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0 If there’s one genre of game that has a tonne of fantastic indie representation already, but I’m always willing to accept more of, it’s Metroidvania. Enter Fallen Tear: The Ascension, a new and debut entry from a studio in the Philippines. Winter Crew Studios, a sub-company of publisher The CMD Studios, was spun-up in 2020 with the express purpose of creating Fallen Tear.
They launched a crowd-funding effort on Kickstarter in 2024 and garnered the attention of over 3000 backers. Now, they are bringing the game to Early Access on Steam with the intention to use this period for balancing combat builds and in-game economies along side the games community of players. The Early Access build represents a small portion of the beginning section of the game, and I’ve spent about a dozen hours trying it out over the past week or so.
If you want to check the game out for yourself following this preview, you’ll find it here on Steam.
Fallen Tear, Rising Promise
The story included in the current build is fairly light, so I’m not going to be able to say much about it. Hira is a mysterious boy with a hidden past. When his home is attacked and his mother (Miah) and brother (Ravn) disappear, he is suspected to somehow be involved and essentially exiled. Using an old artifact that was found with Hira when Miah and Ravn found him years earlier, Hira travels through a portal and meets Runa. This person seems to know about Hira and his past. She tells him he is the only one who can face and defeat the 4 corrupt gods of Raoah and restore peace to the land.
Gameplay
Fallen Tear: The Ascension is a classic 2D Metroidvania. Platforming, action combat, puzzles, and exploration are the core elements of gameplay. If you’re familiar with the genre then you’ll feel right at home getting to grips with the basics here. Combat is a fairly simple affair, with one button to attack with a melee weapon in a multi-hit combo. As you progress, other elements are added, such as Fated Bonds which function like spells. You can heal a small amount by sacrificing some MP, and the amount can be boosted by red orbs which are occasionally dropped by enemies.
My playstyle as far as combat was concerned boiled down to me bouncing on enemies using the downstrike attack until they were stunned and then wailing on them some more to finish the job. I mainly saved the Fated Bonds for use on bosses. The huge combo attack, Fated Rush, which lets you use all 3 Fated Bonds at once when charged, was particularly useful in boss fights. Most of the time I chose to save my MP for healing.
I enjoyed the variation of enemies and bosses. Each are had unique threats, but although some enemies could pack a real punch if they hit you, I never really felt overly challenged except in the occasional locked room encounters. I played on the recommended difficulty, though the option exists to play on a harder difficulty from the start, so I might go for that next time I play. Bosses, of which there are 9 including the rare hunts, provide fun challenges, with their screen-filling attacks and arena hazards.
Bonds and Skills
As you explore, you’ll bump into characters that will join Hira as Fated Bonds, often after you complete some sort of side quest for them. Once joined, you’ll find them at the central temple, where they may offer a service to boost Hira’s stats or abilities. You can also summon them into combat using MP as mentioned earlier. Alongside their active attack, each Bond also provides a passive benefit when equipped (you can equip 3 at any one time) and these can be simple boosts, or special abilities that might aid in explorations. Pay close attention to what these Bonds offer when you acquire them.
There are several different categories of skills for Hira to unlock. Ascensions are your classic movement upgrades like dash and double jump. Masteries are stat boosts, and Hunter Skills are new attacks. In the Early Access launch, there are 3 Ascensions, 3 Hunter Skills and 16 Masteries to unlock, with more being added in the future. I think I missed a trick during my playthrough and didn’t unlock and Masteries. Unlocking them requires Fated Points, which are earned while exploring for various milestones. What I missed was that you can claim larger bonuses for these in one of the menus. Don’t be like me!
With all these upgrades and abilities to unlock, and various stat boosts being hidden throughout the map, there’s a large range for customising your build to your liking. I preferred to always choose HP over MP boosts, and ATK over DEF, which suited my melee-focused playstyle. Other players might prefer to boost their MP and rely more on Fated Bond attacks in combat. It’s always nice to be given to choice and freedom.
It’s Not A Small World After All
Raoah is huge. Looking at the map, and judging from what I’ve played so far (the first 10 areas) it might well be the biggest Metroidvania map I’ve played. Each area so far has been quite distinct too, from a spikey forest to a barren desert, and from a poisoned wasteland to a lava-filled factory. Alongside varied environmental details and unique enemies, different areas often provide new puzzle and platforming challenges which keep traversal fresh. Some of these longer platforming challenges could do with one or two more checkpoints though. Sometimes I’d catch a hazard right at the end of a very long section and be sent right back to the start.
