Don’t Let The Light Go Out
HIGH Beautiful game and intuitive mechanics.
LOW Not as unique as expected.
WTF The amount of grubs I’ve eaten.
Hi everyone! Eugene Sax here with another review from GameCritics.com.
As a member of the last bastion of society, the player has been selected to lead the forces of the Vault against the dark creatures of the dead world in which they live. Neither refusal nor failure are options — survival at all costs is the only choice. Box Dragon presents As We Descend — a wonderfully stylized and oppressive apocalypse currently in Early Access where each choice could be the difference between victory and watching humanity’s last light be extinguished.
As We Descend is a roguelike deckbuilder where players recruit a variety of units to fight against horrific monsters attacking the Vault in their attempts to put out the Lantern — it’s the last light in this world of darkness. Players will also explore the Vault to seek out important people who can help gather resources, upgrade units, offer items for sale or create artifacts with positive effects.
Combat in Descend is turn-based. Each unit has unique cards that are added to the player’s deck, and each turn, players have a set amount of resources to play as many cards as they can afford.
Players must also manage the positioning of their units in one of two areas — the guard zone or the support zone. Certain units get bonuses based on which zone they’re in, and units in the guard zone are usually the ones taking the most hits.
As enemies are attacked, a stagger meter starts to accumulate. When the meter is full, an enemy is staggered, which means it will be stunned and lose a turn, while also becoming vulnerable to critical strikes — a key tactic for interrupting powerful attacks.
Besides combat, players will have an opportunity to explore locations in the Vault. Actions like visiting the inn to restore health or training with a mentor to increase effectiveness both require a card to use, so planning when to do so is part of the overall strategy here.
In practice, As We Descend’s combat feels easy to pick up, but difficult to master because many of the cards seem basic — do X damage, apply X debuff, and so on. However, many cards also have secondary effects that activate if specific conditions are met.
For example, The Zealot usually attacks once, but additional strikes occur if an enemy has multiple debuffs. Guardsmen get bonus defense when in the guard zone, and have abilities that deal additional damage that’s upped by the amount of defense they have. There are a significant number of units that provide a wide set of options for each run, so players can expect to spend a good amount of time finding strategies and synergies.
Something I haven’t mentioned yet is that players can choose their type of Vault at the beginning of a run Currently, there are two different Vault styles, with a third being developed. Unfortunately, there’s not enough of a difference between them to make the choice significant. I hope the developers work on these Vaults a bit more to make them feel different in practice, and better tutorials on them would be welcome, too — some of the resources have important stats that factor into things, but are never actually explained.
Also, there were times when I made a decision early on, only to find out this one decision doomed my entire run. Since the outcome of a choice isn’t immediately apparent, it can feel like a lot of wasted time that can’t have been salvaged.
As stated at the start of this video, As We Descend is currently in Early Access, which means that there are some rough edges that come along with that. Even so, I’m extremely excited to see what else is in store. It’s off to a great start with an intuitive interface, a welcoming combat system and rewarding strategies for those who can master its nuances. With some balance changes, tweaks and additional updates, I’m hopeful that As We Descend could end up one of the best in the genre.
For me, As We Descend gets 8 critical strikes out of 10
Disclosures: This game is developed by Box Dragon and published by Coffee Stain Publishing. It is currently available on PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PC. Approximately 6 hours of play were spent playing the game, and the multiple runs were completed. There are no multiplayer modes.
Parents: This game is not rated by the ESRB. Players will control multiple units with swords, spears, guns, and other weaponry to fight against monsters who will attack back with similar weapons. There is no blood in the combat. There isn’t any cursing in the texts between combat scenarios, but there are scenarios where players will be able to select things like “putting down an uprising”.
Colorblind Modes: There are colorblind modes.
Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: There is text in-game, but the text is not resizable. Audio is not needed for gameplay. The game is fully accessible.
Controls: Controls are not currently remappable. Their controls menu says “no settings are here yet”. Players will use the mouse to be able to select different cards, dialogue selections, and selecting bonuses to gain after combat.
While Sonic and Street Fighter were great places to start, his first love was Final Fantasy X when his dad bought a PS2. Ever since, that love for gaming has evolved -- there are a number of game worlds out there, and he intends to explore them all. RPG to horror, platformers to casual and everything in between -- if it’s available, he’ll play it.
While his time is short between writing reviews, tabletop gaming, and attempting to start a cheesecake business, he has caught all 806 pokemon and can speedrun Star Fox 64 in less than 40 minutes. He’s always looking for new things to try and new challenges to conquer. You can find him on Twitter -- @eugene_sax.
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