Ash (3DS)
Ash is an unfortunate tale of a game development team thinking they had more room to tell their story than they truly did. Designed first for iOS devices, Ash plays like a fairly traditional role-playing game and as such it’s the narrative that needs to stand out, and it does start to build up some intrigue and possibly compelling characters. Unfortunately, developer SRRN Games believed they could continue the tale in a sequel, and not only that, they tried to release the sequel Ash II: Shadows in episodic installments. They barely got out two of an intended six episodes for the sequel before it came to a halt thanks to publisher Konami closing its mobile game division, and soon Ash II: Shadows would be delisted from the app store and SRRN Games seemingly dissolved some years later… but the first Ash still received a 3DS port after that delisting despite its fate as a truly unfinished tale.
Even if a story is going to try and tell itself over more than one piece of media though, it should still try to offer something of interest for those experiencing the first part of the tale, and that’s where the question of Ash’s efficacy as a standalone story arises. Beginning with a wordless scene that will only be fully explained later, Nicholas is a member of the Imperial Army but finds himself unexpectedly betrayed. While he manages to escape with his life, his family isn’t so lucky, and to avoid the empire finding out he still lives, Nicholas lives on the road as a jaded mercenary with a younger man named Damien who had stood by his side when things went awry. Nicholas is an old man beaten down by the unnecessary tragedy he experienced, but Damien is able to bring out some levity in him, the younger mercenary quick to crack a joke even if sometimes it leaves him looking a little dense. Nicholas clearly gets some enjoyment out of lightheartedly teasing his young friend showing that Nicholas isn’t too far gone, but something new in his life tests him when a mercenary job in a mining town leads to Ash contracting a mysterious affliction. In this medieval setting, monsters and magic suddenly begin to emerge, and as the duo head off to try and find answers about Nicholas’s worsening condition, they begin to understand that the appearance of such fantastical things have far greater implications for the world as a whole.
Unfortunately, implications is where such questions remain by the time Ash’s credits roll. Ash’s story feels more like it constitutes the first act of a longer role-playing adventure and it leaves many important questions unanswered. One of the main antagonists never even has his name revealed while another makes no appearance in this game whatsoever, and the point the game decides to cut off the adventure is a surprisingly abrupt point in the plot with even the final boss feeling like it wasn’t meant to be the climax. A post-credits scene at least tries to assuage some of the immediate concerns and point towards future possibilities, but while it’s clear the developers wanted the ending to be a bit shocking in its suddenness, Ash walks too precarious a tightrope in terms of its quality to justify clipping its main redeeming element short. Damien’s jokes can be legitimately funny as he can easily seize on a situation with an unexpected but amusing direction, and when the party gains a third member in the form of the healer Yuka she actually has a rather healthy and playful budding romance with Damien where both are receptive to each other’s advances despite taking it somewhat slow. Your final party member is a bit more of a vehicle for providing important information about the nature of magic in the world and giving you some understanding of the greater forces at play, but he’s also responsible for that hollow feeling you get when you realize the story comes to an end and much of what he he alludes to is not going to be addressed. The Imperial Army story line is explored a bit more than others at least, there’s even detailed discussion of strategy and resources involved in a rebellion and at one point you see that the rebellion’s actions aren’t just a universal positive for everyone like they would be in a fairy tale, but even though it gets the most attention it still can’t escape without a few unresolved aspects before the curtain crashed down.
One reason Ash’s story needed to stick the landing is because its other elements really aren’t doing much to hold a player’s interest. When the adventure begins you only have Nicholas and Damien, and in the turn-based combat system featured, they initially can’t do much. They both have one special ability and to get the most out of them you must have both of them spend their limited SP meter to deal marginally more damage to enemies who will wear down your health in these somewhat slow skirmishes. It is a difficult start because you can’t really even the odds in battle much and will be left ragged even after the most basic of encounters, the player needing to repeatedly visit the thankfully free inn in town before they go out and fight maybe one or two battles before heading on back again. There are a few mercies in place: fleeing from battle seems to always work outside of boss encounters and if you do die you usually won’t lose anything and reappear at an inn with 1 HP. You can still take damage before you get a chance to flee and you’ll need to use the inn’s services to top off your team that later will cost some cash, although the game sometimes doesn’t expect you to lose like when aboard the pirate ship battle it triggered a dialogue scene meant to play after some monsters were defeated. This dialogue remained on screen even during the next monster fight and caused a game crash when someone next tried to speak, and while some monsters do look rather nice in battle the game overall feels a little cheap with its basic assets and occasional objects and walls you can walk into. For the most part it is functional though, and in this early game slog you can keep throwing yourself into battle and earn the money and experience from winning that will start to increase your power and unlock new abilities.
