The Ascent (Hard) with icycalm, Hanged Man and Robomoo 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etPMm13_NzoThis game is siiiiiick. All the crappy isometric shooters we've endured over the years, the Hotline Miamis, the Synthetiks, the Helldivers; all this utter dreck is redeemed and finds its justification in
The Ascent. The action is fantastic, coming close to arcade quality in some respects, and in some respects surpassing it. The graphics and aesthetics are out of this world. Do you want to see an isometric game with higher production values and superior art direction than cutting-edge first-person games? Insane verticality, spaceships zooming by while taking up half the screen, a camera that pans intelligently at key points as if it's out of Xbox
Ninja Gaiden, and so much detail in the crowded writhing backgrounds that you'll wish you had a 4K projector and the game was turn-based so you could take it all in. Merely on account of the graphics and art direction, everyone ought to play this game. If you're a graphics whore, don't hesitate, but make sure you have at least 40 inches (100 would be better). Plot and setting and voice acting are done to a way higher standard than you'd expect for this sort of game, and I'd have loved to dive into this world in a full-blown RPG. The thought of a Starfinder game in this engine and these graphics kept popping in my head every other screen.
As for the genre, it's a unique blend of diablolike, twin-stick shooter and RPG. It has way better action than any diablolike, due to the twin-stick mechanics, and way better immersion in the story due to the care the developers have put into the world and dialogues and production values, and the result is something that hasn't really been done before. Maybe that's how the newer Ys games play, but I haven't tried them, plus I doubt their action is this good, and of course they aren't four-player. What's actually closest to this are the PS2 Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance games, and Xbox
Dungeons & Dragons: Heroes. That's what this plays like, or if you want a more recent example, it plays like
Darksiders Genesis, but with way more exploration and talking and quest managing etc., i.e. way less linear. From my three hours with the game I would give it 5/5, if not indeed VGART.
Only thing is... some of the guys on Steam are saying the second half of the game isn't as good as the first half. Now normally I would not have read those reviews and spoiled the game for me, because hearing this obviously dampens your enthusiasm, which isn't good. I would rather blissfully enjoy the first half, and go into the second half blind, but in this case I felt the need to research this so I don't get a bunch of people excited to buy the game, only to be later disappointed. At any rate, remember that
Halo had the same problem, and it was still a masterpiece.
So you've been warned. Either way, nothing that happens later can change the fact that the three hours I've already played are some of the best gaming I've done all year, or ever, and I can't wait to play more. I even think I have a fourth for my group, some guy from Steam who played some PA with us a few years ago. He has the game and has put a couple hours into it and has no group, so we'll try playing with him to complete the team.
Btw, I think this game should be enjoyable with all team sizes, and even solo. If you play solo, you'll be able to take it slower and talk to everyone and read everything and experience everything yourself, because if you play with a team, the game is so packed with stuff that the players inevitably spread out and trigger different discussions and missions, and you basically have to tell each other what you heard and what you saw to piece the plot together. This I find very immersive, and I certainly prefer it to playing the game alone, as in my view it's not a big deal if you don't end up with a perfect grasp of what happened. It's still just an action game at the end of the day—it's not Deus Ex or anything—but there's enough worldbuilding there to make you feel as if you're playing an RPG—but without bogging the game down and detracting from the action.
It's really quite a remarkable game, and I half-expect to reach the second half and find out that the Steam guys were full of shit.
Play this fucking game.