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Keeping up with the "Clear out my backlog" I wrapped up The Ascent on PC

What got me into this game was the development team consisting of some artist that I know of and so I followed development till release. If you're into that stuff, check out the GDC talk here.

Graphics: 8/10 I put this as the reason why it got me, not gonna lie about it. For the type of game and knowing the size of the team, it's amazing.
Audio: 5/10 A lot of voiced dialog, so that helped. Music gets very repetitive.. like fast, I turned it off after 2 hours.
Story: 5/10 No clue what was going on in detail, it was just go here, kill that type of thing. I am sure there was some shady corpo nonsense since it's cyberpunk adjacent.
Controls: 8/10 Typical dual stick shooter stuff. Some bugs in the sticks if you spin around really fast.
Gameplay: 7/10 I am a sucker for games where you grind and stat build. But should be a 5/10.

There are some VERY questionable boss fights in this game. They range from stupid easy to outright frustratingly hard for no reason. The last "boss" was a joke, just run around a room and flick switches while trying to not die. The balance is not that great on these things and this is where it shows that it's a small team. The basic run around and shoot stuff is cool, but the mechanics and the gameplay are where it suffers. Also why in the hell do you have weapon skins when the weapons are so damn small and the world is so damn dark? The systems were kinda hard to grasp for me to the point where I just went for "number go up good" for everything. Enemies spawning right on you when you're in cover drove me nuts.

This game would be more fun with friends for sure. It goes on sale often, so get it then.

Lamont said:

Keeping up with the "Clear out my backlog" I wrapped up The Ascent on PC

What got me into this game was the development team consisting of some artist that I know of and so I followed development till release. If you're into that stuff, check out the GDC talk here.

Graphics: 8/10 I put this as the reason why it got me, not gonna lie about it. For the type of game and knowing the size of the team, it's amazing.
Audio: 5/10 A lot of voiced dialog, so that helped. Music gets very repetitive.. like fast, I turned it off after 2 hours.
Story: 5/10 No clue what was going on in detail, it was just go here, kill that type of thing. I am sure there was some shady corpo nonsense since it's cyberpunk adjacent.
Controls: 8/10 Typical dual stick shooter stuff. Some bugs in the sticks if you spin around really fast.
Gameplay: 7/10 I am a sucker for games where you grind and stat build. But should be a 5/10.

There are some VERY questionable boss fights in this game. They range from stupid easy to outright frustratingly hard for no reason. The last "boss" was a joke, just run around a room and flick switches while trying to not die. The balance is not that great on these things and this is where it shows that it's a small team. The basic run around and shoot stuff is cool, but the mechanics and the gameplay are where it suffers. Also why in the hell do you have weapon skins when the weapons are so damn small and the world is so damn dark? The systems were kinda hard to grasp for me to the point where I just went for "number go up good" for everything. Enemies spawning right on you when you're in cover drove me nuts.

This game would be more fun with friends for sure. It goes on sale often, so get it then.

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I liked it too... like a Cyberpunkish Diablo. Agree with your points. The DLC mission wasn't worth the money.

Before reading the reviews online I had no idea how a little girl riding on the back of a character in a FPS was gonna work. Well, the game is not really an FPS and the little girl is not really a girl (sorry for spoilers). On the main, I found Pragmata enjoyable, even with its esoteric name. Honestly, the name smacked of the Japanese kind where they just throw some English words together just to elicit an emotional response from a potential buyer: Killing Timeless Engine, Tactics Ogre, Undiscovering Gaelic Wanderer... whatever. Just get to the filling of this cream puff!

And boom, Pragmata hooks you into a desperate struggle for survival on earth's moon with a slick intro that side hustles as a movement tutorial. Neat. The pace is slow at first but welcome: giving you enough time to enjoy the graphics: top notch. The attention to detail is nice, right down to the scratches on your visor that refract light at the right angles. Although the main path felt like rails at times, it's mostly an open game. Exploring is rewarded with stuff to upgrade your equipment, power-ups, and your little companion. SPOILER: she's an android, okay? If you haven't figured it out yet I can't help you out of your bubble. But it's clear from the jump she's not just a human girl. She's got android powers and that's half the game.

See the lunar base went off-line sometime before your arrival. Surprise, that's a bad thing. And, with the advent of micofiliment nanotech that can build anything on the fly, it's about to be inundated with things that don't like you. I take that back: they actually are built to keep the base in lockdown. You're just the virus the machines are driven to eliminate. But why? That's the story, so I won't spoil it here.

(Hold on, I'm getting to little girl's powers.) These robot things come at you with varying degrees of hostility and ability. The game quickly goes from "Oh, I know how to handle these turds" to "What the hell just grabbed me?!" But you learn new skills along the way to put down anything that opposes your lunar walk. The enemies are nicely varied while the base presents its own challenges (like laser fencing). When the game throws these things together the difficulty ramps up considerably. Lastly, in your quest to get to the source of the issue (there's always a source of the issue) you'll be amply rewarded for exploration... even returning to areas you once explored for goodies when the latest upgrade makes a way.

So, yeah, those upgrades. They come in two main flavors: your weapons and the little girl. Weapons are self explanatory: more upgrades = more pew pew! But the little girl is where the game separates from its peers. Her powers not only help you explore the base but also assist in laying the wood to your robot assassins. She can "hack" mechanical killers and leave them vulnerable to your weapons, for example. With other upgrades hacking causes them to overheat, allowing for a cinematic power strike that eliminates all but the stongest foes. I won't spoil the other things. The variety here gives way to character "builds" that ensure a somewhat unique experience the second or third time through. Nice.

All in all I liked this game. Its AAA quality shines. Graphics are awesome. Movement is tight with an XBox controller connected through Bluetooth. Sound is great on my PC headphones. And it runs like a dream on my GTX 4090. I did fell like it DID bog down somewhat toward the end: Like shit was just thrown at you to make it more difficult. That's okay, I get it. It's a common trope of PC games with a great story: bad guy almost gets you... until he don't [sic].

If you like story-driven FPSs with some RPG mechanics this game surely won't disappoint.

Story: 95%
Graphics: 95%
Sound: 90%
Robot thingies with that red stuff on them: They can go to hell! (if you know you know)
Control: 95%

Yeah, this is a solid 93%+ game. An A on my list. I probably won't playthrough it for a second time but the first time was quite a ride! I enjoyed it very much.