Ascendence is a demo divided into three scenes:
The professor in the big city: a clumsy professor is for some reason hunted by the servants of a mysterious criminal, the White Saint. The want to capture the professor alive for some reason. Of course, being a man of science, our protagonst will try to escape from them.
The warrior on the train: Cyrus is a honorable warrior that can conjure a magical weapon, and he finds himself in trouble while travelling by train. This scene is about him fighting troopers and avoiding furious passengers.
The mercenaries in the forest: a small squad of hired guns lead by Quinn the sniper has to escort someone important through a forest. The playable character here is Giqara, a young hot headed mercenary that wields a powerful bazooka, but often uses it to club enemies.
The warrior on the train: Cyrus is a honorable warrior that can conjure a magical weapon, and he finds himself in trouble while travelling by train. This scene is about him fighting troopers and avoiding furious passengers.
The mercenaries in the forest: a small squad of hired guns lead by Quinn the sniper has to escort someone important through a forest. The playable character here is Giqara, a young hot headed mercenary that wields a powerful bazooka, but often uses it to club enemies.
Ascendence is a strange mix of scenes and situations that probably were going to be connected into a full story (there were screenshots with Cyrus fighting side by side with Quinn, for example), and the demo is a mix of minigames, battles, quicktime events and stealth sections.
There are various custom systems, for example the game doesn't use the typical Mana to power special abilities: characters posses a pool of points called PSI, that are used to perform actions. Standard Attacks cost one single point of PSI, while more complex Combo Attacks or other special moves require the expenditure of more. An action called Guard Up lets the hero forfeit the attack to recover some PSI points.
There are various custom systems, for example the game doesn't use the typical Mana to power special abilities: characters posses a pool of points called PSI, that are used to perform actions. Standard Attacks cost one single point of PSI, while more complex Combo Attacks or other special moves require the expenditure of more. An action called Guard Up lets the hero forfeit the attack to recover some PSI points.
The game includes rips from games like Front Mission, and many edits and custom sprites that the author made freely available after cancelling the updates of the game.
Ascendence's won the following 2009 Misaos: Best Setting, Best Atmosphere, Best Sound & Music, Most Technical Prowess, Best Level Design, Best Interface Design, Most Promising Demo.
Random Fact: although the professor has no name, and he is simply know as the Professor, he physically looks like Cyrus and shares the same hairstyle. While this may be a coincidence since the two behave quite differently, it's more likely these two characters are somehow connected. I guess we'll never know!
Random Fact: this is an excellent demo, while not very long it shows lots of good aspects, ideas and great maps. Music and sounds are also pretty good, and the whole experience is memorable, albeit short.
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