The Ascent Thoughts

I got to the last level and I am stopping. I finally for the first time ever played a game where the combat and the game mechanics are fun but the game is bogged down by everything else.

The world is WAY too big and there is no sprint button and I am convinced this game is only longer than 5 hours because of the amount of time spent travelling and running around this hub world with your slow movement speed and you can run past enemies easier if your movement speed was quicker.

Then there is the difficulty and boy, this game's difficulty is so bullshit and inconsistent, one minute the game is super easy and then another minute the game is super hard and frustrating and the only way the game adds challenge is by shoving in craploads of enemies that are damge sponges. That's it.

Then there is the level and loot system that adds nothing to the game and actually makes it worse. This shit adds no depth at all, it just makes the game more challenging because you aren't high enough leveled. And the system can withhold information from you as well. In the penultimate mission, I am told I am at the appropirate level to beat the mission then the last level starts and I am way underleveled and enemies are killing me super fast, I want to do side missions to level up but the game can only warp me back from where the penultimate mission started, and I look for side quests and I can't find any and have to look around the boring world some more, and I already had enough of the game and the game was manageable before the final mission.

And to kick me in the balls where it REALLY hurts, I can't even play the game online coop through public matchmaking. Come on man, you don't even have that? Like why? You make a super big difficulty spike and I can't even play through matchmaking in a game where the coop is the advertised feature? And the autosave is super inconsistent as well. The only thing this game has going for it outside of combat is the music. Good lord, Alienation while not being my cup of tea at least didn't feel like this much of a mess to play.

Well, I finally played a game where even the combat couldn't save it's shortcomings. Rage 2 and Agents of Mayhem while flawed at least were consistent fun when killing things.