Ascend to Zero Review – Time-Stopping To Triumph

If you are anything like me, then you love a roguelike game. Something about being able to improve after each run gives me adrenaline and excitement to hit the play button over and over. When Ascend to Zero started with its intro video, I was feeling a bit underwhelmed, in all honesty. I was not sure what direction the game would take or how the intro fit with the instructions listed on the title page under “How to Play”.

Ascend to Zero is an intense, quick-moving roguelike that plays with the essence of time. You start as the Chrono Child in the year 2225, enemy monsters have killed all of your friends and you enter a time machine to go to the past and change history. Inside the time machine, you come across a grid-based map, similar to The Binding of Isaac, except the paths are static with rooms connected to one another with a clear path that you can view each stage on the map. You must travel each path to free your friends, fighting a variety of different types of enemies along the way. 

There’s one catch, though: you have only 30 seconds to complete your run when starting, and you lose time if you are killed. You have an important mechanism to help you succeed, though, and that is your time stop. By pressing space, you can stop time for as long as you would like and collect experience, coins, or any drops from the enemies. Not only can you use time stop to collect items, but you can also use this power to dodge enemy attacks.

Each room has a number of bosses that are all a similar level. Enemies drop both experience and coins for you to pick up, established as green and blue spheres respectfully. If you feel you have a high enough level, you can skip a room and go through to the next one. There are also certain paths to bosses that you can decide to take, but it’s not necessary if you would rather skip them if you feel strong enough to keep going.

Ascend to Zero has a major learning curve, as even hours in, I was getting new information on different game mechanics. However, the simplicity of the game’s objective keeps it digestible throughout all the extra bits and bobs you learn along the way. Your weapons attack automatically and reload by themselves. Players are even able to choose whether to aim the weapons on their own, or have the weapons automatically aim.

You start in your base with virtually nothing unlocked. You have one character, Chrono Child, and its you against the world. You quickly get acquainted with Seis at the Supply Shop, who sells weapons, armor, devices, and even special items from time to time, as well as Gabriela, who is in charge of time machine management. You can use Zero Coins to buy items from Seis and Level Points to upgrade your Time Machine with Gabriele. You also have access to the mailbox to claim rewards and the Fate Editor for trait upgrades early on. You use Zero Cells to edit traits within the Fate Editor, such as increased looting chance, avatar bonuses, and gadget bonuses. As you complete more runs, you unlock more of the home base that you return to after every run.

At the top of the home base, you can see the slots for the ten playable characters within the game, which you unlock by accomplishing different missions. You also find and unlock gadgets along the way, which you can access on the upper-left side of your home base. Players are able to attach a permanent gadget and a non-permanent gadget each run, with the non-permanent gadget being found on the run.

When you start a run, you enter the time machine to go to the past. You then come to this intermediary area where you meet with Mimesis. Mimesis is a talking cube-head that gives you the ability to choose a random upgrade before embarking on your journey to save the past. As each run continues, you will run into different chests containing tech chips, weapon rewards, physical upgraders (stat chips), and time traces. Tech chips give a wide variety of different options, such as doing more damage quicker, melee or increase in crit damage, gadget skill additions, or other overall game enhancements. Weapon rewards will give you the opportunity to upgrade a current weapon or unlock a weapon slot that you don’t normally have. Stat chips increase attack, defense, luck, etc., and time traces give you extra time recovery, boss fight time bonuses, or another time-related reward.

Throughout the first stage, you unlock the supporting characters in your home base: Javier with item processing (and unlocks the warehouse), Mai who handles stat upgrades, and BIVI who does collection rewards. Javier is a very useful addition in the game, as you can convert temporary items into permanent items based upon a percentage chance, extract items you don’t want, and upgrade items to make them stronger.

This is a roguelike where everything you do matters, and you can actually feel yourself getting stronger with each and every run. You are able to start unlocking more device and weapon slots, unlock more content with each supporting character, and uncover more of the story.

The first map set players have to make it through is the Experiment Zone, followed by the second map set, the Desert Zone, and finally, the third map set being the contaminated, underground Canal. The third map set becomes its own beast, with rooms becoming contaminated as time passes, making it an even harder race against time. Every run ends with the opportunity to spend your score on that run, allowing you to get more items or temporary, one-use power cubes that are able to help you have an extra boost in your next run.

Overall, Ascend to Zero has all the makings of an amazing game. There is so much re-playability with four different difficulty levels, a plethora of different characters to play as, tons of gadgets to unlock, missions from each supporting character, and a concept that gives you an addictive adrenaline rush that makes you want to hit play over and over again for hours. I cannot recommend Ascend to Zero enough, and I hope everyone enjoys it while playing. Hats off to the development team at Flyaway Games, as they truly made what I believe will be the next big game.

Angel reviewed Ascend to Zero on PC with a provided review code. This review is based on the version of the game that was available at the time of writing, and our score will not be changed.