As We Descend

The game boasts a unique and striking art style that blends grimdark, gothic, steampunk, and retro-post-apocalyptic elements, praised for its beautiful monster designs, animations, and atmospheric visuals. While the graphics are widely appreciated for their originality and aesthetic cohesion, some users note limited variety in unit designs and repetitive battle environments. Overall, the polished visuals and slick UI significantly enhance the immersive and compelling experience.

The story is currently underdeveloped and feels thin or absent, though its intriguing premise and engaging elements show clear potential. Many players appreciate the plot's foundation and character designs but note a lack of meaningful progression, depth, and integration with the gameplay that they hope will be addressed as the game moves beyond early access. Developer responsiveness and artistic quality raise expectations for future story expansion and richer world-building.

The game's music is widely praised for its fitting, immersive, and atmospheric qualities, often described as intense, original, and enhancing combat and boss encounters. While some note a lack of variation in the soundtrack, overall it complements the art and gameplay very well, contributing significantly to the game's engaging and memorable vibe.

Replayability is generally praised due to solid core mechanics, diverse faction synergies, and meta progression systems that encourage experimentation and multiple playthroughs. However, players note that limited content, repetitive bosses, and slow pacing can diminish replay value for some, with the potential for increased variety and additional content expected to enhance longevity. Overall, it offers strong replayability comparable to genre leaders, especially as ongoing updates expand the game.

The game's atmosphere is widely praised for its strong, immersive dark fantasy setting, complemented by impressive art direction, detailed worldbuilding, and fitting music and sound design. Players appreciate how the atmosphere enhances the lore and gameplay without overwhelming with exposition, creating a rich, lived-in world. While generally captivating and well-crafted, some hope for even deeper lore and progression in future updates.

Grinding in the game is a mixed experience: while some players find it tedious and slow, especially in later stages where battles feel repetitive, others appreciate the core gameplay and see grinding as a necessary part for progression. Overall, it can become grindy and requires better balance to maintain engagement.

Optimization is widely criticized, with users experiencing poor performance, especially during high action moments, and noticeable loading issues such as asset pop-ins and slow screen transitions. Overall, the game suffers from significant optimization problems that impact the user experience.

The game is generally stable and bug-free, offering a balanced and enjoyable experience with smooth gameplay. However, recent updates have introduced some glitches, including friendly fire from auto attacks and broken progression milestones, alongside unexpected difficulty spikes and reduced loot.

Players report a strong emotional connection to the game, likening their experience to the impactful feelings they had playing Darkest Dungeon for the first time, with many expressing genuine investment and heartfelt support.

Users appreciate the character design and visual style, highlighting them as standout elements. However, there is little mention of actual character development or growth within the narrative.

The humor is consistently described as funny, providing enjoyable and entertaining moments throughout the game.

The monetization is widely criticized as a cash grab, with an initially high $30 price aimed at capitalizing on hype, later lowered to $20 with discounts. Additionally, the developer reportedly distributed free copies to garner positive reviews, indicating an unfriendly and opportunistic approach.