Ashina the Red Witch is the newest adventure title from Stranga Games, sporting fantastic music, fun puzzles, well-made pixel art, and a story that is poignant, heartbreaking, and gripping right up until it isn't. While the narrative, characters, and dialogue were excellent most of the way through, Ashina shoots itself in the foot with the most thematically dissonant and laughably bad ending this side of Game of Thrones.
As I stated before, Ashina is a thrilling and gripping tale for about 90% of the 3 and a half hour runtime. Stranga Games has taken more inspiration from Studio Ghibli’s masterpiece Spirited Away than I’ve perhaps ever seen anything take take, even Ghibli’s own game Ni No Kuni. And to be truthful, it’s all the better for it. Spirited Away is my favorite film of all time, and the second I arrived in the spirit world I started to see the similarities. So yeah, it’s a quick way to my heart, what are you gonna do about it?
Ashina follows the story of Ash, a twenty-something girl exhausted with life, tired of raising her younger sister Tema who is of course always getting into trouble. The two are transported to the spirit world by way of a mischievous spirit named Tanto who has stolen their late mother’s pendant, and after they’re separated Ash sets out to rescue her little sister, just as she always does.
You’ll be taken to several different towns and areas, and the gameplay mostly consists of doing small quests for one NPC in exchange for an item for another NPC to get you to the next thing. It’s all very simple, and most of it is just walking around and talking to the delightful characters. There are a few puzzles scattered about, and they do a great job hitting that medium of not being too tough while offering a challenge and feeling like a natural part of the environment.
Ashina is a very story driven narrative heavy game, so I don’t want to spoil too much more of the story - instead i want to talk about themes. Right up until the end, this story is tied together by the theme of learning to sacrifice for others because it is our responsibility. The characters Ash meets along the way have all given something up, all lost something, for the sake of others. The way to truly love is to sacrifice, to work selflessly. It hits hardest when Ash asks a miner why they keep digging for the coal that powers the city. She responds “why are you trying to rescue your sister?” Ash responds, “because it is my responsibility.”
There is even a part of the story where Ash is offered an escape back to the real world if she agrees to leave her sister behind for dead, after having a meltdown and revealing how much she hates Tema because of what she gave up to take care of her after their mother died. And yet, back into the pit she goes for her sister, her only remaining family. Because to love is to be selfless, stupid, and steadfast.
This story ends with perhaps the most baffling, and contradictory ending I can call to mind. The lesson at the end is that one should, in fact, be selfish. The characters that act for their own selfish purposes are rewarded. The characters that act out of love are punished with death, or worse. It’s not just a matter of evil winning and it being a tragic ending - the theme that the story pushed so heavily is completely invalidated in one fell swoop. The ending makes it clear that to love is to be weak, to sacrifice is to be doomed. Nothing you did in the game matters, actually - it was all stupid. Ash should have gone home and let her sister die.
After becoming so invested in these characters, in what I felt was maybe the best story in a video game this year, I was absolutely gutted by this ending. As I said, it’s not about the tragic nature - it’s about spitting in the face of theme. If you throw away your ending for shock value at the end and tell the player plainly that your story wasn’t worth anything, guess what? They’re gonna feel like they wasted their time. And I do. What was on track to be on my favorite indie games of all time list is now a bad taste in my mouth.
There are alternate endings, but this isn’t the “bad” ending - they’re all relatively like this. It’s also worth noting that Ashina is a prequel to a previous game from Stranga Games, My Big Sister. Ash’s fate was always going to be what it was, since the sequel is already written. For reference, I did skim through a playthrough of My Big Sister to see if it somehow made Ash’s story make sense - it does not. If anything, it’s even worse than I had originally thought.
Overall, there is so much good going on in Ashina: The Red Witch that I would be a fool not to acknowledge. Part of the reason I reacted so badly to this perplexing ending is that I genuinely cared about these characters. Even the ones I hated, I at least cared about them. They made an impression on me. Not to mention the wonderful slew of references and design inspirations from the works of Hayao Miyazaki, the absolute banger soundtrack, and the pleasantly memorable locations and one-off NPCs along the way. The issue, however, is that the writer invalidates everything they did with such a profound lack of self-awareness I feel like I genuinely lost these hours of my life.
