An update out of nowhere from a game released more than 10 years ago, and surprisingly turns out a really well done surprise update from the devs. New enemies, new soundtracks, new bosses, new playground, and an unexpected collab as well. I still love this kind of arcade games after years. It's a fast, fun arcade game.

Fun game

this game is cool as hell

I love this little game. I played the original all the way back when it came out. Samurai was the coolest ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ boss i ever fought, and here? It's overdrive. While initially, with only Remix mode out the game left something to be desire it was still solid and provided a nice challenge.

But Classic mode just makes it so much better. It's like playing a better version of the original. (though i do slightly miss how the Old Samurai played.)

The soundtrack is peak, the gameplay is fluid, the audio is just as good as it was before.

My only criticism is that there is no slider for sfx, other than that, this game is fantastic, yet short and sweet.

I'm glad i put in the effort to get through Hardcore mode.

I can't wait for more content to come to this.

Oh and, thank you so much for giving me a copy, it brought me so much joy to be gifted it for played the original. Chad move.

i played a little bit but still not enough to have a conclusive opinion about the game.

Savant - Ascent REMIX is a Nintendo Switch game here on Steam, where you can pretend you're playing an arcade shoot 'em up and that your PC is a Nintendo Switch. One disclaimer from me, I never played the original Savant - Ascent, but I also don't think that makes a huge difference when evaluating this Nintendo Switch game, as the defects are fairly consistent and unrelated to the changes in this new version of the game (which I believe was given for free to owners of the original game, so kudos to the developer for putting gamers first, all too rare, especially amongst amateur/indie devs).

Shoot 'em ups are largely a dead genre (3D graphics got invented etc etc), so when they make these games (because 3D games are often just too hard for some devs), they have to include some kind of gimmick. Here, unfortunately, the gimmick is a bit of a painful one that really limits how you get to play the game. See, you're on 2 platforms (elevators, ascent, see?) and you can't actually move freely anywhere else... you're either on one platform or the other and you "dash" between them. You can also jump and double jump to evade. Shooting itself is a twin-stick affair, aim with your mouse and shoot whatever kind of attacks you want to make (normal shooting/nuke w/ cooldown etc). I have to say this game would have been very popular in 1992. It's not 1992.

On the upside, the game does feature customisable controls and resolution, so at least some of the basic, minimum requirements have been met. It's also worth noting the game is fairly well polished and the controls are smooth and responsive, a must for this legacy genre.

Unfortunately there's a number of other technical defects and shortcomings which contribute to the game being difficult to recommend to gamers.

A choice was made to use obsolete, decades old retro pixel "art" as a substitute for contemporary PC graphics. It's unclear if this is due to lack of budget or talent, regardless, the overall visual quality of the game is extremely low as a result.

To make matters worse, while lazy, low quality pixel "art" has been used, making the game look bad, many elements of the game aren't done with pixelcrap... which accomplishes a couple of things. First, it shows the developers perhaps could have done better and they knew it, so that's a major screwup. Secondly, it destroys any hopes the developer had of creating a "retro aesthetic" as their excuse for the lazy pixelart compromise... It looks completely inauthentic from a retro gaming perspective.

While there are options to change the resolution for the game, all this does is scale up the simplistic 2D art assets used to make the game, which makes little or no difference to the graphics quality. Without any other substantial graphics tweaks, it's not possible for gamers to improve the lacklustre 2D visuals.

Because this is designed for handheld/portable gaming appliances, it carries a number of deliberate design deficiencies. Compromises were made to cater to the low power handheld gaming appliances that the game was designed for. These are unfortunate compromises and limitations that PC gamers shouldn't be forced to accept, but it's evident that PC was a second thought for the mobile game developers. The game is deficient as a result of these choices, and would have been so much better without the handicaps that designing games for low power handhelds forces upon a game. While this might run well on a Steam Deck, we must remember the vast majority of gamers here are gaming on PC.

These technical defects push this game below acceptable standards for any modern PC game.

The game never really caught on with the millions of gamers on Steam, with a very low peak player count close to launch, and then just a handful of players launching this game every couple of days. This is undoubtedly caused by factors such as those raised in this review. It's always helpful with buying decisions to consider how popular and successful the product is, and unfortunately while this did accumulate a few participation trophy reviews, overall, people just aren't using it.

So, should you buy this game? Is this one of the best of the 100,000+ games on Steam?

Savant - Ascent REMIX has the ridiculous, laughable price of $10 USD, for which you could easily get any number of older AAA games. Given the defects and quality issues with the game, coupled with the unrealistic price, this is impossible to recommend. For comparison, the $10 asking price for this game could get you games like "Mass Effect Andromeda", "Kingdom Come Deliverance" or "Monster Hunter World". Quality, professionally made games like those are frequently on sale cheaper than this.

I honestly cannot describe how awestruck I was with the new update. I played the original ascent game around 10 years ago and I was anticipating this release day by day. The atmosphere you feel playing this is unlike anything you can experience. It is condensed and armed to the teeth with life and racket. A perfect representation of Savant's essence crammed into a game.

At first, I was undoubtedly immersed playing Ascent Remix, but it felt like it lacked the touches from the first game - it had real rhythm, the music was fantastic and exceeded expectations, the boss fights were iconic, but the fighting mechanics didn't allow us to flow into the world comfortably. --- Alas, this magnificent update with classic mode has sparked in me an alluring devotion. Everything fit like a glove and it is euphoric.

it's been so long, since I felt this good

Note: Thank you D-Pad for the wonderful work and I appreciate y'all gifting this to us.
(this is my first and most probably my only review, because this masterpiece deserves it ----- 10/10)

Good arcade fun.

While the names they decided for the different game modes are a bit confusing since "re-mix mode" is like a toned down version of the original game and the "classic mode" has most of the original powers and some added ones too, it's a nice little game.
Before they added the classic mode I would've recommended the original release over this one but now it's overall an improvement I think.

Absolutely fantastic arcade game with gorgeous visuals and sublime music. I never expected a game out for a decade to get so many incredible updates, but here we are! And, there's more content on the way, too! Stop hesitating and check this out!