Fallen Tear: The Ascension Early Access Preview A Promising Story-Driven Metroidvania

Fallen Tear: The Ascension is coming out in early access on March 17, and we got to preview the game before the release here at the GamerzTheory. Fallen Tear is a story-driven Metroidvania-style game where you play as Hira, an up-and-coming hunter with a mysterious past who might be the last hope to save the world.

Pick Up and Play

One of the most frustrating parts of any game can be returning to the game after a few weeks off and trying to remember all the combos and buttons to play the game effectively. One thing I quite enjoyed about Fallen Tear is that the game runs a very simplified control scheme, combos are simple and easy to execute when you unlock new abilities, and each button serves a singular purpose. Never does it feel like you get caught trying to hit a button to do one action, and you end up doing another. A classic example is when the A button on the controller is both jump and talk to NPCs and you end up jumping all around NPCs when you want to talk to them.

This does, however, come with a few small downsides. Just as a note, the game does recommend a controller. I used an Xbox controller for my playthrough, so my experience will reflect that button layout. Combat, for instance, revolves almost entirely around the X button, which oftentimes led to what would best be described as button spamming a lot of the time, as my main attacks and combos were all X button related. You do have a few extra attacks that are mapped to the other letters, but for the most part, combat got a bit repetitive mashing X.

Can Too Simple Be Wrong?

Another issue, and this was fully self-inflicted, as you can remap the buttons on the options screen. This is a small personal rant. Due to the simple style of the control scheme, several buttons go unused for long periods of time. Neither the B nor Y buttons had standalone controls for several hours of gameplay before new abilities were eventually unlocked, which I do think contributed to the spammy feel of combat.

While the B and Y are modifiers for your follower's abilities, those are not used as frequently. Again, you could rebind things like dodge to B. It would then leave the default dodge button, RB, on my Xbox controller, completely untouched. It just felt slightly odd having the buttons just go unused. I don’t think this is even a bad thing, just something that kept coming up during my time playing as I felt like my hand would sometimes rarely move from one position for dozens of minutes.

As Alive as 2D Can Be

While 2D worlds can feel flat at times, especially as you go from area to area, one thing I quite enjoyed about Fallen Tear was how areas would have background movement that was not only relevant to the area but also made the world just feel much more alive. While fighting off a wave of bandits, I would occasionally see shadows of bandits running in the background forest or a silhouette pop up in the foreground before fading away. It really did a good job of making the game live and breathe and not just have static camera movement as you moved from area to area. 

Additionally, the soundtrack to me did a great job of complimenting the game while not being overbearing. Different areas had just the right touch of musical change that would eventually fade out the longer you spent in an area to avoid becoming too repetitive. I felt like the soundtrack did a great job of giving the game emotions, the forests were made soothing and calming, but anytime a boss monster or fight occurred, the tone would shift, and it really kept the gameplaying moving in a great direction.

Two For the Price of One

One of my personal favorites about Fallen Tear is your ability to progress through two separate storylines simultaneously. While Hira must help save the world, they are also an aspiring hunter, someone who takes down corrupted monsters to stop their spread. While you have your main quest, you also pick up hunts to target specific monsters, which not only encourages exploration to a zone you might have been saving for later, it also gives this nice alternative if your preferred path is locked behind new skills.

One of my favorite parts of the boss fights is that Fallen Tear does a great job countering the sometimes dreadful dodge meta. Bosses and other strong enemies will sometimes cast dodgeable skills, meaning you cannot just button press through them. They are still avoidable, which is a nice change, as sometimes I feel games can fall too much into this dodge and counter system, where you spend the entire game dodging looking for a chance to swing every 10 seconds.

Metroidvania Style

With Fallen Tear being upfront about its Metroidvania style, it's easy to know what you are getting into and what to expect, a non-linear story path with a focus on navigating large interconnected maps and ability-gated progression. I get that backtracking is part of the game. However, the early game sometimes requires significant backtracking with teleports being unavailable at that time. I understand this is the style, but having to walk all the way back to the main hub after the first mission really slogged down my first hours of gameplay.

On top of this, the early game unlocks felt very slow. My first combo was not unlocked until a couple of hours in, and my next combo was gated behind ability unlocks that took several more hours to complete. Once you start unlocking abilities, it creates a bit more creativity to fights, and gaining the progression so heavily at times was unfortunate. My final notes on the gameplay would be that the difficulty felt quite well done, I played on normal, the hardest setting available in Early Access, and enemies felt tough but fair, nothing to bullet spongy or forcing perfect play in order to survive.

Roadmap

For those interested, a roadmap has been posted for the Early Access releasing March 17th, which will include the following 

• · 10 major regions with interconnected areas 

• · 6 main bosses + 3 optional side bosses 

• · 10 Fated Bonds, each with unique abilities and story moments 

• · Full combat, progression, and exploration systems & features available 

• · 3 Ascensions available 

• · 3 Hunter Skills available 

• · 16 Mastery Skills available – ( Tier I to Tier II ) 

• · Opening act of the story, fully playable 

• · 15–20 hours of gameplay, depending on playstyle

The Early Access will focus primarily on polish, bug and balance fixes before the game heads right into the 1.0 release which will add in,

• · Additional 10 major regions with interconnected areas 

• · Additional 5 main bosses + 19 optional side bosses 

• · Additional 11 Fated Bonds, each with unique abilities and story moments 

• · Full combat, progression, and exploration systems & features available 

• · Additional 3 Ascensions available 

• · Additional 6 Hunter Skills are available 

• · Additional 4 Elemental Imbuements 

• · Additional 16 Mastery Skills available – ( Tier III to Tier IV ) 

• · 35–40 hours of gameplay, depending on play style 

• · 80+ hours of gameplay for completionists