Thanks for watching. If you enjoyed the video, be sure to hit the like and subscribe buttons, and if you REALLY liked the video, consider supporting me on Patreon. You get a fancy script every time I do one of my big 'The Review' reviews: www.patreon.com/skillupyt
Hi censor, who is claiming that is better than AAA. Maybe you could start looking under the hood when you review games. UseleesEngine4 & Epic games store. That's how scam business work. Sad thing is YOU KNEW IT!
I love when the stars align, and SkillUp and Joseph Anderson review the same game. Because I can see two distinct perspectives from people I respect. Well done.
@@elevown As long as it is only one armor or weapon and that is the ONLY THING related to the game you can buy then yes. If there is a whole shop with 1 dollar things then, NOOOOO!!!! :)
I have a theory on why indie games like Ashen and Hollow Knight have fewer bugs than AAA releases like Bethesda's titles. I do not remember the name of this theory, but the basic gist is that efficiency begins to decrease once you reach a certain milestone for labor. Like in a restaurant, once you get past a certain number of cooks and servants the whole system becomes less efficient because space becomes crowded, labor is bumping into each other, etc. Could this be the same for AAA devs? They have so much labor devoted to the same category that there may be confusion about who has done what or will do. Instead of one person being devoted to hashing out glitches, you have 10 people occupying the same crowded space. I for one think this is likelier to breed chaos than order. Obviously this does not fully explain catastrophes like Fallout 76, but it may add to the problem. If someone knows the name of the economic theory that I have attempted to describe, please write it below, I would love to know the name. Thank you.
Marc Shanahan while that definitely plays a role, i believe success/profit are the biggest factors. With success, comes shareholders. And shareholders force upper management to prioritize profits over everything else. And of course, the biggest factor with making money, is how fast you can do it, which explains why they publishers attempt. push out a new game every year. And while profits favor speed, quality favors time. Bug fixes are a quality control process, and the more time you dedicate to it, the better the results. I believe that the developers simply are being told to prioritize other things by management, as well as not receiving enough time to properly dedicate effort into things like bug fixes, because of trying to churn out games so quickly for maximum profit.
For me, the ONE thing that all souls-likes have utterly failed at in comparison to the OGs is the sense of awe and mystery that you touch on around 6:45. In fact I think the awe built into the experience of fromsoft games is actually the true locus of their brilliance. Sure, it helps that everything else about those games is SO good, but the _wonder_ and sheer excitement I feel around each and every corner of Lordran or Drangleic or Yharnam is what really satisfies. As these souls-likes get more and more mechanically sound and well-built and complete, I can't help but think they're still somehow missing the point, in spite of their best efforts.
That wonder and awe were the most obvious bits missing from the Surge. But the Surge's tone (combination of dirty, grimy, blue-collar, cold and careless) made up for the lack of awe. And The Surge's approach to combat and character building is by far my favorite in the genre, so far.
I totally agree. I like the combat in Souls/BB, but that's not the reason why I got so deep into the games. The sense of wonder and exploration, the obscure lore and mystery surrounding the world is what really keeps me coming back. It definitely helps that the combat is tight as a drum in Soulsborne games, but I really like them because they give me the exact same feeling of adventurous excitement that the original Zelda gave me as as kid.
This is why I love your reviews. I saw lobosjr playing this and didn't know what to make of it, it looked soulsy but I wasn't sure and I didn't want to watch him play all of it to work out what I thought of it. You give a good overview and a balanced look at the systems. I wasn't expecting you to review this, but you have made me want to pick it up. I think without this review i might have just forgotten about it. Weird how you started as some dude who I'd tune into to see what gear rolls were on the division that week and now you're (IMHO) the best games reviewer on TH-cam. Keep up the good work fella.
I just want to say that I love your reviews. You give so much context to every detail about the game that it makes really easy to understand what i am getting in to. Now to find $40 for Ashen :)
Was super thrilled to see you reviewed this. Absolutely a highlight of 2018 for me. Having steered away from Soulsbourne games due to difficulty, I absolutely loved this and thought the difficulty spikes served as small climaxes where the player can really challenge themselves without the whole game being as frustrating. Now on to Dark Souls
Between Skill Up and Laymen I've finally found clear, concise, and thoughtful reviews/critiques/conversations that aren't aimed at 12 year olds with their parents' credit cards . Many thanks. Cheers!
To be fair to Dark Souls Miyazaki has addressed in Japanese interviews why the game is as convoluted as it is, long story short is that Demon's/Dark Souls is a love letter to his gaming childhood where being a Japanese playing predominantly English games with a very limited understanding of the language meant that he had to essentially "make up" the story with what limited understanding he had and work out what he was doing as he was playing.
@@abdullahahmad4239 Dark Souls 2 is a good game, its biggest crime was being the sequel to Dark Souls. If it came after Demon's Souls it probably wouldn't get so much hate. Its the Final Fantasy 8 of the franchise.
ds2 just doesn't quite have the same delicious sense of eerie beautiful atmosphere as ds1/ds3/bb (i haven't played demon souls). Those 3 games have captured my imagination like nothing else since Zelda. Some parts of ds2 have it but a lot feels like a b grade version of souls. I really like Nioh as a combination of awesome gameplay and atmosphere but it was no soulsborne fron a mystique/lore/atmosphere p.o.v. The surge i actually dug, but i got bored of it. I tried Ashen and liked it enough but im tired of this genre, until sekiro comes along
i've finished it 1 week ago.There are many souls genre games like lords of fallen,surge...but i think ashen did the best job out of them all.surely one of the top 5 games in 2k18 for me(pc).Thank you for reviewing this.
I heard about Ashen, it was found on shore in Byron Bay by some Australian Scientists and while examining the majestic artifact, it was later revealed to be created in the long lost country of New Zealand.
I think the answer to how they succeeded where major developers have failed is pretty simple. Time and effort, not rushing and short cutting. Thanks for another great review. Keep up the great work.
Great review! Another time that I have paused the video to buy the game. And thanks for the ultrawide format, there's not that much out there on TH-cam. Keep up the great work!
