What is a good indie project?It is first of all a repentant developer of the mastodons of the industry who wishes to set up his studio.Montrealer Marius Ibanez checked this box from 2019.Then you have to find the right idea that no one has yet exploited properly to offer their vision of video games.Second checked box for the Whileone Productions studio with its combat system.What remains to make such a project fail?Well, unfortunately it remains the technical part, but to understand what gets stuck, we will have to go to the end of this test, Nyark Nyark Nyark.

Why are you there?

It all starts when we are at the foot of the tower.What tower?No idea, but the answer does not matter, because it has a capital letter in its name and if that is not a sign of its importance, nothing is.We form a guild with another companion and we must climb at the top of the tower to establish our reputation, hence the title by the way Guild of Ascension.So yes, a guild of two is a bit tight, but duo of ascension it sounds less well anyway.In short, no scenario, we will have to go up two people at the top of a tower by getting rid of everything that would start in our way and then that's all.

The first level of the tower consists of a tutorial that will teach us to properly use the menu while teaching us the basics of the gameplay.It’s both fast and complete.Choosing a weapon according to our possibilities and our preferences then makes sense and we can decide, knowingly, between the sword/shield combo or favor the arc or the hammer.Each weapon has two base attacks, loaded or not, which fill a special gauge.Depending on the filling of this gauge, we can trigger one of the four special attacks.

We also learn that choosing our weapon will have an effect on the type of attack that we can assert, but also on the load gauge and on the different types of attacks that they unlock.If each weapon has the same basic power, their typing and load rates will depend on a percentage that is their own.We can only have two warriors, so we will have to choose which team we want to constitute then see the tower browse with the advantages and limitations that this implies.From this point of view, the tutorial is quite clear and it is very easy to change the weapon to try a new team.

The importance of equipment

Once our equipment is chosen, we start our first fight.The combat system is clearly the strong point of the title of Whileone Productions.Mixing the turn by turn with a duration gauge, we have to think quickly when a first timer sets in, then move and perform the desired actions for our character while a second timer empties.Each action takes more or less time all the more since another possibility is available to us.

Indeed, after having moved to us then having attacked as we wanted with our two avatars, it is obviously the turn of the monsters to do the same.The goal of any player is then to pray very hard so that his character suffers as little damage as possible.Guild of Ascension has thought of this, including a dodge gauge to each of his characters.We can fill this gauge during our turn and thus undergo the assaults without having to eyebrow as long as we have the dodge to use.It is even possible to use this phenomenon to avoid injuries imposed by an ally.

In fact, each attack, whether enemy or ally, affects everything in its strike zone.This fact, which looks like nothing, is actually very important.Each enemy has a peculiarity of against which is triggered when it undergoes too much damage.The bear will for example launch an attack on the three boxes in front of it.To us, in fine tacticians that we are, to place it in front of several enemies, then to bypass it, to skate the hindquarters until triggering its against which will punish its allies.Ahahahahah well done for them, should not play with the heroes that we are!

Reasoned exploration

We will therefore have to know our capacities as well as those of the monsters that we will meet in order to be able to put in place a strategy worthy of the greatest admirals Nelson who hide in the meanders of our gray matter.Once the fight won, depending on the room in which we are, we will win different awards.This can be an item to distribute to one of our adventurers to improve its capacities, or it can be a bit of additional experience or a little bit of money to spend in the level of the tower in which we wander.

Each level is built randomly and contains several rooms that we need to explore to find out if an adjacent room hides a little further.Several types of rooms are offered.The rooms with combat of course, but also challenges, which bring experience, rooms to bonus-malus, which hide what to spice our adventure, such as a map of the level, very practical, or a poisoned fog, lesspractice.We can also discover stalls, to spend the currency specific to the landing that we explore.Camp lights as well as rooms dedicated to the goddess will allow us to take advantage of welcome bonuses.

In any case, we also have the opportunity to get out of the landing to recover from life thanks to a small stock of foodstuffs that we take with us.We will also have access to the statue of the goddess who will then allow us to use the experiences acquired to increase at level.We then have the choice to personalize the direction of the points obtained by putting them in our lifestyle, in our attacks or our dodge, or we can opt for the fast mode by choosing a style attack, defense or balanced.Anyway, this hard -won experience and this curriculum will reset to the next level so you might as well make good use as long as we have in stock.

To prepare well, it's vital

Guild of Ascension rewards the difficulty by offering experience bonuses when we keep it without rising level.So have more than 200 points in reserve will give us 50 more at the time of the level passage.A pleasant power gain before meeting the boss of the level.To access its lair, we will first have to get our hands on the hidden key in the level.What encourage exploration to everything, except that after each fight waged, a danger gauge will gain a point, increasing the level of enemies encountered.We will still have to think and find the right compromise between fighting and effective exploration.

Boss fights are even more intense than conventional fights, with a much larger monster with much more devastating attacks and regularly invoking piétaille that will break our feet, pushing even more in our entrenchments our capacities for reflection.Note that we can find these bosses, weakened anyway, in normal fights when the danger gauge reaches heights.What to put a good sweat when we realize it.

At the exit of each room, being still alive, we can decide to get out of the tower, whether we have defeated the boss or not.We then obtain a reward in a currency this time sustainable.This money, we can spend it to buy new, more lethal weapons, to equip ourselves with collaborations giving access to special capacities or to be accompanied by an animal offering us a bonus.All these bonuses have a direct influence on our fights and our progress in a level.

Missions, given in the form of a list available at the time of choice of level, also allow us to earn more money or unlock new weapons.What amuse lovers of challenges and completion for a time that can be substantial.If getting to the end of the adventure requires about fifteen hours, succeeding in all the missions takes much more time.The difficulty curve is well settled with regular levels.We also have the possibility, via the menu, to set up a percentage on the strength of our blows and that of the blows of our opponents.What make the title accessible to the most numerous.

And here is the drama

Unfortunately, this formidable combat system, mixing turn and real time, and exploration of randomly generated rooms is not without concessions.Guild of Ascension graphics are far from taking advantage of the Switch's abilities.We are not talking about open people, or even the display of thousands of sprites at the same time, but blocked camera, and yet the nomad resolution becomes almost painful and it is sometimes difficult to locate whereare our characters.

The camera has three zoom levels, but they are purely aesthetic bringing nothing to the tactical dimension of the title, not being movable and unable to turn around an axis.In nomadic, the textures are drooling and the size of the characters is really small.It is much more pleasant to take advantage of the title of Whileone Productions in Docké.The definition then seems superior and the texts are much more readable.It is rare to advise a game more in Docké than in nomad, but it is unfortunately the case.

With an already little inspired artistic direction and his characters to the charisma of a tiger brigades police officer, this passage on Switch is not successful.This portage looks like a click on the ultra low mode of the Unreal Engine 4 before sending it to the eshop without trying to optimize the result a little bit.This is quite understandable for a small independent studio, but it is a shame not to have spent more time on this version which could have been unanimous on the hybrid console of Nintendo.

To share :