Review: Astral Ascent Keeps Players Captured in a Satisfying Gameplay Loop

I didn’t expect to close out 2023 by playing one of the best roguelikes I’d seen in a while, but here we are with Astral Ascent! It’s a lovely game with a striking amount of control over each run, allowing you to make significant progress and experiment with fun builds and spell movesets each time.

Astral Ascent is set in a world where a being called the Master captured various worlds. This being pulled them into astral prisons and tasked warriors known as Zodiacs to keep people in line. However, the people in the Garden are fighting back. Ayla, an assassin, and Kiran, a Silver Scout, start out as the first of the player’s forces to fight back so they can beat the Zodiacs, reach the Master, and break free.

I think I knew Astral Ascent was something special when I discovered how far I got on my first run with skill alone. It wasn’t too “easy.” But I managed to nearly reach the first member of the Zodiac because it was so fair, well-balanced, and fun. You select your next room after clearing the combat, exploration, or rest space you’re in, eventually going through one after another until you reach a boss fight against a member of the Zodiac keeping people imprisoned. You get accustomed to the enemies you face. You get a sense of choice as to what sort of challenge you take, rewards you’ll next acquire, and even difficulty of the next step. It’s all so clearly telegraphed that there’s this great level of control and approachability.

Once you actually get into these areas is when Astral Ascent can get really fun and maybe even trip you up. The distribution of foes, stage elements like hazards that hurt you or items you can exploit to deal additional damage, are so much fun to find and either avoid or implement into your attacks. You learn what to expect from opponents, which are all quite stylish despite their size, and offer a window of effect with attacks so you know where the hitboxes are and can anticipate assaults.

And after I would fall and get kicked back to the hub, it still felt like I had even more elements at my disposal to go in stronger than ever. I’d get currency rewards for achievements, which I pumped into upgrades for my character or spells. I could choose which character would go into a run, with Ayla and Kiran available right away and Calie and Octave unlocking as I played. I could buy new spells that I could see show up. Then, when I’d head back in, I could choose which first spell and abilities I’d take in with me, eventually getting Aura boosts and Gambit modifiers I could add to certain spells. 

Astral Ascent is also great at telling its story between runs. We already know everyone’s trapped in the Master’s astral prisons and held there by the Zodiacs. But by continuing to explore, we get to interact with NPCs in the hub, see flavor text from our playable characters as we struggle to reach the master, and find memories that Papa Yalee lets us read through to learn more about characters who aren’t as vocal or Zodiacs we’d normally only see during boss encounters. There’s such personality here, and it really helps set everyone apart.

I’m just really pleased by everything Hibernian Workshop offers us as players in Astral Ascent. It’s such a satisfying roguelike, with a big part of that owing to how much freedom a player has when approaching each attempt to make it through a world. I never once felt like a playthrough was doomed from the outset, and the possibilities afforded by the different characters and spells made me eager to experiment and keep trying to escape.

Astral Ascent is available on the Switch, PS4, PS5, and PC.