So often these days, gamers are presented with RPGs that try to dazzle us with high-definition graphics, glitzy special effects, sexy voice acting, and huge explorable worlds. However, older gamers remember the RPG style from its golden age: the 16-bit era on the Super Nintendo and the Sega Genesis. Inspired by how these games dealt with graphical limitations, SRRN Games brings us Ash for the iPhone and iPod Touch, a game that remembers clearly what brought excellence to the 16-bit days. I’ll be frank and say this up front: I absolutely loved Ash, and firmly believe that every RPG fan with an iOS device should do themselves a favor and pick this game up.
What you get
Ash brings you traditionally styled 16-bit JRPG influenced game. It includes all the classic staples, including several towns and dungeons to explore, people to talk to, items to collect, and environments to interact with. The length is long enough to feel you get your money’s worth, while not outstaying its welcome as a mobile game; as such, it took me a rather hearty 15-20 hours to complete while actively looking for its hidden items and bonus boss battles.
Characters
The characters are surprisingly deep.
The best RPGs thrive most when they have memorable characters, and I’m happy to report that Ash does this quite well. By now, it’s hard to have characters in an RPG that don’t follow some kind of stereotype or trope, but SRRN Games does a good job of breaking the mold. Instead of a cliched over-the-top cast of young, spiky-haired happy anime heroes, Ash instead presents a group that is much more down-to-earth and personable. In turn, I found myself actually giving a damn about what happened next to them, something I find myself doing less and less in today’s gaming environment.
You start out with Nicholas and Damien, a pair of wandering mercenaries. Nicholas is the battle-hardened and somewhat crotchety and aging man, with Damien contrasting well as a younger man and much more laid back. While they start out sounding like your typical swords-for-hire characters, I found their personalities very endearing and very much alive. When faced with ethical dilemmas or danger, they react in a very real and human way, something something I don’t see often enough. What really shocked me, though, was just how emotional Nicholas’ past was when it was finally revealed… and how it actually moved me as well.
The witty banter between characters is hilarious, bringing them all to life.
But Ash isn’t all about its melodrama—this game is balanced with loads of comedy and witty banter. Nicholas and Damien constantly bicker and sling insults around, in a manner only best friends could do. The fun only gets better when the other two party members you meet join the team; I’ll be honest, I haven’t laughed this much at the antics of RPG characters since Lunar 2: Eternal Blue on the PlayStation One. NPCs you talk to along the way also have a way of spicing things up with some fun one-liners of their own. This makes it intrinsically rewarding to talk to everyone in town, as you never know what they’ll have to say to you to flesh out the world around you.
Story
Similar to the fun and surprisingly deep characters, the story of Ash is good, keeping me interested throughout the game. While it’s no A Game of Thrones, it fit the bill as a 16-bit era tribute perfectly. Ash does have a few cliches, such as the all-too-used “big bad oppressive and neglectful empire” that was popular in RPGs (and hell, to a great degree it still is), but there’s still plenty of little twists that make it stand apart.
Nicholas and Damien are not your typical RPG heroes, concerned more with survival.
What I liked most about the story is that it focused tightly on the characters in your main party. This means that there was no cutting away from the characters or other disorienting and annoying distractions. Everything you see is told in the context of how it affects the people in your party—the ones that really mattered most to me. No princesses to save, no multi-step fetch quests to toil over. Everything was about how recent events affect Nicholas and Damien, and how they’re going to survive the next day.
One thing that was a bit disorienting at first was the backstory of Nicholas and Damien. For at least the first third of the game, there was a gaping void about who they were and why they were always on the run. This admittedly made me a little slow to warm up to them, as I was afraid the writers were never going to touch on it. Fortunately, they do, and it makes sense why their stories were withheld—but be prepared for an emotional trip.
Controls
Menus make full use of touch controls.
