Ashen Vale

Ashen Vale is a proper RPG that respects your time. Battles are turn-based and quick, but the party building runs deep. I spent a good while just experimenting with skill combinations before committing to a build.

The writing is better than I expected for a phone game. Choices in dialogue actually branch some quests, and a couple of decisions made me pause the app to think. That doesn't happen often on mobile.

It does ask for a fair bit of storage and the early hours are a little slow, but push past the first town and it opens up nicely.

What we liked

• Deep party building
• Choices that actually matter
• Fast, readable turn combat