Once Nicholas and Damien do start learning new skills, it still takes a while to break out of this tiresome loop. You can’t flee too often because then you won’t be strong enough for required battles, but the slow addition of techniques for a while means the most thought you’ll put into a fight is usually things like having Nicholas slow a foe with a strike or having Damien briefly stun them. Once Yuka and her healing magic join a fair bit in though, the battle system loses quite a bit of its teeth. Speedy enemies can still pose a threat since they’ll get multiple turns in a row, a helpful bar on the 3DS’s top screen having character faces move towards the left at variable speeds to indicate when their turn is coming up, and if you push into areas you shouldn’t be yet you might get hit by attacks you don’t have sufficient equipment to survive. Equipment purchases are a bit more than just buying the best gear since the prices are often high and there will be usually a range of effects involved such as spears being able to deal a wildly varying amount of damage but something like an axe will be more consistent while not reaching the same heights. Most battles once you do have a healer to prevent constant inn visits start to become fairly basic, although when Olensami the mage joins as the last member he at least has abundant SP so you can frequently use his wide range of spells that obfuscate their effects a bit by having their descriptions be pop music references.
When you do start to fight boss battles with the more capable team, they don’t pack too much of a punch but you still are rewarded for strategic use of skill sets that have grown into something at least a touch interesting. Rarely will it feel like you are on a knife’s edge in these more important battles unless you decide to ignore random skirmishes out in the world and in the dungeons, but you are still kept active during these boss battles as you cycle between useful abilities so it’s at least starting to show the potential for more involved and demanding fights and it would have been fine if the game had kept building on them. Unfortunately that would have required it to continue so instead you’re left with the brutal and brainless early experience grinding only for healing magic to flip fights into mostly negligible affairs unless you hit the same power wall because you tried to speed along to some interesting plot points rather than walking back and forth to trigger monster battles.
THE VERDICT: Ash’s story could have redeemed a battle system that switches from difficult empty grinding to simple fights that at least let you whip out some abilities from time to time, but the plot cuts off at an unfortunate time where it feels like very little was properly resolved. Feeling less like the first part of an epic saga and more a game that tied things up before it could find a satisfying stopping point, Ash ends up squandering some intriguing and likeable characters and its battle system isn’t able to come into its own fully because it hadn’t started to demand better battle strategy over time invested in grinding for experience and cash. Had Ash kept going this could have been a bumpy start to an RPG with a chance at a narrative that makes ignoring the weak battles easy enough, but instead we get an unfinished tale that leaves you feeling empty for ever trusting it could deliver on its story set-ups.
And so, I give Ash for Nintendo 3DS…
A BAD rating. Yuka’s arrival that shifts the game away from a grueling and boring grind to more manageable leveling up comes at a reasonable enough point that the whole experience isn’t defined by the poor start’s rough design, but there still aren’t enough standout battles after she gives you a way to avoid constant inn trips or squandering limited healing items to push the battles into more enjoyable territory. The expansion of your abilities at least makes the fights feel more interactive despite at the same time making some story encounters feel less challenging than you might hope, but things are appropriately ramping up for a while and if Ash was a 20 or 30 hour RPG instead of an 8 hour one then it could make those later portions properly challenge everything it had set you up with. Before bosses get more effective attacks, before you are even given the basic details you’d expect on certain plot elements, and before the game even finds a fairly reasonable stopping point, it all comes to an end and you’re left with the empty promise of a story continuation despite the 3DS version coming out after there was much hope for it.
Even with the present day knowledge that this promising story will never deliver on what it set up, Ash still has its moments like the relationship between Damien and Yuka, and Nicholas’s gradual corruption is effective drama. If Ash had committed to concluding some of the more immediate story lines you might have still been able to walk away with having a small yet complete narrative in a world with a lot more going on in it, but what little it does wrap up is hollow and it leaves the best elements for future tales that will never be told. SRRN Games believed they had a longer runway for their story than they truly did, but rather than trying to make the most of each step in the journey, they set up a game where the often tedious work you put into trying to see more of the tale unfold ends up not paying off as much as it should.