While the game definitely has its inspiration from the 16-bit realm, its controls have to compromise between being familiar while still taking advantage of the touch display. For walking around towns and the world map, the game offers two distinct control methods and the option to switch between them. The first is to touch on the screen in the direction you’d like your main character to walk: above where he is currently standing to walk North, below for South, and so on. If you’re near a character or object to interact with, just tap them to engage. I found this to be a bit awkward, as my thumb was constantly covering parts of the screen, and moving it around so much was bothersome. Fortunately, the second option is a more traditional cross-shaped virtual D-pad and “A” button in the bottom corners of the screen, which worked fairly well—I made a few mis-placed steps, but since it’s an RPG and not an action game, it was never a big deal.
The turn-based battles and menu screens, on the other hand, lend itself well to the touch screen controls. When it’s an allied character’s turn, simply tap the enemy you wish to attack. If you want to use an ability, just tap its icon, then tap the ally or enemy to use it on. In theory and in practice, it worked out quite well and I found it be faster than classic RPGs that had you use a D-pad to select menu commands. Likewise, when outside of battle, the menu screen used to equip weapons & armor or use healing items and spells is touch-based and equally intuitive.
Dialog has both forward and repeat buttons.
If I had to choose, though, the control feature I liked best was how spoken dialog is handled. Most RPGs only have a “next” arrow flashing to advance the conversation, making it so that if you missed something, you couldn’t go back and re-read something. Fortunately, Ash was smart enough to include both the conversation advancement and a previous button to repeat what was recently said. It may seem like a simple feature, but I found myself using it quite often, especially if I missed the punchline of a joke and had to back up to get it.
Gameplay
At its core, Ash is a 16-bit JRPG-styled game, and as such does not attempt to break any boundaries defined by the genre. You wander towns, talk to villagers, buy items and gear, equip weapons and armor, crawl dungeons, fight random encounters, gain money, and level up. Since most time in RPGs are spent between walking around, switching out gear in the menus, and fighting monsters, I’ll brush on all three.
There’s a surprising amount to see and do in the various towns you’ll encounter in Ash. In fact, I found that 95% of my enjoyment of the game came here. Towns are brimming with NPCs to talk to, each of which has their own personality and really breathe life into the game’s world. Ranging from informative to downright hilarious, I found it very rewarding to talk to everyone for the full experience.
Ash is full of running gags and fun secrets to explore, such as this reappearing ugly hat.
Likewise, a great deal of the props and items can be inspected for what I call “flavor text”, especially in houses and taverns. The amount of detail and thought that went into these messages really blew me away, and many times I’ve found myself quite literally laughing aloud. While Ash is generally a serious game, it is not afraid to make fun of itself and the stock 16-bit RPG tropes we’ve all come to love (and hate). Running gags include poking fun at how every house’s shelf always looks the same, an ever-present ugly green feathered hat found in every shop, and a mysteriously elusive (and effeminate) Captain Fabulous. Along with these running gags, there are even cameo references to pop internet culture memes, including a book on Pirates vs. Ninjas and a bumbling soldier named Leeroy Jenkins. Even with all this humor, it never gets in the way of the main storyline and remains delightfully low-key.
Dungeons and the world map both give way to a classic RPG element I for one do not welcome back. I of course speak of the dreaded element, the random encounter. Yes, Ash has them, and in copious amounts. Expect a random encounter every 10 or so steps along the way, making exploring an arduous task. As expected, having the patience to explore is frequently rewarded with treasure chests, but even then they are often unhelpful and serve only as something fun to collect. Fortunately each random battle is fairly quick to finish, but I really would have preferred less frequent battles.
The battle interface is entirely touch-based.
Speaking of battles, the battle system is fairly mediocre. Characters and enemies take turns, based on how speedy they are. At the top of the screen, you can see who acts next, allowing for some strategy. Likewise, when it’s an ally’s turn, they can hold action and let the next-in-line to go first, then going right after—again, good for strategic purposes. Beyond turn order controls, characters can do a standard melee attack, use skills/magic, use restorative items, or flee (which thankfully works 100% of the time for normal battles). The special abilities and magic are fairly balanced and useful, some of which work together; for example, one character has an ability to “expose” an enemy’s weak points, and another can exploit any “exposed” enemy to do extra damage.
