Recent reviews by Extinct

TLDR: I enjoyed playing this game, while it's not great, it's not bad either. If you're looking for a game with a good and well-told story, excellent world-building, and intriguing and evocative dialogue, you won't find it in this game for the most part. If you've played previous PixelFade games or you're looking for a game with witty dialogue, funny interactions, and good characters, then you'll probably enjoy this game. Astral Ascension lacks depth to its interactions and writing outside of romance routes except for a few standout cases. VAs are overall great, good characters are always a staple of PixelFade games, and this game hardly disappoints compared to previous ones. The space setting is interesting, but without much world-building being done or explored, it lacks any staying power. The game is paced way too fast and needs more time to flesh out missions and interactions instead of blazing through them. Needs less quantity of missions and more energy put into the quality . Iris is best girl. That is all for my brief summary of my review. If you want to read more, then continue on, I wrote quite a lot. If you are looking for the full review, it's on my backloggd as Steam has a character limit for reviews: https://backloggd.com/u/ExtinctDragonOG/review/3007724/

I played Ace Academy and Crystalline so long ago, but those games I still remember fondly, Crystalline especially. So, I am no stranger to PixelFade's writing and the types of games/stories they tell. Astral Ascension had a lot of potential in my mind, but it feels unrealized, in some places rushed and incomplete.

My biggest issue with the game is the lack of a compelling main story; this is a massive disappointment to me. The main story provides a background to the character interactions and is basically neglected the entire time. The story writing is bland and uninteresting; basically, nothing happens for most of the missions. They are only used as set pieces for dialogue and interactions between characters, which is fine if they were even remotely interesting and compelling. The only exception being the Akksari mission with good writing, not only for the main plot and mission itself, but the characters. There are even two branching paths on how you take on the mission, which give two completely different experiences. The writing is really good here, so why was it so poor in all the other missions, which felt shallow and uninteresting?

I think a lot of the problems with the story and the interactions is the pacing; it's incredibly fast, with not much time spent between missions and character interactions, which usually last only a few minutes at most. I don't read particularly fast, and I always let the VAs finish their lines before I proceed to the next line, so there's no excuse for why the pacing felt as fast as it was. I think the game needed to cut down on the amount of missions and instead focus on the quality of them and the interactions that stem from it. I feel that would have improved the game so much.

When I refer to the lack of a main story, I am primarily talking about the MC's backstory and how it's tied into the ending of the game. It's the biggest difference between a traditional VN and PixelFade's other games, which if I recall, have more cohesive main stories. This one feels like it's slapped on and only gets going when the writer/writers want it to, which is practically near the end. It goes absolutely nowhere and is disappointing that it's not explored nearly at all, given that it could have been interesting. There are absolutely no stakes in this at all. At one point, you get offered to take money, go live your life in peace, and keep quiet about something, or to ignore it. You're allowed to keep quiet with no consequences at all. If they were willing to pay the MC to keep quiet and live their life without burden, why weren't they willing to silence or threaten them to keep it a secret? Why was it that it only mattered at the end, when the MC figured everything out, that they attempted to silence the MC? Why would they take that risk in the first place? It shows a distinct lack of consequences for choices and a poor attempt at making a well-thought-out story. It was built on the concept of the antagonist being incompetent and stupid, which is never a good thing in any story without a good reason. There is a reason, but it's not a good one at all imo.

Now, onto the relationship system, this has gotten a little bit of criticism and I think I might understand why. This game benefits very much when you lock into a choice of girl early on. It's not too complex in that it's basically a point system; if you back up your girl during conversation and say things they will like, you will gain points with them. Once you have enough points, you are pretty much locked into it as far as I know as long as you don't royally ♥♥♥♥ it up. I think that the game would benefit more from time spent on learning the characters before needing to worry about points. Especially because Luna doesn't get interesting until halfway through the game in the Aetos hangar scene, if you've played the game, you know the one.

You're just starting to figure out who the characters are and their personality. If you take too long to pick your favorite, you might have screwed yourself out of the route already. It's not a great and friendly system, but it's not too harsh either. Iris doesn't like wishy washy behavior. If you want to romance Iris, you need to commit to her and show it by supporting her through dialogue choices and being consistent. Luna very much likes flirty, teasing, sarcastic, witty, and choices that challenge or press her.

Also there's no easy way to replay other routes, you practically have to start from the beginning of the game and skip your way through and choose the right dialogue. I think this is the main negative of having a point-based romance system vs. a choice system that locks you on their routes like most other VN's. It also makes it harder to make guides on how to romance a character. You have to know what exactly each choice does, does it gain points with a specific character, multiple characters, or is it harmless?

The Voice Acting is mostly a good point of the game, the only exception being Luna's. Luna's VA is great, don't get me wrong. I'm aware of who voiced her, and I like Sydney, but her recording setup is really bad for her lines; it stands out so terribly when 90% of her voicelines, you can hear an echo or reverb from her recording setup, and the blatant switches in recording sessions are VERY obvious, sometimes even between lines. It got better as the game went on, but by the end, the damage was done by that point. The other VAs don't have this problem, they sound, and are genuinely great, Iris and Kai's especially.

