Delicious Fruit
Download Game 3 Reviews:
PlutoTheThing
Reincarnation Ascension is a game that's fallen into a very unfortunate category of avoidance, being a prime example of one of the nastiest things in the avoidance hall of fame. It’s not quite like the other games in this status though, it’s not a despair avoidance where it’s brutally hard and fast barrage where both skill and a large amount of luck are required to succeed. In fact, this game is mostly pattern, however it still manages to have quite an infamous reputation. The reasons why this game is bad are a bit hard to explain concisely, so I’ll try to be a bit elaborate and go into my personal views on avoidance design, and why this game misses the mark.
One of the most important aspects of almost any avoidance is the song. The song is not just a thing playing in the background to give some audio cues and carry the avoidance forward, it’s for many fights, the most basic aspect the fight is built around. The most iconic avoidances are often ones that can take the song and interweave the gameplay with it, making an experience which feels almost choreographed to whatever song was chosen. Some songs are definitely more conducive to an avoidance, whereas others aren’t. It’s definitely bold to make an avoidance to a song that’s maybe not as suited to more traditional avoidance attack design and pacing, and that’s the thing I respect the most about Reincarnation Ascension. The song is an eerie, unsettling miku song with dubstep segments that goes on for 7 minutes. I can’t imagine it’s easy to make an avoidance to something like this, so even trying is commendable. However, I think the challenges presented by the song kind of cause the avoidance to collapse on itself. It’s not all bad, I think the visuals are hit or miss, there’s a lot of bits that maybe feel a bit empty but I think there’s the groundwork for something really cool looking here, and some sections are really nice. From a practical standpoint some segments are also too dark, to the point where you may need to adjust your monitor, but it’s not the biggest problem. The bullet movement is probably my favorite part of the visuals, especially the final pattern of the fight, with the big cherries spinning around and the stuff orbiting them, it’s chaotic and dizzying and the song feels like it’s spiraling in a chaotic way, it’s really nice and a very cool ending on paper. Considering the fight is somewhat reserved in what the attacks are conceptually, I definitely think it’s clear effort was put into the fight and there’s elements of something great. However it’s impossible to talk about this avoidance without at some point mentioning the actual attack design.
By far the biggest thing holding this game back is the attacks. The majority of this avoidance is pattern. There’s nothing wrong with this at all, some amazing avoidances are mostly pattern, however when you think of a well regarded pattern avoidance like Melanzana, or something less extravagant like COSMO which is pattern heavy, the patterns are very different from the ones in Reincarnation Ascension. There’s an emphasis on movement, bullets moving in interesting ways, stuff like that which make them both a visual treat but also something fun to play without being boring. The patterns in Reincarnation Ascension however are reminiscent of “shape from the center” patterns, a subset of pattern which is exactly what it sounds like. The issues with this kind of pattern for me at least, are that they lack those interesting movements or visual intrigue, they are just the same thing for however long they last, and instead of focusing on memorizing a cool movement that feels good, it’s all about the memorizing with none of the satisfaction of pulling off a cool pattern, with very few exceptions. The difficulty of the game means that it’s not super practical to sightread these, there’s too many, with too many things guaranteed to kill you without memory. This is already kinda bad, but the non-pattern attacks really seal the deal for the game. The RNG is really high variance, ranging from free to impossible, which means that on top of the mind numbing pattern bits, you are occasionally gonna lose attempts to something really stupid that you can’t do much about. It’s not a massive issue but the RNG attacks don’t feel amazing to play or read, which makes the lack of balance feel much worse, as it just feels like you die sometimes for no real reason. This is compounded with the pacing of the fight, there’s very few RNG bits before the 4 minute mark, but once you hit that point there’s a big section of it. This essentially means that you spend over half the fight on autopilot, and it’s ESPECIALLY egregious that after the RNG segments is by far the most complex pattern at the very end of the fight. All of these things add up very quickly, and you’ll begin to see why this game has the reputation it does, and it’s honestly a shame it’s like this.
