Get your wands and robes (and Steam Decks) ready.
If you enjoy a good ol’ dungeon crawler full of wizards and battlemages, and love a bit of chaos in your games, look no further than Ascendant. Imagisphere’s roguelike bullet hell lands on Steam on January 31, and it looks to be a roaring good time. Get ready to dive into the magic, face legendary abominations, and emerge victorious and free from the dungeon’s grasp.
Ascendant is set to boast seven bosses, 11 mini-bosses and 30 enemy types across three unique biomes, from goopy green poison to searing hot lava. You’ll have so much more than just your trusty wand to take them on, though. There’s over 800 abilities and items to loot in the dungeon’s every nook and cranny, and this is where Ascendant really starts to shine thanks to its intricate build crafting system.
Carefully strategising different item combinations grants a huge scope for what builds can be created in Ascendant. Different item synergies will have their advantages in certain battles, while you may have to shake things up on-the-fly if you hit a particularly tough foe. Being able to tinker around with builds on such a wide scale is where Ascendant’s endless replayability lies, with no two runs being the same. There’s near-endless possibilities for what you can create, and how you choose to take down each enemy.
One of my favourite learning curves in games is the experimentation to optimisation pipeline, and it feels like Ascendant’s potential for dozens of unique builds is going to be just that for me. From exploring items that haven’t been encountered before, to a deep understanding of its system and how exactly to make it work for me. They say knowledge is power, and Imagisphere seems to have taken that mantra with Ascendant and run with it to the extreme. It offers a unique experience that can’t be found in other bullet hell dungeon crawlers, one which should keep you casting spells across multiple dungeon dives.
All of this is wrapped up with some stellar art design, being presented in a top-down view with a gorgeous visual style that feels reminiscent of older video games. It’s beautiful with just the right amount of visceral, as all good dungeon crawling games should be, with high-quality animations to boot. The style really shines across its seven major bosses, with huge and intricate designs that you won’t exactly mind taking up half of your screen while trying to kill you and end your run.
Equipment changes even show up on your character with different robe and hat colours, which is something very important to me personally. Plus, there’s a cool, very tall witch lady with a huge hat called the Enchantress. She’s your first ally, helping walk you through the game’s early tutorials while you find your feet.
If tall, pretty witches aren’t enough to pique your interest, maybe the fact that it’s an excellent Steam Deck game will. Imagisphere promises a flawless experience on our beloved handhelds, making it the perfect game to pick up and take with you on your train journeys, flights, or those pesky weekend trips to visit the in-laws.
If you’re a streamer, there’s even more to entice you. Imagisphere is launching the game with Tangia support, so you can play the game alongside your chat and have them take control of the wheel (or wand) for you, which I’m sure can only cause mayhem of the best kind.
You can wishlist Ascendant right now on Steam, ready for when it launches on January 31. There’s even a 10% discount for the first seven days, taking its already-affordable $9.99 price tag even lower for its release.
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