Astria Ascending caught our attention when it was unveiled in March for its gorgeous hand-drawn visuals. French-Canadian developer Artisan Studios, who created the Super Neptunia RPG, enlisted plenty of JRPG talent to help them create the game.
The story is written by Kazushige Nojima, best known for his work on the Final Fantasy series, spanning from VII all the way to today with XV and VII Remake. Composer Hitoshi Sakimoto, who provided memorable scores for Final Fantasy XII, Vagrant Story, and Valkyria Chronicles, is behind the music. While the art comes from Akihiko Yoshida, the main character designer on Nier: Automata and Bravely Default, and Hideo Minaba, who was a primary art lead on Final Fantasy Tactics and Final Fantasy’s IX and XIV.
The RPG’s beauty and exciting talent speak for themselves, but how does it play? With just about a month out from launch, Alex Stadnik and I recently went hands-on with the game to find out, playing through its first few hours. It’s certainly taking plenty of cues from Square Enix’s Bravely Default series, putting an emphasis on using your turns wisely, maximizing the potential of your party members’ job abilities, and having elemental strengths and weaknesses integral to your success.
Join us in the latest New Gameplay as we dissect how that works to Astria Ascending’s advantage, while we also discuss what we find promising and where we have concerns. Get ready to see some dungeons, turn-based combat, and a big boss fight for good measure!
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