I don’t hate this game at all, however I do think it has a lot of missed potential. The song is phenomenal, I adore it, and while I do think it’s probably very challenging to make a great avoidance to the song because the nature of it, I feel like it’s not impossible, and I think deep inside Reincarnation Ascension is something awesome and cool, but it misses the mark in some fundamental areas which leads to an avoidance which is extremely flawed. I wouldn’t really recommend it, but I also don’t think it’s absolute garbage, just a bit of an unfortunate game that could be much, much better.
[3] Likes
One of the most important aspects of almost any avoidance is the song. The song is not just a thing playing in the background to give some audio cues and carry the avoidance forward, it’s for many fights, the most basic aspect the fight is built around. The most iconic avoidances are often ones that can take the song and interweave the gameplay with it, making an experience which feels almost choreographed to whatever song was chosen. Some songs are definitely more conducive to an avoidance, whereas others aren’t. It’s definitely bold to make an avoidance to a song that’s maybe not as suited to more traditional avoidance attack design and pacing, and that’s the thing I respect the most about Reincarnation Ascension. The song is an eerie, unsettling miku song with dubstep segments that goes on for 7 minutes. I can’t imagine it’s easy to make an avoidance to something like this, so even trying is commendable. However, I think the challenges presented by the song kind of cause the avoidance to collapse on itself. It’s not all bad, I think the visuals are hit or miss, there’s a lot of bits that maybe feel a bit empty but I think there’s the groundwork for something really cool looking here, and some sections are really nice. From a practical standpoint some segments are also too dark, to the point where you may need to adjust your monitor, but it’s not the biggest problem. The bullet movement is probably my favorite part of the visuals, especially the final pattern of the fight, with the big cherries spinning around and the stuff orbiting them, it’s chaotic and dizzying and the song feels like it’s spiraling in a chaotic way, it’s really nice and a very cool ending on paper. Considering the fight is somewhat reserved in what the attacks are conceptually, I definitely think it’s clear effort was put into the fight and there’s elements of something great. However it’s impossible to talk about this avoidance without at some point mentioning the actual attack design.
By far the biggest thing holding this game back is the attacks. The majority of this avoidance is pattern. There’s nothing wrong with this at all, some amazing avoidances are mostly pattern, however when you think of a well regarded pattern avoidance like Melanzana, or something less extravagant like COSMO which is pattern heavy, the patterns are very different from the ones in Reincarnation Ascension. There’s an emphasis on movement, bullets moving in interesting ways, stuff like that which make them both a visual treat but also something fun to play without being boring. The patterns in Reincarnation Ascension however are reminiscent of “shape from the center” patterns, a subset of pattern which is exactly what it sounds like. The issues with this kind of pattern for me at least, are that they lack those interesting movements or visual intrigue, they are just the same thing for however long they last, and instead of focusing on memorizing a cool movement that feels good, it’s all about the memorizing with none of the satisfaction of pulling off a cool pattern, with very few exceptions. The difficulty of the game means that it’s not super practical to sightread these, there’s too many, with too many things guaranteed to kill you without memory. This is already kinda bad, but the non-pattern attacks really seal the deal for the game. The RNG is really high variance, ranging from free to impossible, which means that on top of the mind numbing pattern bits, you are occasionally gonna lose attempts to something really stupid that you can’t do much about. It’s not a massive issue but the RNG attacks don’t feel amazing to play or read, which makes the lack of balance feel much worse, as it just feels like you die sometimes for no real reason. This is compounded with the pacing of the fight, there’s very few RNG bits before the 4 minute mark, but once you hit that point there’s a big section of it. This essentially means that you spend over half the fight on autopilot, and it’s ESPECIALLY egregious that after the RNG segments is by far the most complex pattern at the very end of the fight. All of these things add up very quickly, and you’ll begin to see why this game has the reputation it does, and it’s honestly a shame it’s like this.
I don’t hate this game at all, however I do think it has a lot of missed potential. The song is phenomenal, I adore it, and while I do think it’s probably very challenging to make a great avoidance to the song because the nature of it, I feel like it’s not impossible, and I think deep inside Reincarnation Ascension is something awesome and cool, but it misses the mark in some fundamental areas which leads to an avoidance which is extremely flawed. I wouldn’t really recommend it, but I also don’t think it’s absolute garbage, just a bit of an unfortunate game that could be much, much better.
Rating: 4.5
Difficulty: 88
Dec 20, 2024