2. Lack Of Prompts
In line with this, the game as a whole feels much less inclined to help the player, instead being constructed from the ground up to challenge and occasionally, to annoy. First-time players will struggle immensely with a lot of what Ascension brings to the table, primarily because this game just doesn't feel as intuitive as the others. Puzzle-based sections - of which there are a surprising amount - provide less hints than before as to what should be done, and the visual layout of the puzzles - which
should provide that clue - mostly fails to. Even as a God of War veteran, I found myself struggling for considerable periods of time with several puzzles in this game. This also proves frustrating during the game's platforming elements; you'll often be required to basically make a leap of faith, jumping forward without knowing what you have to reach or grab onto, because the game doesn't make this clear visually, either through camera placement or, say, a glowing object. One can only assume this was a conscious choice to provide more challenge, but it ends up feeling pretty damn cheap.