Ashen introduced some novel mechanics and quality of life features to the souls formula, like jumping, climbing, Ai companions, and a map with markers, which From Software would later incorporate in some way or another into Elden Ring. I can appreciate Ashen for what it is, a competent first outing by a fledgling game studio, which is why I don't want to rate it too harshly, but the game is far too streamlined for a souls veteran like myself to eke much enjoyment from the 14ish hours it took for me to beat it. I can't see a strong argument for recommending Ashen in a post Elden Ring world, because Elden Ring is not only a fuller experience, but much more accessible to people with lower skill levels because of all the tools and alternate paths available to the player. Ashen isn't a bad game, but it's not a particularly good game either. I guess the point I'm making is that there are better games to sink your teeth into.
I'll wait for the Steam release, i don't trust the Epic Games store yet. Maybe if they sort out their privacy and refunds policy I'll sign up. Ashen does look interesting, i think there is (or was) a gap in the market for a more casual SoulsBorne game. Too many dev teams have missed the point and focused too much on difficulty instead of balance, atmosphere and environmental design. Hopefully the devs will smooth out the difficulty curve with a patch and maybe add a hard mode for masochist Dark Souls veterans.
@@raijin2950 ya i get it.The best part is whenever this topic comes up almost everyone acts like they are the biggest analysts and economists in the biz and whatever they say is the word of the god.As for me i don't like epic in general,they fucking shat on pc gamers and went pandering to the console crowd.
Bloody great review as always mate. You articulate your thoughts wonderfully. I downloaded this the other day on Xbox but haven’t booted it up yet, but this has really piqued my interested. Thanks!
@Forever Outraged Skill Up, the person talking in this review, is Australian. Hence your comment was the probably one of the most stupid I've ever seen.
@Forever Outraged Australian is a nationality. If you live in Australia for a suitable enough time, you're Australian. Simple Enough mate. Thus SkillUp is Australian. No need to preface it with anything
@@bonesreturns1 I think he is referring to Aboriginals not Australians like skill up (and myself) as he said Native Australians, not that i understand why it matters
No. You weren't the only one. At the time of writing this comment, about 70 thousand people have watched this video. The list of games were left up for a fair amount of time, and the cover of that particular DK game is brightly coloured and eye catching. You were not the only one.
Joseph Anderson I had to hold down the attack but and that took 0.2 second and that happens 200 times in a hour making that 20second wasted and I played the game twice so that is 40 second gone using one attack Let's talk about the others attacks now...
I was a subscriber for a time, but I unsubscribed when I realized that I don't need that constant fix of negativity in my life. Watching his stuff feels like if he actually hates gaming as a whole or something. I respect the guy though since he does go in detail. I just think he spends too much time nitpicking all that is not perfectly suited to him while forgetting about most of the virtues of what he is reviewing. If you see one of his critiques without playing the game first, you finish his videos feeling that the game he talked about absolutely sucked and was a waste of time, which most of the time is not the case at all.
Gab Gallard I agree. He mixes in objective and subjective critiques in ways that aren’t totally obvious. Yet he presents it all as objective and well thought out. And nothing against him, but I agree that he misses the mark in a lot of his reviews for the sake of nitpicking.
@@Jonathan_Wick if you think he is presenting his experience with the game as objective fact then that's your own fault. Subjectivity is implied when you are reviewing your experience
"Ashen is Dark Souls for people who haven't played Dark Souls." ...proceeds to review Ashen assuming the audience has played Dark Souls. I've not "got a condition." I've just never played Dark Souls or a 'Souls-a-like' game. I may well 'enjoy Ashen as an introduction to the genre' but don't know what 'the genre' entails because game journos all lazily just say "Oh, this element is like Dark Souls" or "this element isn't like Dark Souls." with any new game that's remotely similar. I'd need to have played Dark Souls to have any idea what you're all talking about. So, as such, I'll probably give this one a miss too. Other than that, another good review, thanks mate.
I own Bloodborne, but I hate this too. It is just poor reviewing to assume that you've played certain games and compare them in my mind. If Ashen is a decent game it will stand up on its own due to its own merits.
Or maybe you could simply Google it and invest 30 seconds and get an understanding? 😉 - essentially DS and SB are well received ARPGs with high skill caps that often result in many ppl finding them hard, furthermore they have excellent level design and a rewarding gameplay loop!
Dark Souls is a pretty simple formula. 1. Third person hack and slash combat where attacks are slow meaning you need to focus on timing. 2. To avoid enemy attacks you either move around them or roll which makes you invulnerable. 3. Health is managed by a healing item that takes time to use meaning you have to time it between enemy attacks. 4. The level design consists of many large levels that tend to make you explore the area opening shortcuts throughout 5. On death, you will respawn at a bonfire. Bonfires are placed throughout the map and serve as checkpoints. 6. All enemies in the game hit like a truck so you will die a lot until you can properly avoid them. 7. Bosses are difficult opponents that require you to die many times against them such that you can eventually learn their attacks and beat them. 8. There is a veritable shit load of unique weapon in darks souls meaning the game is incredibly replayable. 9. There is almost no story directly given to the player however a story is there if your willing to search for it and matching the story there is a very depressing tone throughout the games. These games are some of the best ever made and you are doing yourself a disservice to miss them.
Sorry that Indie Devs need to make money, and Steam is an absolute hog that takes the majority of your income unless your game reaches a milliom copies sold in which case they still won't give you the excellent deal that Epic gives you. No, sorry, it's not like money runs the world or something.
i did not think the launcher was bad. its pretty minimal. I wonder if because the game is made using epics unreal engine.. possibly releasing on epic launcher reduces having the unreal engine fee + steam fee. it seems places like steam/google play are taking pretty serious cuts from sales (30% +)
Gonna be honest here, I absolutely not a fan the ultrawide resolution. I watch youtube on a tablet and now half my screen is filled with black bars. While the resolution allows for more environment on the screen at any given time, the rest of the game becomes smaller on a regular sized screen. It bothered me in your darksiders review and it bothers me in this one as well
Unfortunately a lot of phones are now a wider aspect ratio and a lot of people are watching TH-cam videos on their phones. LinusTechTips has also been going the wide route because of their mobile viewer base and doesn't plan to change it. Not a fan of the wide ratio myself but that's the reasoning and it makes sense for the creator.
I’ve been playing this game with my partner. It’s her first souls-like, she’s having trouble with stuff like learning enemy moves and when to attack and when to dodge. But despite that she’s in love with the game. And it’s so fun to see a newcomer to the series grow. So if anyone sees this and they have someone in their life who is souls averse, try to get them to try this game. It’s way more newcomer friendly. And even though it is admittedly easier than most souls-likes it’s still a ton of fun. I can’t believe this game didn’t get more praise. Seeing your town grow is a nice change from seeing the world be torn apart.