Despite its charming art, music, character work, settings, and inspirations, Ashina’s last 30 minutes invalidate the entire story before it and slaps players in the face for being stupid enough to care about it.
As I stated before, Ashina is a thrilling and gripping tale for about 90% of the 3 and a half hour runtime. Stranga Games has taken more inspiration from Studio Ghibli’s masterpiece Spirited Away than I’ve perhaps ever seen anything take take, even Ghibli’s own game Ni No Kuni. And to be truthful, it’s all the better for it. Spirited Away is my favorite film of all time, and the second I arrived in the spirit world I started to see the similarities. So yeah, it’s a quick way to my heart, what are you gonna do about it?
Ashina follows the story of Ash, a twenty-something girl exhausted with life, tired of raising her younger sister Tema who is of course always getting into trouble. The two are transported to the spirit world by way of a mischievous spirit named Tanto who has stolen their late mother’s pendant, and after they’re separated Ash sets out to rescue her little sister, just as she always does.
You’ll be taken to several different towns and areas, and the gameplay mostly consists of doing small quests for one NPC in exchange for an item for another NPC to get you to the next thing. It’s all very simple, and most of it is just walking around and talking to the delightful characters. There are a few puzzles scattered about, and they do a great job hitting that medium of not being too tough while offering a challenge and feeling like a natural part of the environment.
Ashina is a very story driven narrative heavy game, so I don’t want to spoil too much more of the story - instead i want to talk about themes. Right up until the end, this story is tied together by the theme of learning to sacrifice for others because it is our responsibility. The characters Ash meets along the way have all given something up, all lost something, for the sake of others. The way to truly love is to sacrifice, to work selflessly. It hits hardest when Ash asks a miner why they keep digging for the coal that powers the city. She responds “why are you trying to rescue your sister?” Ash responds, “because it is my responsibility.”
There is even a part of the story where Ash is offered an escape back to the real world if she agrees to leave her sister behind for dead, after having a meltdown and revealing how much she hates Tema because of what she gave up to take care of her after their mother died. And yet, back into the pit she goes for her sister, her only remaining family. Because to love is to be selfless, stupid, and steadfast.
This story ends with perhaps the most baffling, and contradictory ending I can call to mind. The lesson at the end is that one should, in fact, be selfish. The characters that act for their own selfish purposes are rewarded. The characters that act out of love are punished with death, or worse. It’s not just a matter of evil winning and it being a tragic ending - the theme that the story pushed so heavily is completely invalidated in one fell swoop. The ending makes it clear that to love is to be weak, to sacrifice is to be doomed. Nothing you did in the game matters, actually - it was all stupid. Ash should have gone home and let her sister die.
After becoming so invested in these characters, in what I felt was maybe the best story in a video game this year, I was absolutely gutted by this ending. As I said, it’s not about the tragic nature - it’s about spitting in the face of theme. If you throw away your ending for shock value at the end and tell the player plainly that your story wasn’t worth anything, guess what? They’re gonna feel like they wasted their time. And I do. What was on track to be on my favorite indie games of all time list is now a bad taste in my mouth.
There are alternate endings, but this isn’t the “bad” ending - they’re all relatively like this. It’s also worth noting that Ashina is a prequel to a previous game from Stranga Games, My Big Sister. Ash’s fate was always going to be what it was, since the sequel is already written. For reference, I did skim through a playthrough of My Big Sister to see if it somehow made Ash’s story make sense - it does not. If anything, it’s even worse than I had originally thought.
Overall, there is so much good going on in Ashina: The Red Witch that I would be a fool not to acknowledge. Part of the reason I reacted so badly to this perplexing ending is that I genuinely cared about these characters. Even the ones I hated, I at least cared about them. They made an impression on me. Not to mention the wonderful slew of references and design inspirations from the works of Hayao Miyazaki, the absolute banger soundtrack, and the pleasantly memorable locations and one-off NPCs along the way. The issue, however, is that the writer invalidates everything they did with such a profound lack of self-awareness I feel like I genuinely lost these hours of my life.
Despite its charming art, music, character work, settings, and inspirations, Ashina’s last 30 minutes invalidate the entire story before it and slaps players in the face for being stupid enough to care about it.