Another great pixel art horror-adventure by Stranga. Much like Red Bow, it's very light on anything that is actually frightening, opting for an eerie, aesthetic that calls to mind a slightly bloodier Spirited Away.

As with Stranga's other games, there's endearing characters and excellent environments at every turn. The plot stands on its own somewhat well, but becomes much better in the full context of Stranga's previous games Red Bow and My Big Sister (the remastered edition, in particular). Everything up to the ending is great without full context, but I imagine the ending would feel a bit dissonant without the context of the other games. As such, I'd highly recommend playing them first.

I found most of the adventure game style puzzles to be straightforward and not frustrating, serving their job to keep me engaged with the environments well. Only the final puzzle threw me for a bit of a frustrating loop. Unfortunately, for my tastes, the overall narrative puzzle required to unlock the full ending was even more frustrating. Unlike Stranga's previous games, the conditions required to unlock the full ending were sprinkled throughout the game's 4 hour run time and easy to miss. The ending was a bit of letdown without earning all of the scenes, so I didn't want to just leave things there. I opted to just watch the portions of the ending I missed on youtube rather than replay the game in its entirety, which allowed me to a experience a much more satisfying ending, but also left things off on a bit of a sour note.

Still, despite the frustrations at the end, Ashina was a great time. I can't wait to see what Stranga puts out next!