I might actually like this game, my main gripe with Dark Souls was getting lost for hours, I once got stuck in a single area for over 12+ hours in Dark Souls 1, and thats why i don't play these soul games.
Yeah, Ashen is much better in that regard. And I have no idea what ShillUp is talking about in that segment where he got lost, it's was all pretty straightforward. But then he did call DS world-building intelligent, so...
Im overwhelmed by the amount of good games. My pile of shame is so high that I wouldn’t even miss anything if the gaming industry would pause for a year or two. I still haven’t finished Assassins Creed Syndicate, Origins or Odyssey, God of War, Horizon, Detroit, Persona 5, Dragon Quest XI, Witcher 3, Nier: Automata and Red Dead Redemption 2. Just finished let’s go Pikachu, Final Fantasy XV, Bayonetta 2 and 1, Spider-Man, the Crew 2, and Forza Horizon 4, Shadow of Mordor And Kingdom Hearts 3 is just a few days off. It’s a great time to be a gamer but it’s a bit too much for me right now. Especially with all these games as a service that don’t have an end and can be played for hundreds of hours.
@@thorwrigglesworth5116 No reviews, no clear money-back guarantee, the store is badly coded (a friend of mine is sharing his closed alpha of a game just by sharing his account details, other people get the alpha, log back into their own account and it works), epic is basically owned by the chinese version of EA (only worse),... If you want more reasons just tell me.
@@thorwrigglesworth5116 Not yet I would say. I'm all for competition but having a lot of money and many users doesn't automatically make your product good. Without experience they still have a long way to go to be any actual competition to Steam.
I wouldn't say I was exactly blown away by it, but I can say that I was pleasantly surprised by this game. It's definitely the best non-Fromsoft Soulslike that I've played. It has issues (which you addressed and I agree with), but it's really well made and seems like the developers really put the effort in here. It's a shame it didn't release on PS4, I feel like it would be getting a lot more attention if it had. I barely ever play anything on Xbox but I got gifted a Game Pass sub recently, which is where I stumbled on this game. Thanks for the review there aren't many in-depth talks about this one out there.
Skill Up honestly though after all they pre-Forsaken I ain’t willing to forgive even if they make it better or another game especially after the recent stuff with Blizzard
@@TheAsheron Forsaken is much better but at the end of the day you're better off spending your time playing other games. The black armory in an absolute joke too btw.
James Froggatt as much as I agree, Xbox basically did this like a first person IP. It has more reason to be an exclusive than most Sony games (Sony shouldn’t be allowed to have as many exclusives either)
Because unless you have both consoles or better still a PC than there is always going to be games you can't play that's all. I get it, it's been like that for years probably ain't going to change anytime soon/ever
I'm sorry, I just... can't get into this game. I'm a huge fan of the Souls-borne series. Love them all, even the black sheep that is DS2. I've enjoyed some of the Souls-like games in the past, such as Nioh and Salt and Sanctuary. But, there's something about this game that just makes me roll my eyes whenever I see it. Maybe it's just my first impressions after playing 2 hours of it, but the level design just feels kind of barren. The one thing ever Souls-like game always lacks, and something the first Dark Souls understood, was the sense of dread that creeped through the atmosphere of every level of the game. Walking through the first full area of THIS game, I'm noticing obvious enemy placements, wide open terrain, and most importantly, a severe lack of any tension. It feels so uninteresting and boring to slop through, and the copy-paste job of Dark Souls' opening cutscene, to the entire premise of the game, to the combat that (as a vet of the series this game takes way too much inspiration from) feels like it lacks any sense of real danger. And I feel bad about it because there's obviously some care that went into this game. The artstyle is nice, if perhaps a little too similar to other 3d indie action games like it, and I like the homebase mechanic. It just feels so by-the-numbers and obvious in its attempts to convert Souls elements that it feels like it lacks much ambition of its own. Overall, I feel like this game wallows in the shadow of its inspiration, and that, to me, makes me dislike it more than if it was just a bad game.
@@Jmerithew87 Epic have Fortnite money and im sure they're willing to part with a lot of it to sell people on the Epic launcher, they were giving away Subnautica for free - for example, just so people would have a NEED to install it. if i wanna play subnautica at ANY time in the future, i can just load up Epic. Same sorta thing goes here, but it wont last forever.. just for those that want to jump on the day-one bandwagon (and they're always gonna need to load up Epic Launcher in the future to play, even when it hits steam). To cut off it's entire online platform release to Epic though would be bad in the long run for the devs, so they'd need a lump payment to make up for that difference, and Epic probably made it well worth it - because they have the money to back it up and make it possible. Think about how the DLC's for GTA IV were first released on XBox 360 and later branched over to the PS3, was just to sell a small fraction of people on the XBox and then they'd be stuck with it - not being able to make the choice later, even when the DLC's are available on PS3 - a cut of all their games then go to Microsoft, not to mention online services. Thats the reasoning behind it anyway.
@@Jmerithew87 well what you're implying is the sales alone will justify getting out of the 30% Steam Ecosystem, because the most sales they'll make are initial sales, and that reflect well with the Console Ecosystem too, providing Microsoft has taken a smaller portion of all sales and/or lump sum Rockstar to ensure retention of those customers who were undecided at the time. The more time you spend with the console or launcher open - the more advertising they can display to you, that being the end-goal, but they still need to provide incentive, otherwise people would just buy it off Steam, instead of using Epic - the end-user still sees the same price, there's no incentive. Just merely wanting to help the company make more percentage profit per unit sold is not enough to make someone install a second launcher. The devils advocate here is that there are a lot of people who have Epic on their PC already, due to Fortnite, but that would imply that this game was targeted mainly at the fortnite demographic and i think that's even more of a stretch, although not impossible.
@@Jmerithew87 they are paying for it, in a way. Epic Store secures exclusives by doing marketing and guarantying certain amount of profit. Unless Epic manages to sell a certain number of copies of the game (we don't know how much they agreed upon, though), they'll be paying developers out of their pocket.
Just started playing Souls-Borne games this past year but now I’m living on the road as a trucker. So excited to have discovered this game and I’m getting it for switch right now.
