Ascent of Kings (Wii U) Review

Right out of the gate, it's clear Ascent of Kings is trying to invoke a classical sense of adventure with its minimalistic approach to art and writing. The characters and scenery are as simple as they could possibly be without being literal lines of codes, looking like something straight out of MS Paint, while the story is a bare bones beat-by-beat quest that somehow manages to miss its clear Aesop parallel.

With so little time and thought put into its secondary aspects, it's beyond disappointing that the gameplay doesn't pick up the slack in any way whatsoever, instead opting for the bare minimum under the guise that a US$2 price tag doesn't necessitate the same kind of quality a $60 one does. It brings up the question of whether or not a price tag should indicate some sort of standard; should a $2 title be expected to be bad? Honestly, no, it shouldn't.

A price tag, at most, should excuse length, but never quality. Does Ascent of King's price tag excuse its length, then? No, it doesn't do that, either. Being crowned king takes less than an hour, and exploring the whole map adds about another 20 minutes, tops.

There's no longevity to the platforming; there's no jump, or screen, or moment that sticks out as memorable, despite the developer desperately trying to create memorable moments that hark back to the great Metroidvanias of yore. A fall into a lava canyon has as much impact as the initial dive into a pond during the tutorial. Nothing leaves the lasting impression that's expected out of a quality videogame experience.

There are attempts at creating some sort of challenge with precision jumping, but as dying has no consequence, it feels more like a nuisance than anything just missing a ledge and plummeting to the screen below. The jumping is made worse by a double jump being found roughly ten minutes in, with all potential need for skill being thrown out of the window.

A low price tag doesn't excuse the low amount of effort put into Ascent of Kings. Everything works on a technical level, but it's just so unimaginative that it can't justify a second play-through, let alone a first. It's a meandering mess of ideas taken from far better platformers, blended together in an hour-long hurricane that destroys any and all quality in its path. There's simply no appeal to the MS Paint drawn world that's been created; it's a boring and thoughtless mini-disaster that should just be ignored and forgotten.