The music is serviceable, nothing to write home about, really. Not surprising for a PixelFade game, but definitely a bit disappointing coming from The House in Fata Morgana's soundtrack.

The art is astounding in this game, no complaints there, whoever worked on them did a great job, the environments felt alive and filled with detail if you looked closely.

I've been playing Wuthering Waves since it came out and never stopped. At first it was a game that honestly, didn't live up to my expectations. 1.0's story was mediocre at best until the very end, the characters were kinda boring, the music was muted and lacked a sound profile. This left a bitter taste in my mouth, don't get me wrong, I really liked the game even with all the issues, but it never lived up to my own expectations, and It probably never would have. Especially given that I come from Girls Frontline, played it for 6 years straight, and also PGR, two of the best narrative based gacha games in the space imo, even over Wuthering Waves currently.

Most of my criticisms and issues with the game gradually got better every patch, the music got better, the story felt a lot more cohesive and better executed, the pacing was much better. 1.3 was easily my favorite story of the 1.0-1.4 stories. I had issues with it, mainly the pacing, but it was clear that Kuro Games was not only receptive to feedback, but actively improving each patch.

That's why I stuck around, and continue to do so. With the release of 2.0 and now 2.3 with the Steam version, this game is almost unrecognizable; in a great way. The music profile is astounding, the characters are full of life and expression, the soundscape and exploration has become even more enjoyable as they add new ways to travel via gadgets, not limited to characters either. The companion quests are emotional and impactful in the best ways, the character designs are phenomenal and continue to impress with each patch, not only physically, but how they fight and their kits.

The rewards are mostly generous, I am not at all worried that this game is heading down the money first route, and if they are, I have reason to believe they will listen to US the players rather than their investors. Obviously there are issues because of who they're owned by, but I can tell that the devs truly care about this game and pour heart sweat and soul into it. It showed through so strongly with the release of 2.0, and even back in CBT 2 when they rewrote 80% of the entire story because of player feedback. How often do you see developers actually listen to player feedback and make noticeable changes? Very rarely, and that's sad in today's age, your players are the primary demographic, you shouldn't change everything based on feedback, but you should always listen to it, it's important to know where your fans stand.

This is the kind of game that I won't hesitate to support, financially as well as just by playing the game and talking about it online and with friends. I WILL say that the community is generally pretty friendly and passionate about this game, but there are some bad outliers, and I would recommend to not get caught up in the drama, especially between content creators. I promise you that your enjoyment of the game will improve drastically the moment you stop listening to people who only bash on the game yet don't provide constructive criticism, and still play it every patch.

The community however, is a mixed bag, depending on where you look, you might find pleasant people to engage and talk with, or on the other side, you'll find the most insufferable children imaginable as they whine and complain when their overly sexualized view of the characters gets interrupted or changed even slightly. Most of those people are Incels who throw a temper tantrum when the characters gets so much as a few of their pixels changed and they treat it like the end of the world. They've never had a normal conversation with a woman besides their own mother that wasn't immediately repulsed by them. No one besides them notice that Fleurdelys got her undergarments changed/censored, and the fact they noticed while 90% of people didn't says more about them than it does Kuro Games. The outrage from such minor changes was like the apocalypse, you would think they had killed off their favorite character in a story, but it was far more inane than that. I can not stress this enough, it was insane to me to watch it all happen in real time, with Scar, and then Fleurdelys. I could care less about looking at a fictional woman's panties/underwear in a video game, yet these people seem to make it their entire identity, crazy to me. Avoid engaging with these kinds of people at all costs, lest you risk your own mental health, they can't be reasoned with and you won't convince them of anything besides what their own echo chamber is convincing them of. Most people of the community that I've come to know are quite friendly and outspoken about their issues with the game and are genuinely respectful people, it's just the vocal minority you have to avoid.

TLDR: This game is fun, immersive, engaging and has made many memories for me. They deserve all the success they have and more. I can only see the game getting better from here on out with each patch, I can't wait to see what's next for this game going forward.

Genuinely just a great game with friends, tons of content, innovative gameplay and crafting system, progression based gameplay that gives you new toys to play, experiment/build with often. The level and world design stands out a lot to me, you will commonly find that new areas you explore will unlock shortcuts to areas you've already explored and lead you back to the main hub making it easy to get back to where you left off last.

Story is kinda there but not prominent at all, it's not really a story heavy game at the moment, it's definitely more about the gameplay.

The only complaints I have with the game is that the building system in terms of traditional base building is quite underwhelming, however adapting an area already in the world to make the space your own is something unparalleled and truly special, so it's a trade off imo.

The other issue I have is the performance is not great, it's Unreal Engine 5, if you're familiar with the engine, you will likely have a negative opinion on it. However, the devs have done and are continuing to do the best they can to make the game as accessible as possible, it's just a product of the engine so nothing against the devs, but it does hinder the game in my opinion a little. I have rarely found a game on UE5 that performs well at all, even if the game is low-poly like this one, some areas are better than others, and some are much worse, but overall I would be skeptical of buying this if your PC is lower end, I have a mid to upper range PC and I get around 60fps average on 1440p with mostly ultra settings. If you want a massive performance boost, turn Global Illumination to low, the game will look darker, but it seems to massively increase your frame rate, likely by turning off Lumen/SSGI.