I think that’s the beauty of a smaller studio. It’s a lot more personal and communication between each “department” is easier. Sort of like Chinese whispers, less middlemen is better.
Hello from the future and playing ps4 version (on ps5) for free on ps+ and this is the best game I’ve played so far in 2023! Still no flying cars though :(
I think people do themselves a disservice, when they try to judge Ashen as a Souls-like game. Personally, I found that the strongest points of the games have nothing to do with Souls: - very beautiful and open areas - atmospheric dungeons - platforming and verticality - Vagrant's rest progression The core Souls gameplay loop is executed well enough, but that's not what grabbed me about Ashen. Actually, I found myself wishing they'd ditch the Souls combat in favour of something else. I'm looking forward to the next project of A44, and I hope they do more of their own stuff, because it's very promising.
![Darksiders 3 - A Brief Review (2018) [Ultrawide PC Gameplay]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Z1DjrpEKbd4/mqdefault.jpg)
![Darksiders 3 - A Brief Review (2018) [Ultrawide PC Gameplay]](/img/tr.png)
Thanks for watching. If you enjoyed the video, be sure to hit the like and subscribe buttons, and if you REALLY liked the video, consider supporting me on Patreon. You get a fancy script every time I do one of my big 'The Review' reviews: www.patreon.com/skillupyt
first
Eiii
Hi censor, who is claiming that is better than AAA. Maybe you could start looking under the hood when you review games.
UseleesEngine4 & Epic games store. That's how scam business work. Sad thing is YOU KNEW IT!
Great Review, I am definitely going to pick this one up. Although Boomstick Gaming did manage to do their review without using the word "souls"
These developers need money. Buying it if only to promote over the shitty triple aaa companies
New Zealand: The Lord of the Rings trilogy
Australia: Crocodile Dundee
Checkmate Shill Up.
Exactly.
You just played yourself fool.
Hey Australia had Wolf Creek, too!
@@pickledparsleyparty don't forget Priscilla, Queen of the Desert!!
kangaroo jack...
This game is actually good which means it will be remembered as a great game made by Australia.
Pavlova all over again 😂
@@kozak1432 pretty much...
Hollow knight also.
whats Australia?
@@Koolskaterkid- Just a large Island
New Zealander here, U WOT M8!
New Zealand: Revenge of the Kiwis
Get out of here and take your kumera with you!
I came in search of this comment. :D
U heard him bro.
Lol I’m American but I agree this is out of line.😂
The island of British criminals really has no right to judge anyone.
New Zealand sucks?
Path of exile: hold my beer
Ok, they did one good thing. And Crowded House too.
and Weta Workshop (shame some of the movies they get hired to do have bad scripts)
I was coming down here to say just that!
also: Flight of the Conchords
also if Australia is no longer claiming Russel Crowe, can we have the Rabbitohs back?
Most of your reviews are like love letters to gaming. I get excited every time you publish a new one and can’t wait to watch it.
Same here
agreeed
I love when the stars align, and SkillUp and Joseph Anderson review the same game. Because I can see two distinct perspectives from people I respect. Well done.
Hopefully they don’t add a $1 microtransaction or this review gets pulled.
Red reticle when??
Lol. But seriously, theres nothing wrong with that- as long as its something WORTH a dollar - that wasnt cut from the game or breaks it somehow!
@@elevown As long as it is only one armor or weapon and that is the ONLY THING related to the game you can buy then yes.
If there is a whole shop with 1 dollar things then, NOOOOO!!!! :)
I have a theory on why indie games like Ashen and Hollow Knight have fewer bugs than AAA releases like Bethesda's titles. I do not remember the name of this theory, but the basic gist is that efficiency begins to decrease once you reach a certain milestone for labor. Like in a restaurant, once you get past a certain number of cooks and servants the whole system becomes less efficient because space becomes crowded, labor is bumping into each other, etc. Could this be the same for AAA devs? They have so much labor devoted to the same category that there may be confusion about who has done what or will do. Instead of one person being devoted to hashing out glitches, you have 10 people occupying the same crowded space. I for one think this is likelier to breed chaos than order.
Obviously this does not fully explain catastrophes like Fallout 76, but it may add to the problem. If someone knows the name of the economic theory that I have attempted to describe, please write it below, I would love to know the name. Thank you.
Clever analysis, leaving a comment to keep myself informed too !
Marc Shanahan I think this is called the law of diminishing returns
Marc Shanahan while that definitely plays a role, i believe success/profit are the biggest factors. With success, comes shareholders. And shareholders force upper management to prioritize profits over everything else.
And of course, the biggest factor with making money, is how fast you can do it, which explains why they publishers attempt. push out a new game every year.
And while profits favor speed, quality favors time. Bug fixes are a quality control process, and the more time you dedicate to it, the better the results.
I believe that the developers simply are being told to prioritize other things by management, as well as not receiving enough time to properly dedicate effort into things like bug fixes, because of trying to churn out games so quickly for maximum profit.
Marc Shanahan Bethesda games are a special case tho 😂 they are in a world all their own. They dont even attempt to fix bugs.
@@C_The_Guy and Bethesda doesn't even have shareholders so
I’m writing a report on WW2 for school and it will include the “ it’s a lot like dark Souls “ comparison.
Otha Bojangles don’t forget to also include kick-ass, bionic-hand women who aided in the fight.
JGrizz N how could I forget
A+
I came here for a coke documentary, not a game review. False advertising, tsk tsk.
I thought this was a boat ad. WTTFFF!!!!!!!???!??
this comment is gold
For me, the ONE thing that all souls-likes have utterly failed at in comparison to the OGs is the sense of awe and mystery that you touch on around 6:45. In fact I think the awe built into the experience of fromsoft games is actually the true locus of their brilliance. Sure, it helps that everything else about those games is SO good, but the _wonder_ and sheer excitement I feel around each and every corner of Lordran or Drangleic or Yharnam is what really satisfies.
As these souls-likes get more and more mechanically sound and well-built and complete, I can't help but think they're still somehow missing the point, in spite of their best efforts.
Ashen is full of AWE indeed
That wonder and awe were the most obvious bits missing from the Surge. But the Surge's tone (combination of dirty, grimy, blue-collar, cold and careless) made up for the lack of awe. And The Surge's approach to combat and character building is by far my favorite in the genre, so far.
