There is a difference when it comes to playing commercial games vs rpgmaker ones... when playing a commercial game that you like or have been waiting for a long time, there is that feeling that you experience that makes you end up stuck playing for hours from the minute that you start playing the game. This is rarely a thing that you can experience when playing
many rpgmaker games, and that is due to the vast amount of games that many developers fail to put effort on, to get to this point... and with that said, let's go ahead and check Ascendence, a game that will make you glued for hours...

Ascendence starts with you taking on the role of the "proffesor", a mysterious character that seems to be hiding a past
within him without really being aware of it, as expressed in the first sceneries in the game. What appears to be a normal day for the proffesor on his way against time to go to work, turns out into unexplicable events filled with obstacles and personalities related to the proffesor in past times, only leading to many questions that he can't explain himself due to not being able to remember or understand his past... a past that everyone who tries to get a hold of him knows... a past that only the rest of ascendence is willing to explain in the next updates.

The graphics are very well polished, Ascendence covers many of the small details that everyone wishes they could see in every rpgmaker game out there... many character animations, animated cutscenes, ambiental sound effects, and many other details that creates a very vivid scenery in every part of the game... and what's most impressive is that many of these amazing scenes are done only with charasets! You can clearly notice the hard work that has been put in this game, and can only expect more of the same in the future releases of the game.

Not only Ascendence has great plot/story and graphics, it is also a lot of fun! the game features an action system that will require you to press the "action" button to perform certain actions required in various of the scenes. An example of this is an scene where you are being shot by several soldiers from afar, requiring you to press the "action" button in order to jump and run towards the enemy... failure of performing this at the right timing, result in you losing health, thus making your coming fight with the soldiers more harder, as you will have less HP depending on how many times you got shot beforehand.

The places in the game are vast, although in this version some very very few things seemed linear, there is still soo much to explore, things to interact from time to time, the list goes on...

The default rpgmaker battle system is used in the game, but unlike the typical boring stuff, it is very well polished and has customization in it, making it feel a lot different than what the system provides under basic terms. To perform actions you must have Ip points... these points are spend depending on how much an attack consumes when using it. To recharge the
points you must select "guard" and that will allow you to restore the points, while at the same time cuts damage taken from the enemy... pretty cool huh? :)

The music in the game is very well selected, most of them (if not all!) matches the expression of the scenery at present. Not only that, while it denotes a lot of action and suspense, it is also pleasant to hear. The sound effects are very well placed, and that's not to say almost everything has a sound placed in where it's needed... crickets in the forest, people talking in crowded areas, and many many variations of ambiental sound effects for each place and scene.

Now, I knew of the existence of some of the author's past games done with rpgmaker, and although the past games were really good, I got totally wowed at how this game totally stands as what it seems to be his best creation so far. Ascendence not only promises (and proves!) that it is a lot of fun, it is a masterpiece with the potential to inspire many rpgmaker developers, or indie developers in overall!

Now, if you ever read any of my past reviews I have done for rpgmaker games, you then know how picky I am when recommending games to anyone, and in the case of Ascendence, this is totally a game that you must play. I had soo much fun writing a review for this game, and I'm willing to do it again in the future... wait for the completed version the end of this year!