The game is very good, and it's genuinely one of the most worthwhile game purchases I've made, with the amount of content you get, $25 is a very reasonable price, even though the game is currently not finished, you will likely get 40+ hours out of the game your first go around if you aren't rushing it and are just enjoying it casually with friends. The game is fun and entertaining with some funny moments when played with friends. 9/10

Censoring the game is the last thing Void Interactive needs to do. I understand that consoles likely need the ESRB rating of 18, but I would much prefer to have the PC be a different version and experience bugs, rather than kill the identity of this game entirely. The missions showcase the worst parts of society and are eerily realistic, and harrowing. This game doesn't shy away from violence, abuse, mass shootings, and other topics. That atmosphere would likely be completely devoid if they censor the game on PC just to satisfy consoles. Terrible decision, and I don't support it, and until they change this decision, I don't support this game.

Edit: Rewrote the entire review because why not.

I cannot recommend this game any more highly, it's the best written game I've ever played, and probably will *ever* play. It's on par with some of the best literature out there, it reads more like a book than it does a video game. I don't anticipate a game that can reach the heights this game goes with its writing on multiple facets. It's impactful and meaningful when it needs to be and hilarious as well. This is a game that you can only experience once in full, which are more often than not, some of the best games in the industry. RDR1 and 2, Telltale's The Walking Dead, Life is Strange, Fallout New Vegas, Skyrim, Witcher 3, A Way Out, Yakuza 0, Steins;Gate, just to name a few off the top of my head.

The game's characters and soundtrack is incredible, the same goes for the voice acting. The game is very intimidating for someone who prefers gameplay to reading as there's quite a lot of it in comparison. However, the game is not terribly long, my playtime is how long it took me to complete the game completely blind. Obviously I didn't do *everything* the game had to offer, but I got the main story and some side content as well. I plan to replay the game at some point to experience more but that's not what I want to talk about.

Despite my praise of the game, there is one major thing that you should consider that makes me **not** recommend you buy it. The Steam page lists ZA/UM as the publisher and developer, but consider that NONE of the *actual* developers and creators of this game are still employed at ZA/UM. Atleast the important ones like the lead writers and creative minds that made *it* and the world of Disco Elysium in the first place. They were fired by higher management at ZA/UM for reasons that you should look into on your own. I'm not one to tell you how to react to that situation and what your opinion should be. A lot of it is speculation and assumptions based on vague sources, but if you are interested in this game, I would not recommend giving ZA/UM your money without looking into it first.

If you come out of it and simply don't care and just wish to try the game, I won't fault you for that at all, that's your choice, and this game is well worth the price especially during Steam sales (It's currently 90% off for the 2025 Winter Sale, pricing it at $3.99. That's a steal for a game as impressive as this, it's not a game for everyone, but for those that enjoy these types of games, it's certainly one of the best games ever in my mind.

This game is great, it's a SOLID 9/10 for me. The main complaint I have is the game is too damn short, criminally so. I want MORE of this game and the characters. I didn't expect a game of this short of length (10-11 hours for me) to make me emotional for the ending I got but it destroyed me for a few hours after.

The music is catchy, beautiful at times and impactful when it needs to be, the boss music, credits and
(Small Music/Character Spoilers:) Yohan's Theme especially. Characters are great which is to be expected from a game claiming to be a love story to Persona games and it doesn't disappoint in that regard. The dialogue is good and funny, very much like Persona games, so if you like being a smartass or a perv in those games you will certainly find it here. Combat is fun and satisfying but can get repetitive near the end of the game, I actually struggled a bit on some of the bosses on normal difficulty, having a hard time reacting quick enough to the dodge timings feeling too short or inconsistent from boss to boss and some enemies (the shooter ones especially) but some more time with the game retrying them or in NG+ on Expert which I plan to do would likely make me better at the game's combat which I don't hate at all. Sometimes though the story scenes or exposition dumps stop too soon, feeling left with confusion on what just happened or wanting more from explanation in them, but liking it overall. Usually I'm one to always play on Japanese voices when playing JRPGs or games of that nature but for my first playthrough I went English since it was actually good, the voice actors do a great job and doesn't feel inferior to the JPN voices at all atleast for me.

The game doesn't stay long but it delivers an impactful story for me, one that feels very similar to
(Persona 3 and this game ending spoiler) Persona 3's tragic ending but it's VERY different, not going to reveal how but it is. , if you know you KNOW. If it wasn't for the game being so short this is easily a 10/10. The shortness doesn't detract from the game but for me it makes it hard to give it a 10/10 realizing the potential it had if it was just a BIT longer. That would allow more room for character moments and just more immersion in the world and exploring more characters and things in the story/setting of the game to make the endings have a bit more punch to it (Not that it doesn't have that already, in fact the opposite). Despite that the first ending I got which was Yuna's hit me like a truck (if you know you know), I assume it's the same for all the characters which I will find out in NG+. Much love for this game <3