I totally agree. I like the combat in Souls/BB, but that's not the reason why I got so deep into the games. The sense of wonder and exploration, the obscure lore and mystery surrounding the world is what really keeps me coming back. It definitely helps that the combat is tight as a drum in Soulsborne games, but I really like them because they give me the exact same feeling of adventurous excitement that the original Zelda gave me as as kid.
kinda like when u ring the bell and u realise that you're gonna die 15 times to the next boss. you don't feel that in any other game.
the story is it what makes Dark Souls a masterpiece
This is why I love your reviews. I saw lobosjr playing this and didn't know what to make of it, it looked soulsy but I wasn't sure and I didn't want to watch him play all of it to work out what I thought of it. You give a good overview and a balanced look at the systems. I wasn't expecting you to review this, but you have made me want to pick it up. I think without this review i might have just forgotten about it.
Weird how you started as some dude who I'd tune into to see what gear rolls were on the division that week and now you're (IMHO) the best games reviewer on TH-cam. Keep up the good work fella.
this has a point
I just want to say that I love your reviews. You give so much context to every detail about the game that it makes really easy to understand what i am getting in to.
Now to find $40 for Ashen :)
There are two legit game review channels on TH-cam. ACG and Skill-Up. Another excellent job dude!
there are more Bro
@@cactuschris762 EXACTLY!!, like AngryJoe, Moist Critical & the Act Man😎
@@Sabre2015 Eh
Was super thrilled to see you reviewed this. Absolutely a highlight of 2018 for me. Having steered away from Soulsbourne games due to difficulty, I absolutely loved this and thought the difficulty spikes served as small climaxes where the player can really challenge themselves without the whole game being as frustrating. Now on to Dark Souls
That donkey kong inclusion was prime. Also New Zealand has the greatest national anthem ever
snowfox-v that made me laugh so hard good old donkey Kong.
The best anthem is the russian, boy
Kiri Gaya having never heard it I listened to it and I’m sorry it ain’t, boy
I think you meant Mexico
Between Skill Up and Laymen I've finally found clear, concise, and thoughtful reviews/critiques/conversations that aren't aimed at 12 year olds with their parents' credit cards . Many thanks. Cheers!
Skill-Up is the dark-souls of game reviews...
and the dark-souls junior of documentaries in general.
@Adolf Hitler That's a bit rude isn't it Mr Hitler??
@MageBurger Some dumb Jokes are still taken seriously..... Really Nigga??
@MageBurger r/woosh
To be fair to Dark Souls Miyazaki has addressed in Japanese interviews why the game is as convoluted as it is, long story short is that Demon's/Dark Souls is a love letter to his gaming childhood where being a Japanese playing predominantly English games with a very limited understanding of the language meant that he had to essentially "make up" the story with what limited understanding he had and work out what he was doing as he was playing.
New Zealand is like Dark Souls II. It is the most hated but secretly better that what it is associated with.
Dark souls 2 is the worst of the series. Period.
@@abdullahahmad4239 best for pvp though. Which is my fave part of the series
@@abdullahahmad4239 Dark Souls 2 is a good game, its biggest crime was being the sequel to Dark Souls. If it came after Demon's Souls it probably wouldn't get so much hate. Its the Final Fantasy 8 of the franchise.
ds2 just doesn't quite have the same delicious sense of eerie beautiful atmosphere as ds1/ds3/bb (i haven't played demon souls). Those 3 games have captured my imagination like nothing else since Zelda. Some parts of ds2 have it but a lot feels like a b grade version of souls. I really like Nioh as a combination of awesome gameplay and atmosphere but it was no soulsborne fron a mystique/lore/atmosphere p.o.v. The surge i actually dug, but i got bored of it. I tried Ashen and liked it enough but im tired of this genre, until sekiro comes along
Dark souls 2 is incredible by any metric
Just got the platinum this morning - Children of Sissna is no joke. Significant difficulty spike. Lovely experience overall.
I always hit subscribe when I see a new video from SkillUp. Wait.....
Ultra wide masterrace here and I am so happy that you make your videos now in ultrawide. Just looks better even on a 16:9 monitor
📂Documents
└📁 Skill Up
└📁 Videos
└📁 Bad Videos
└⚠️ This folder is empty
Oh, there's plenty of them :)
i've finished it 1 week ago.There are many souls genre games like lords of fallen,surge...but i think ashen did the best job out of them all.surely one of the top 5 games in 2k18 for me(pc).Thank you for reviewing this.
0:10 YOU TAKE THAT BACK YOU FILTHY CONVICT!
This game made me notice I really enjoy casual short games.
Thank you for posting this in 21:9. Ultra-Wide users need some lovin' too.
I heard about Ashen, it was found on shore in Byron Bay by some Australian Scientists and while examining the majestic artifact, it was later revealed to be created in the long lost country of New Zealand.
4:50 that was majestic af. damn.
Thanks for the review, SkillUp, homeslice. It's really put it on the map for me. Thanks for all the work and review you do.
Favorite reviewer, right here! Love your delivery, edits, and comparisons to other games. Thanks, Skill Up!
Honestly, thank you very much for actually uploading in ultra-wide format. Great review!
New Zealand is a bit like Australia's Canada, annoying little brother you cannot resist giving a noogie.
Also secretly the favourite of Mum and Dad's children
@Distinctly - ST MD - Average r/iamverybadass
I think the answer to how they succeeded where major developers have failed is pretty simple. Time and effort, not rushing and short cutting. Thanks for another great review. Keep up the great work.
I need more Laymen
No please no
Yeah definitely, gotta get my meme news fix
I had totally forgot about this game, just downloaded and started playing. The lighting is so cool.
Finally, I was waiting for someone to do a true review of the game, it looks so good and Im hoping people to pick it up to support the devs
Might also look up Joseh Anderson for another great Ashen review.
Great review! Another time that I have paused the video to buy the game.
And thanks for the ultrawide format, there's not that much out there on TH-cam.
Keep up the great work!
Ashen introduced some novel mechanics and quality of life features to the souls formula, like jumping, climbing, Ai companions, and a map with markers, which From Software would later incorporate in some way or another into Elden Ring. I can appreciate Ashen for what it is, a competent first outing by a fledgling game studio, which is why I don't want to rate it too harshly, but the game is far too streamlined for a souls veteran like myself to eke much enjoyment from the 14ish hours it took for me to beat it. I can't see a strong argument for recommending Ashen in a post Elden Ring world, because Elden Ring is not only a fuller experience, but much more accessible to people with lower skill levels because of all the tools and alternate paths available to the player. Ashen isn't a bad game, but it's not a particularly good game either. I guess the point I'm making is that there are better games to sink your teeth into.
