ASKA Preview: Ugly as Sin But Addictively Fun | Worth the Viking Survival Grind?

A Viking journey of survival that crashed hard upon the shoreline, only to pick itself up and lead a band of new settlers. Is it worth surviving?

ASKA is a Viking survival management game that brings a hook of resource gathering to build and expand your settlement, paired with the management of awkward NPCs who need to be babysat as you grow, call in more villagers from your Eye of Odin stone, and fight off Viking mythological creatures.

My Viking Story Begins

Our ship crashed ashore, and as we stumble to our feet, we’re left with nothing but our wits and survival skills. ASKA puts players in the hands of the Viking Gods as they set out on their journey to build a new settlement and face mystical monsters such as Fenrir and many other monstrous beings on the island. With the latest update, we can now head back out to sea with our newly crafted ship and trusty crew in search of more resources and islands to explore. There isn’t much lore to begin the quest as a Viking, but the setting is enough to propel me into what quickly became 30-plus hours of rebuilding, making mistakes, and getting frustrated with my mindless villagers.

Learning where to begin is always exciting and sometimes a very rewarding part of any new survival game. Did I pick the right location?

I failed in my selection to claim a good location. I should have selected an open and flat stretch of land to build my thriving village. Instead, I ended up on shore with a rock-filled hillside. Like most players, when washed ashore in ASKA, one may think that being by the water is a great location to begin your journey and claim this land as your new settlement. It features a bountiful forest, vegetation, plenty of stone and water - it has it all. As per my procedurally generated land, it seemed perfect. I found my location, and it was time to get started.

Though my story begins here, I question where it’s going and whether there is more to this untold tale.

What Story?

If you are looking for a story that will set you upon an emotional Viking adventure, you will not find one here. The story that lies ahead is created by the player and their experience, their adventures, and of course, their failures. There is certainly a lot of opportunity to build a Viking’s tale, which lies with the dev team if they see the opportunity, but currently, that story cutscene ends when you crash your ship at the very beginning of the game.

Who Failed?

Unfortunately, I quickly found that although building my settlement was addictive and quickly hooked me into learning what my next set of materials would be to build the Carpenter’s House, I needed to build some defenses to hold off the creatures that would come to torment my villagers. This is where I failed - or rather, the game failed me.

Building on the water has some unforgiving setbacks. ASKA is all about crafting, building, and managing your villagers. This will require you to fortify your location from outside intruders. However, you are unable to do this on the water. I wasn’t able to build my fenceline along the water; instead, this allowed wisps and other creatures to enter the settlement. Hopefully, Sand Sailor Studio will address this issue in the future.

There are ways to work around this matter, but if I was just able to create a fenceline within the shoreline, this issue would have been resolved. For now, my villagers feel “Unsafe.” This was the beginning of my frustrations, as the NPCs (my villagers) are some of the most mindless, unthoughtful, forward-thinking AI I have had the pleasure to command. Though, this is where the management portion of the game comes into play. Each movement needs to be laid out before the villagers; this is the management side of the game, and something that players may find less rewarding than the building and crafting aspect of the game. Let me explain:

The Hunter’s House is built. My hunters do their job - they kill and skin the animal, bringing back the meat and leather scraps that will be used for other tasks back at the settlement. The hunters hang the meat on the rack and then turn and look towards me to let me know they are hungry.

Great, you’re hungry, go cook the meat you just hung on the rack… but they can’t do that, because they are a hunter, not a cook. Welcome to the management of the game. Now I’m tasked with finding a cook who collects the meat from the hunters and prepares the once raw meat into cooked meat or a meal of sorts.

The management skill of the game will come in time but can become a bit overwhelming when approached by 20, 30, or even 100 villagers asking for some bit of help. There’s no shortage of requests to keep a leader going.

Shipwrecked

The visuals were unfortunately lost at sea. ASKA needs a graphical facelift! Note, the game is in Early Access and there could be a chance for some graphical enhancements in the future, but as of this writing, it’s not pretty! Some of the vegetation looks nice as the ray’s shine through the treetops in the morning light, but it quickly ends there. Our character looks like they smashed their face into the side of the ship when it crashed. The icons when you begin selecting your next villager to join you via the Eye of Odin stone are sad assets that will take you back to PS2 days of yesteryear. The villagers often look the same or feature the same name. ASKA is not an attractive-looking game; in fact, it’s one of the worst-looking games I’ve played in a long time. This isn’t a style choice, this is just bad art, and clumsy animation. Some animations will have players arms twist to weird and unfathomable area’s. Chopping a tree would require one to HOLD the axe, but maybe the mind is more powerful than I thought in this case. ASKA requires a lot more polish before its final release.

Yet, as ugly as the game is, it’s also one of the most enjoyable games I’ve played in a long time as well. If you can get past the graphical ugliness, you will be rewarded with exploration, various crafting, wonderous boss encounters , expanding buildings to greater heights, and learning the ways of managing your villagers to lead you to Odin himself.

Building Together

There are several great features to ASKA that will keep fans of the crafting survival genre busy for hours. As previously mentioned, I’m currently over 30 hours into the game with no signs of slowing down. Building a sustainable settlement is certainly a challenge; aligning your villagers with tasks that will provide for everyone’s needs and become a living, breathing settlement is satisfying and rewarding.

Working together and managing your villagers becomes easier with help. Co-op is a great feature and will also help to have a friend manage others, build, and fight off the never-ending invasion of creatures. Playing with others will certainly make your time with ASKA more enjoyable and easier to battle the boss encounters along your way.

Though ASKA has room for improvement, I’d recommend you check it out if you’re a fan of Vikings and the survival genre. Just squint when you look at the game!