With the world being so large, it can feel slightly empty at times, and sometimes a little too mazey. This is not to say there aren’t any secrets or items to be found, because there’s a fair few, it’s more that the world is just so big. I spent a lot of time pausing my gameplay to consult the map; more often then I’d like to. A mini-map might help with this, alongside Hira’s icon on the main map being shrunk a little. With the icon being quite big currently, it can block parts of the map where I’m trying to determine which direction I need to head. As with a many Metroidvanias, backtracking is a core element of exploration.
Faster Backtracking For A Price
Fast travel is unlocked from the start, but this comes at a cost of shards. When enemies only drop 2 apiece, regardless of the size or class, pricing up fast-travel at 100+ shards feels a little harsh.
There’s a really cool feature to help with knowing where you need to go back to when you have new abilities. By holding a certain button, you can screenshot your location and add the image to the map as a pin. This is brilliant in helping you remember why you’ve not gone further down a path, or coming back for out-of-reach items. However, there’s a somewhat arbitrary limit on the number of these you can place. I think if blocked paths were automatically marked on the map with their type of block, the limited map pins could be used for more interesting items or landmarks. As it is, I found myself running out by the end of the preview.
Early Access and Roadmap
It’s been a while since I played anything in Early Access. I usually prefer to wait for full releases and final products, but the appeal of Fallen Tear was too strong. If you’re going in during Early Access journey, accept there may be bugs. I’ve encountered a few during my time with the game, once getting locked out of my save file briefly. However, the developers have been responsive and quick when investigating and fixing issues. The Steam page notes that they’ve chosen Early Access as a way to have the community on board for balancing builds and finding quality of life improvements, so be kind and open with your feedback if you do play.
Their roadmap shows the game will more than double in size when finished, with roughly 35% of the game available at Early Access launch. In the end, they expect to core experience to be up to 40 hours, and completion to be up to 80. That’s a lot of bang for you buck!
Graphics & Audio
Fallen Tear is an anime come to life. Its vibrant, varied palettes provide stunning visuals throughout the various areas of Raoah. It’s no surprise that The CMD Studios’ past lies in art and animation sub-contracting, given the professional artwork on display here. This is certainly one of the strongest aspects of the game so far. It’s not only the environment art that is admirable though. Character designs are equally spectacular, with lots of care and attention paid to small details, making each important NPC and Fated Bond unique. I’d love to be able to do the art justice with words, but you’ll be better served watching the trailer at the end of this article, so check that out.
I love the music that plays in the main menu. It’s the perfect balance of sad and hopeful and introduces the core motif of Fallen Tear, which you’ll hear throughout the game in various pieces. There’s also a lot of good audio feedback, especially in the combat. As I was using the melee combo constantly, it’s great that audio queues are provided for both stunning and enemy, and for killing them. This quickly became part of my muscle memory triggers, quickly informing me to either take advantage of the stun, or move on and stop mashing the attack button.
Final Thoughts
The potential of Fallen Tear: The Ascension is clear from the foundations presented in the Early Access build. Winter Crew Studios are building a sprawling, beautiful Metroidvania with lots of build customisation. I’m hopeful there will be much more story content to drive the game forward once everything is done, as this is the main area that’s missing for me at the moment. With more content in the final version too, exploration will likely be more rewarding, filling the map with more to see between the main events. The feedback from the Early Access will also be vital for balance, as the developers are aware, and I’d expect the difficulty to probably raise slightly in the time between now and 1.0.
If you are a frequent enjoyer of Early Access titles, or if you want to be a part of shaping the future of Fallen Tear, you should definitely pick this up. I’ve enjoyed my time with the game, despite a couple of teething issues. It will be available for a lower price during Early Access (and a 10% discount on that for the first 2 weeks!), so that’s a bonus. If you prefer to play games when they’re fully baked, it’s probably better to hold out a little. The full game release is planned for Q4 this year, with console ports mid to late next year.
I will definitely be revisiting Fallen Tear: The Ascension as the development progresses, and look forward to doing so.
Disclaimer: A code was received in order to write this preview.
Here are some more recent Metroidvania reviews: MIO: Memories in Orbit & God of War: Sons of Sparta.
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