Hell yes, a youtube video that finally looks good on my ultrawide monitor!
I'll wait for the Steam release, i don't trust the Epic Games store yet. Maybe if they sort out their privacy and refunds policy I'll sign up. Ashen does look interesting, i think there is (or was) a gap in the market for a more casual SoulsBorne game. Too many dev teams have missed the point and focused too much on difficulty instead of balance, atmosphere and environmental design. Hopefully the devs will smooth out the difficulty curve with a patch and maybe add a hard mode for masochist Dark Souls veterans.
You don't care about the devs,steam is monopoly they take all money,REEEE.
@@raijin2950 hey buddy i was just making fun of the people who speaks like these,eg-the comments above.I thought you would get it Smh.
@@raijin2950 ya i get it.The best part is whenever this topic comes up almost everyone acts like they are the biggest analysts and economists in the biz and whatever they say is the word of the god.As for me i don't like epic in general,they fucking shat on pc gamers and went pandering to the console crowd.
Bloody great review as always mate. You articulate your thoughts wonderfully. I downloaded this the other day on Xbox but haven’t booted it up yet, but this has really piqued my interested. Thanks!
I like the way it sounds when Australian people say "no"
Rape?
@Forever Outraged Skill Up, the person talking in this review, is Australian. Hence your comment was the probably one of the most stupid I've ever seen.
@Forever Outraged dear lord here we go....
@Forever Outraged Australian is a nationality. If you live in Australia for a suitable enough time, you're Australian. Simple Enough mate. Thus SkillUp is Australian. No need to preface it with anything
@@bonesreturns1 I think he is referring to Aboriginals not Australians like skill up (and myself) as he said Native Australians, not that i understand why it matters
thank Christ your videos are back for the new year, love the content mate.
Can this please launch on Steam already...?
U will enjoy it I hope it does for u guys soon 🙂
11 months later this game is on PS4 and Switch! What a world!
was i the only one that noticed dk country was among your list of darksouls games lmao
I'm pretty sure that was actually called the dark souls of 2d platforming. IDK about putting challenge tho
@@notapplicable7292 Putting Challenge was evil incarnate.
@@notapplicable7292 He obviously meant Bonestorm
No. You weren't the only one. At the time of writing this comment, about 70 thousand people have watched this video. The list of games were left up for a fair amount of time, and the cover of that particular DK game is brightly coloured and eye catching.
You were not the only one.
Fantastic review as always! I was on edge about making the purchase, but now I feel like I'll take the dive
Another reason to fire up the Xbone besides Halo!
Forza maybe??lol
@@isturbo1984 cuphead on ps4 aswell now
Thanks for the Ultra Wide format. Happy to see a video like this.
Joseph Anderson will be pissed
Joseph Anderson I had to hold down the attack but and that took 0.2 second and that happens 200 times in a hour making that 20second wasted and I played the game twice so that is 40 second gone using one attack
Let's talk about the others attacks now...
@@sownheard nah, his critiques are great and he did a great job with this one too. It's just that skill up and he have different opinions
I was a subscriber for a time, but I unsubscribed when I realized that I don't need that constant fix of negativity in my life. Watching his stuff feels like if he actually hates gaming as a whole or something. I respect the guy though since he does go in detail. I just think he spends too much time nitpicking all that is not perfectly suited to him while forgetting about most of the virtues of what he is reviewing. If you see one of his critiques without playing the game first, you finish his videos feeling that the game he talked about absolutely sucked and was a waste of time, which most of the time is not the case at all.
Gab Gallard I agree. He mixes in objective and subjective critiques in ways that aren’t totally obvious. Yet he presents it all as objective and well thought out. And nothing against him, but I agree that he misses the mark in a lot of his reviews for the sake of nitpicking.
@@Jonathan_Wick if you think he is presenting his experience with the game as objective fact then that's your own fault. Subjectivity is implied when you are reviewing your experience
What's up skill up!You were my go to for the division.Really great videos keep it up.
Aaaaand it is now available on PS4 lol
I don't think I will ever buy a game without seeing Skill up review it first!
It's a shame I hate the art style to the point I can't justfy picking this game up as it would bother me the entire time.
I really hate that this art style is becoming so popular
Well, I love this art style and I'm happy there's games utilizing this art style. But it's not for everyone.
@@saafi9723 To be clear; I am not stating others should not like this art style, just that it's not to my taste.
Just wanted to get that out there.
Best video reviews without a doubt. Keep it up Skill Up.
hating this ultra wide video format, but i will thumbs up for good review
yeah
Sucks to suck. Once you go ultrawide, you never go back.
not really i just wont bother watching
@@lukebaker9961 so, how do you watch letterbox movies on TV? 😂 Do you have a 4:3 TV or what?
And you've just made me swear off ever getting ultrawide hardware. I don't want to be associated with prats like you.
Again unbelievably incredible video... I love your reviews even for games I have no interest in what so ever.
"Ashen is Dark Souls for people who haven't played Dark Souls."
...proceeds to review Ashen assuming the audience has played Dark Souls.
I've not "got a condition." I've just never played Dark Souls or a 'Souls-a-like' game.
I may well 'enjoy Ashen as an introduction to the genre' but don't know what 'the genre' entails because game journos all lazily just say "Oh, this element is like Dark Souls" or "this element isn't like Dark Souls." with any new game that's remotely similar. I'd need to have played Dark Souls to have any idea what you're all talking about. So, as such, I'll probably give this one a miss too.
Other than that, another good review, thanks mate.
Play Dark Souls. Problem solved.
I own Bloodborne, but I hate this too. It is just poor reviewing to assume that you've played certain games and compare them in my mind. If Ashen is a decent game it will stand up on its own due to its own merits.
Or maybe you could simply Google it and invest 30 seconds and get an understanding? 😉 - essentially DS and SB are well received ARPGs with high skill caps that often result in many ppl finding them hard, furthermore they have excellent level design and a rewarding gameplay loop!
Dark Souls is a pretty simple formula.