While the battle system is solid enough to get you through the story, it certainly could have used more polish. Damage and status ailments are only learned by reading the text box, which scroll automatically making it easy to miss what just happened. Bouncing damage/healing numbers would have helped alleviate the confusion, as well as the classic ailment/buff icons (like “Zz” balloons for sleeping characters, etc.). Also, on occasion if I tap a skill to use, it won’t let me tap an ally as it “locks up”, and I have to click out of the skill menu and try again. Ultimately it never broke the battle system, and hopefully the SRRN team will have a stronger system in the sequel.
Graphics & Art
This is a very interesting and a somewhat difficult part to critique. Practically all of the graphical assets in the game were licensed and used from Enterbrain’s RPG Maker VX suite. This includes the character portraits, sprites, enemies, backgrounds, and map tilesets. But is this really such a bad thing?
The game's art is licensed from RPG Maker VX, but fits well and looks great.
At first I was a bit put off by what felt like a cop-out. However, after playing the game and finding out what was really dwelling inside, I changed my mind. As a smaller game development studio, it was most definitely the best move they could have possibly made. In fact, according to an entry on their development blog, they had numerous attempts to find an artist to create original art for the game, but could not find anyone able to do it in their budget range. If licensing artwork meant allowing the project to continue, then it was the right decision.
And you know what? The RPG Maker VX assets look pretty damn good anyways. In particular, the character portrait art looks fantastic, with a lot of emotion captured the anime-esque faces. Map tilesets also look good, and more importantly were implemented well to create a world that made sense and was easy to navigate. My only complaint is that the artwork for the enemies did not match the style of the characters, causing a bit of a mismatch.
Audio
In short, the sound and musical score used in Ash was exactly what it needed to be for this title. Composed by Nathan Winder, the soundtrack has every emotion covered and fits the feel of the game well. Village themes are relaxing, times of excitement are upbeat, and those serious moments of character development actually get me a bit choked up thanks to the sobering melodies. Perhaps more important to me, the battle theme never got old, and the few boss encounters got the adrenaline flowing.
If Ash had lyrics, they would sound like this.
The OST (Original Sound Track) was originally freely available for download on SRRN’s homepage. However, Nathan has since brought his works to both iTunes and Amazon.com, and possibly a few other sites. I highly recommend listening to the free 30-second clips of both “01 Ash (Title Theme)” and “02 Dreams from Another Time (Overworld Theme)“. The former is an entrancing piano piece, with the latter featuring a beautiful acoustic guitar melody.
Ultimately, while the soundtrack can’t rival Final Fantasy and Chrono Trigger, it fits the game well enough. However, there were a few flaws I must admit to hearing. A couple of the tracks had a few crackles and pops that occurred at the same position, probably compression artifacts. Two other songs sounded jumbled, skipping around the track oddly. After talking with SRRN staff member John Will, these are known issues and will be hopefully rectified soon in an update. In the meantime, while distracting, these artifacts were nothing more than a minor distraction.
Summary
Ash is a great balance of fun characters and an emotionally moving story to keep pace.
While being far from perfect, I think that Ash is definitely worth a try. I admit that the battle system was bland, and the frequent random battles were a bit of a drag. But if you can look past these, a stage with wonderfully entertaining characters and some of the wittiest writing I’ve seen in ages awaits you. The soundtrack is fitting, and the licensed RPG Maker VX visuals look good enough.
For those still on the fence, there is a free demo called Ash Lite. I’d say give it a try first, as it covers a good deal of the opening hour or two of the game. If you’re convinced, the game is a very reasonable $4.99 on the iTunes App Store. Seriously guys, don’t let this one pass you by—at least give the demo a chance.
Pros
- Very witty style of writing
- Entertaining, lifelike characters
- Soundtrack has some very nice, melodic songs
- Tons of little cameos and fun surprises scattered about to explore
Cons
- Random battles are extremely frequent
- Battle system is mediocre in execution
- Has some bugs to tweak and audio compression artifacts (should be fixed in an update)
- Not fully a con, but lack of original artwork was a bit different
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