20%. Aside from the healing card I mostly ignore them.

Unlike Banner Saga, you have an incentive to kill all your enemies quickly. The problem with TBS combat was that you had a huge incentive to do murder management, keeping weakened opponents alive who can’t really hurt you alive so that they take up extra turns. This is not an issue in AoG because even an enemy with one health and no energy can hurt you very badly. The only exception so far was a highly unusual fight in a little vignette where you play as a single incredibly overpowered samurai/ninja guy. You’re up against eight redshirts and one very tough boss who can nearly one shot you. In that fight, the enemy’s extra soldiers get in the way of the boss doing real damage because all the enemies needs to take a turn before he gets his second turn. Other than that fight, so far, AoG lacks the murder management aspect of TBS.

There’s no fixed order in combat. You alternate with the enemy, but both sides get to choose the order their guys go in on the fly. The only restriction is that you have to exhaust everyone’s first turn before anyone else can have a second turn. So the guy who moves last in turn one could move first in turn two, which can be brutal if you set things up properly.

The enemy AI seems better than TBS. But I hesitate to say more on combat because I’ve been through less than ten real fights at this point.

Character progression is kind of thin, but pretty much in-line with TBS. At each level you can give yourself more health or energy or damage or slower cooldowns for special attacks. Some characters have additional abilities that can be unlocked.

So, like I said before, if you liked Banner Saga, you will probably like Ash of Gods. It does some things better and some things worse. Better gameplay, worse writing. If you don’t like Banner Saga, obviously it’s not for you.

Caveat: I’m still pretty early on in the game so I reserve the right to change my mind depending on how the rest of it goes.

 

[M. AQVILA]

Why is this news, though? It's not an RPG (and neither is Banner Saga).

What's a RPG then?

 

[Mustawd]

Got my email about the key, but since at this rate it will take me ~35 years to beat the rest of my 350+ games, I'm willing to give the key away. If I wanna play it afterwards i'll buy it again later.

Please respond here if ur a fan of banner saga games and want to play or couldn't back originally. I'd preferably give it to someone who wants to play it really bad now but doesnt wanna pay for it. Dont want some random who just wants to play it for like 4 minutes and then forget it.

I like the devs. they deserve fans who wanna play it.

 

[Ellef]

Got my email about the key, but since at this rate it will take me ~35 years to beat the rest of my 350+ games, I'm willing to give the key away. If I wanna play it afterwards i'll buy it again later.

Please respond here if ur a fan of banner saga games and want to play or couldn't back originally. I'd preferably give it to someone who wants to play it really bad now but doesnt wanna pay for it. Dont want some random who just wants to play it for like 4 minutes and then forget it.

I like the devs. they deserve fans who wanna play it.

Give me the key faggot

 

[laclongquan]

Misread the title.

The Codex warned them devs back in the day that their tittle has a problem. They thought (and think) that it has not.

It's their bed of rose now~

 

[oldmanpaco]

There's C&C

Let's newspost visual novels then - there's also C&C.

Only ones that feature yuri love blossoming between pubescent schoolgirls though. There are standards after all.

 

[MRY]

600+ simultaneous players and 80%+ positive reviews seems like a great start! Obviously not Banner Saga numbers, but for a true indie RPG, I think that's pretty good. And I'm still in awe of the production values on this thing.