1. Third person hack and slash combat where attacks are slow meaning you need to focus on timing.
2. To avoid enemy attacks you either move around them or roll which makes you invulnerable.
3. Health is managed by a healing item that takes time to use meaning you have to time it between enemy attacks.
4. The level design consists of many large levels that tend to make you explore the area opening shortcuts throughout
5. On death, you will respawn at a bonfire. Bonfires are placed throughout the map and serve as checkpoints.
6. All enemies in the game hit like a truck so you will die a lot until you can properly avoid them.
7. Bosses are difficult opponents that require you to die many times against them such that you can eventually learn their attacks and beat them.
8. There is a veritable shit load of unique weapon in darks souls meaning the game is incredibly replayable.
9. There is almost no story directly given to the player however a story is there if your willing to search for it and matching the story there is a very depressing tone throughout the games.
These games are some of the best ever made and you are doing yourself a disservice to miss them.
Then maybe you should just play Dark Souls or just ask a friend who has to explain what makes a Souls game unique.
Appreciate the 21:9 format review! Hope more PC reviewers do this :) Thanks!
Well, if it's not coming to Steam, I'm not buying.
Screw the Epic Games store. :/
Sorry that Indie Devs need to make money, and Steam is an absolute hog that takes the majority of your income unless your game reaches a milliom copies sold in which case they still won't give you the excellent deal that Epic gives you.
No, sorry, it's not like money runs the world or something.
Oh no one Extra launcher:
(with current flaws)
Come on guys let's cry about it
Praise valve monopoly!
Well you will be missing out
i did not think the launcher was bad. its pretty minimal. I wonder if because the game is made using epics unreal engine.. possibly releasing on epic launcher reduces having the unreal engine fee + steam fee. it seems places like steam/google play are taking pretty serious cuts from sales (30% +)
Great vid dude. Good to see some love for this game. Extremely underrated
Gonna be honest here, I absolutely not a fan the ultrawide resolution. I watch youtube on a tablet and now half my screen is filled with black bars. While the resolution allows for more environment on the screen at any given time, the rest of the game becomes smaller on a regular sized screen. It bothered me in your darksiders review and it bothers me in this one as well
Unfortunately a lot of phones are now a wider aspect ratio and a lot of people are watching TH-cam videos on their phones. LinusTechTips has also been going the wide route because of their mobile viewer base and doesn't plan to change it. Not a fan of the wide ratio myself but that's the reasoning and it makes sense for the creator.
I’ve been playing this game with my partner. It’s her first souls-like, she’s having trouble with stuff like learning enemy moves and when to attack and when to dodge. But despite that she’s in love with the game. And it’s so fun to see a newcomer to the series grow. So if anyone sees this and they have someone in their life who is souls averse, try to get them to try this game. It’s way more newcomer friendly. And even though it is admittedly easier than most souls-likes it’s still a ton of fun. I can’t believe this game didn’t get more praise. Seeing your town grow is a nice change from seeing the world be torn apart.
Lee Carcallo's Putting Challenge is a Souls like? wut
This got me so badly :D
Thank you so much for the ultrawide gameplay!
Sad that it won't hit PS4. I guess I'll go cheer myself up with some Bloodborne!
Or try out NiOh, if you havent already. Is still the best Souls-like out there imo
Yeah sucks that we won't get to play it on PS4. I'll pick it up on PC at some point. But not anytime soon I'm afraid.
I was never into the Dark Souls formula but I found Dragon's Dogma an enjoyable yet casual approach to that formula.
I might actually like this game, my main gripe with Dark Souls was getting lost for hours, I once got stuck in a single area for over 12+ hours in Dark Souls 1, and thats why i don't play these soul games.
Yeah, Ashen is much better in that regard. And I have no idea what ShillUp is talking about in that segment where he got lost, it's was all pretty straightforward. But then he did call DS world-building intelligent, so...
Another great review from a fellow Aussie!! I can’t wait to get into this game even more now. Well done 👍🏼
It’s the Dark Souls of simple art style.
Im overwhelmed by the amount of good games.
My pile of shame is so high that I wouldn’t even miss anything if the gaming industry would pause for a year or two.
I still haven’t finished Assassins Creed Syndicate, Origins or Odyssey, God of War, Horizon, Detroit, Persona 5, Dragon Quest XI, Witcher 3, Nier: Automata and Red Dead Redemption 2.
Just finished let’s go Pikachu, Final Fantasy XV, Bayonetta 2 and 1, Spider-Man, the Crew 2, and Forza Horizon 4, Shadow of Mordor
And Kingdom Hearts 3 is just a few days off.
It’s a great time to be a gamer but it’s a bit too much for me right now. Especially with all these games as a service that don’t have an end and can be played for hundreds of hours.
Epic store is a no for me
Whys that?
@@thorwrigglesworth5116 No reviews, no clear money-back guarantee, the store is badly coded (a friend of mine is sharing his closed alpha of a game just by sharing his account details, other people get the alpha, log back into their own account and it works), epic is basically owned by the chinese version of EA (only worse),...
If you want more reasons just tell me.
@@Cyan37 Damn that does sound scetchy. I havent actually used it, so im really curious if it is worth the change from steam. Apparently not.
@@thorwrigglesworth5116 Not yet I would say. I'm all for competition but having a lot of money and many users doesn't automatically make your product good.
Without experience they still have a long way to go to be any actual competition to Steam.
I wouldn't say I was exactly blown away by it, but I can say that I was pleasantly surprised by this game. It's definitely the best non-Fromsoft Soulslike that I've played. It has issues (which you addressed and I agree with), but it's really well made and seems like the developers really put the effort in here. It's a shame it didn't release on PS4, I feel like it would be getting a lot more attention if it had. I barely ever play anything on Xbox but I got gifted a Game Pass sub recently, which is where I stumbled on this game. Thanks for the review there aren't many in-depth talks about this one out there.
"New Zealand suck"
Shill Up 2019
When is Warframe review 2019 fam?
@@metal_face9399 he hasn't touch fortuna yet though
Great review! I’m happy to see someone talk about this beautiful game!
Still reviewing Destiny 2 Forsaken endgame? YT notifications work btw
That's the next vid up :)
Skill Up honestly though after all they pre-Forsaken I ain’t willing to forgive even if they make it better or another game especially after the recent stuff with Blizzard
@@TheAsheron Forsaken is much better but at the end of the day you're better off spending your time playing other games. The black armory in an absolute joke too btw.
