Ash of Gods is really frustrating but...

So, get this, right? This game is kind of like a visual novel except all the dialog feels oddly translated. Some of it feels good, other times you have dialog that sounds way out of place. And man, if you love reading and asking inane questions to NPC's nonstop while they give you confusing nonsensical answers, then boy howdy is this game for you. Speaking of bad dialog, here is the game in the nutshell:

It's Banner Saga except instead of the gods all gone, the gods are all gone and now angry demi-gods do this crossed comic book thing where they mind control a bunch of hillbilly mountain folk, Chinese people, and tall albino rastas with masks to start the end times by just marching around and murdering/sexually assaulting everyone. To stop the chinese/viking/cool runnings doomsday, you play as three different parties. Two consists of ultimate hardcore alpha dudes you will have no trouble with and the other being a stupid old man and his idiot mentally slow daughter who is complete garbage that you will grow to hate. The artwork and world building seem really good, but then you have gritty russian to english translations where some guy has a paragraph about how he eat out his horses butt after you ask him about a market or something which feels insanely out of place. So, you know, it's a mixed bag.

The gameplay is also a mixed bag. Combat feels fair (Except for one fight at the end that needs a fix) and has some nice strategy elements that are fun to play with. Traveling on the world map on the other hand is not fun. Thrill as your old worthless gheezer of a hero uses up all his resources and after countless failures leading to reloading until you eventually chart out the perfect path/answers to random events to make it to the end. Now, imagine that combined with countless reading inbetween of bad translated fantasy mumbo-jumbo. Yes, it's as terrible as it sounds if you are a aspergery completionist like most of us and want that perfect ending. On the bright side, if you don't really care about that, thrill as you can kill of most of the players and still finish the game.

"Oh, that just means it's difficult, right? True hardcore gamers can get to the end, no problem?" Nah, it's actually just super frustrating and time consuming when you pick LEFT instead of RIGHT and due to picking a bad path you end up a couple of hours later down the road with all your resources gone because of some terrible event you could have never predicted. Only rarely did I feel like I was challenged in the combat section of the game, but the map? That map. That map is no good for a normal gamer . That map is better suited for some crazy nolife who spends countless hours on excel to chart out the most effecient routes and what random events to snag at whatever times.

Honestly, the game is fun but it's has so many little issues that keep it from being great. Why can't I just skip to important plot choices without having to read nonstop for a second playthrough? Why in combat does the AI range from "durr we will buff each other over and over again" to "HARDCORE KILL HIS ARCHERS FIRST" difficulty despite being the same reaper level? Why can't I sell items I have that I will never use? No, I don't want this -5 health braclet that gives +1 attack. Why would I want this? Let me sell it. Why is there countless ways to get a deadman walking equiviliant (bad ending) by picking some inane dialog option like "gee the weather is nice" instead of the correct option that is "the weather is ok, oink." or by using up like, a single day to rest? Why does the music in the game cutout randomly when I load? Why are some of the combat animations really dumb? WHY DOES THIS GAME TAKE SO LONG TO LOAD SOMETIMES DESPITE MY SSD BEING INSANELY GOOD?! WHY?!

The game length is surpisingly long. Most games on steam you only get two hours of play - but this? Yeeesh, the amount of drunk babblefish writing in here alone would take most people forever to plow through.

So, yeah. It's a fun game but it's got major problems. If you can get over the poorly translated dialog sections that pop up now and then, the bad sierra style railroads to defeat and seeing that those cute loading bar skeletons being burned into your eyeballs - then yeah, it's an interesting game and worth a play.