What of Fortuna?
@@thegrouchization We all lift together.
I feel like this is what I have been waiting for without even knowing of its existance.
There shouldn't be exclusive titles for any console period, does my head in :/
James Froggatt as much as I agree, Xbox basically did this like a first person IP. It has more reason to be an exclusive than most Sony games (Sony shouldn’t be allowed to have as many exclusives either)
Why?
Because unless you have both consoles or better still a PC than there is always going to be games you can't play that's all. I get it, it's been like that for years probably ain't going to change anytime soon/ever
Ww need more exclusives. In addition, fuck cross play.
I’m not sure you understand how capitalism works...
4:50 my mouth littlerley dropped. That is so amazing and beautiful.
I'm sorry, I just... can't get into this game.
I'm a huge fan of the Souls-borne series. Love them all, even the black sheep that is DS2. I've enjoyed some of the Souls-like games in the past, such as Nioh and Salt and Sanctuary. But, there's something about this game that just makes me roll my eyes whenever I see it. Maybe it's just my first impressions after playing 2 hours of it, but the level design just feels kind of barren. The one thing ever Souls-like game always lacks, and something the first Dark Souls understood, was the sense of dread that creeped through the atmosphere of every level of the game. Walking through the first full area of THIS game, I'm noticing obvious enemy placements, wide open terrain, and most importantly, a severe lack of any tension. It feels so uninteresting and boring to slop through, and the copy-paste job of Dark Souls' opening cutscene, to the entire premise of the game, to the combat that (as a vet of the series this game takes way too much inspiration from) feels like it lacks any sense of real danger.
And I feel bad about it because there's obviously some care that went into this game. The artstyle is nice, if perhaps a little too similar to other 3d indie action games like it, and I like the homebase mechanic. It just feels so by-the-numbers and obvious in its attempts to convert Souls elements that it feels like it lacks much ambition of its own. Overall, I feel like this game wallows in the shadow of its inspiration, and that, to me, makes me dislike it more than if it was just a bad game.
Please keep doing ultra wide reviews they actually fit the display of all of my phones in landscape lol
Sooo it’s just Diet Souls?
Just bought this for Switch because of your review! 😊
I'm sad we're not getting this on ps4
Yeah but if you had an Xbone instead you would have this... But no Bloodborne. Or Spiderman. Or- (you get the idea)
We have bloodborne. I'm quite ok about not having this.
@@Kaptainkiely it's 4 years old mate
And ? Doesn't make it any less of a masterpiece
Haider Tariq You sound like someone who has never played it. Tsk tsk
Okay, so watching this on my OnePlus 60 was beautiful. There needs to be more ultra-wide videos on TH-cam.
Epic Games better be paying out the ass to prevent me from playing this.
NOT GONNA BUY GAMES ON THAT TRASH LOL
Screw the Epic Games launcher!!!
Agreed don’t need another launcher will wait till it’s on steam.
@@Jmerithew87 Epic have Fortnite money and im sure they're willing to part with a lot of it to sell people on the Epic launcher, they were giving away Subnautica for free - for example, just so people would have a NEED to install it. if i wanna play subnautica at ANY time in the future, i can just load up Epic. Same sorta thing goes here, but it wont last forever.. just for those that want to jump on the day-one bandwagon (and they're always gonna need to load up Epic Launcher in the future to play, even when it hits steam). To cut off it's entire online platform release to Epic though would be bad in the long run for the devs, so they'd need a lump payment to make up for that difference, and Epic probably made it well worth it - because they have the money to back it up and make it possible.
Think about how the DLC's for GTA IV were first released on XBox 360 and later branched over to the PS3, was just to sell a small fraction of people on the XBox and then they'd be stuck with it - not being able to make the choice later, even when the DLC's are available on PS3 - a cut of all their games then go to Microsoft, not to mention online services.
Thats the reasoning behind it anyway.
@@Jmerithew87 well what you're implying is the sales alone will justify getting out of the 30% Steam Ecosystem, because the most sales they'll make are initial sales, and that reflect well with the Console Ecosystem too, providing Microsoft has taken a smaller portion of all sales and/or lump sum Rockstar to ensure retention of those customers who were undecided at the time.
The more time you spend with the console or launcher open - the more advertising they can display to you, that being the end-goal, but they still need to provide incentive, otherwise people would just buy it off Steam, instead of using Epic - the end-user still sees the same price, there's no incentive. Just merely wanting to help the company make more percentage profit per unit sold is not enough to make someone install a second launcher.
The devils advocate here is that there are a lot of people who have Epic on their PC already, due to Fortnite, but that would imply that this game was targeted mainly at the fortnite demographic and i think that's even more of a stretch, although not impossible.
@@Jmerithew87 they are paying for it, in a way. Epic Store secures exclusives by doing marketing and guarantying certain amount of profit. Unless Epic manages to sell a certain number of copies of the game (we don't know how much they agreed upon, though), they'll be paying developers out of their pocket.
Just started playing Souls-Borne games this past year but now I’m living on the road as a trucker. So excited to have discovered this game and I’m getting it for switch right now.
Finally some ultrawide content. It looks gorgeous on my monitor!
Great review . Keep up the good work.
Well that explains why not a lot of people knew about it, it released on the Epic game store rather than Steam which has like 90% of the player base.
For anyone wondering the page on the epic games store says its exclusive through December 2019.
I think that’s the beauty of a smaller studio. It’s a lot more personal and communication between each “department” is easier. Sort of like Chinese whispers, less middlemen is better.
I have an ultrawide monitor and I appreciate this format
Hello from the future and playing ps4 version (on ps5) for free on ps+ and this is the best game I’ve played so far in 2023! Still no flying cars though :(
OMG AN ULTRAWIDE VIDEO???? I'M SO HAPPY
So happy this game is getting more coverage! One of my favorite games of the year tbh
I think people do themselves a disservice, when they try to judge Ashen as a Souls-like game. Personally, I found that the strongest points of the games have nothing to do with Souls:
- very beautiful and open areas
- atmospheric dungeons
- platforming and verticality
- Vagrant's rest progression
The core Souls gameplay loop is executed well enough, but that's not what grabbed me about Ashen. Actually, I found myself wishing they'd ditch the Souls combat in favour of something else.
I'm looking forward to the next project of A44, and I hope they do more of their own stuff, because it's very promising.