Like most older gamers, I've been around the block a few times with regard to preferences. I went through a "D&D and nothing else" phase, a Traveller phase, a White Wolf phase, a "buckets of dice" phase, a Fate phase... pretty much everything since the early 90s.

One theme I seem to come back to again and again is granularity. For me, a major test of a system is how well it can distinguish between two things that are relevant during play. Some systems barely even consider granularity, some go to extraordinary extremes and some try to strike a balance between narrative and granularity that can sometimes overwhelm matters. Few games get the balance perfect (Ars Magica, maybe?) but that's not really what's important; not the balance between narrative and granularity of simulation, but getting the granularity right for what the game is actually trying to achieve. Take Fading Suns as an example. While it has a deservedly legendary setting, the game system has long been considered a little weak due to a failure to manage the dizzying variation of things that the setting can potentially contain; a game can go from dirt-ridden peasants to wild space opera in moments and the system simply does not facilitate this. Sticking with nobility, King Arthur: Pendragon is the opposite, matching its highly specific knight-driven granularity to its equally knight-driven setting, and KAP is all the better for that focus.

Ascendant, then, is a game designed to model the wildly variable granularity of the superhero genre. And while I will admit I am a fan of the author's B/X-derived Adventurer, Conqueror, King System (ACKS), I have never been a fan of supers RPGs. Partly this is because every time I have played in a "supers" game - whether that be in an explicitly Superhero-type game like M&M or a related genre like Exalted or Scion - I have always had the sensation that I mention above; that the game system does not properly model the kind of potentiality of which its protagonists should be capable. There have been many, many attempts, but every one I've played or even read tends to fall a bit flat. As usual, Autarch deliver in this regard, and as usual they do so by taking something to its logical extreme. In ACKS this is done by creating an explicitly complex system of economic models and domain management, then letting the players loose on it. In Ascendant this is taken a step further into outright mathematical modelling as game system, and the game explicitly references logarithms in its Introduction chapter; indeed, you could probably use this thing to teach teens how logs work. And within context, this focus works excellently. Explicit conversions of real-world physics to the system are referenced throughout the books to facilitate the modelling of eg catching a falling bus full of passengers. It's not The Boys-style "real supers" stuff (lifting a building is actually possible, for example, as is righting a plane's flightpath) but rather comic book action modelled with simulated physics; even the mundane objects in the game are modelled with the same system as superpowers rather than having a separate system, so an assault rifle unleashes a "Rapid Fire Penetrating Blast" and a pair of binoculars has "Limited FOV Telescopic Vision". Since everything is modelled using logarithms, a few extra points in attribute scores above human norms produces a drastic change in capability; the strongest man in the world may have MIG 6 and can deadlift a horse, but a hero with MIG 9 can deadlift an truck without much effort. And two phenomena with the same value are explicitly equivalent, so a hero with Telekinesis 9 can also deadlift a truck with their mind. The result seems destined to produce what TVTropes would call Crowning Moments of Awesome once players realise the potential of the tools in their hands. Add this to the dizzyingly broad array of character creation options and you have a recipe for something that can be either gonzo to the point of cartoon absurdity or an operation of gritty operational operators.

I have a few minor issues. The Power Level system, while clearly a necessary evil, creates a scenario of finnicky tweaks to try to maximise output within a given Character Point total; I go with the Basic PL approach just to avoid having players endlessly revising things. There are a few "trap choices", albeit the book does make an effort to flag them up; some "powers" are basically subsets of what you'd get just by enhancing a basic Attribute to higher levels. And almost every player I've shown this to has immediately descended into spectacular decision paralysis regarding the immense selection of Powers on offer, along with the wide field of modifiers and weaknesses and metapowers and... well, you get the idea. Combinatory complexity taken to an extreme provides the granularity I like, but it also presents a cliff to those who don't already have a very clear idea of what they want to play. It's both a strength and a weakness, since once they enter the game's mindset they quickly realise they can play anything; and the Control power sets provide a convenient and easy way to build a much simpler kind of superhero with a set of connected abilities centred around a single theme. On a connected note, the game contains a narrativistic subsystem in the form of Power Stunts; and while this is a welcome and useful sideline to the mathematical rigidity of the rest of the system, it has been my experience that it is not immediately obvious to players that this is a part of the game. Control power sets, again, provide a good way to introduce these to players.

If these criticisms seem like the review equivalent of saying "I sometimes work too hard" when asked for one's weaknesses in an interview, that speaks to the quality of the game. The PDF is well laid out and has decent bookmarking (still inexplicably rare, even in this day and age!), and has an index with sub-contextual notes. Copious example characters round out the book, and while I am aware this is something of a tradition in the supers genre I find myself wondering why more RPGs don't do this. The art is suitably garish and OTT, evoking the four-colour madness the game is designed to replicate, as does the red, white and blue colour palette. As an additional benefit, the PDF comes packaged with a suite of character sheets and even a character generation spreadsheet with instructions! It's not a perfect character generator, but it works well enough to get to grips with the game.

All told this is one of my best purchases of recent years and one of the few recent games I've seriously considered picking up in print - probably only the lack of a hardback option on DTRPG has stopped me. Autarch is going from strength to strength and having seen the wide range of ACKS supplements, I can't wait to see what they produce for this system.

Like all of White Wolf's "Exalted Overflow" books this is of lower quality than their main-line works. There are none of the glorious comics that make 2nd Ed Exalted books such fun to read, for example. However in this case the import of the content belies the presentation (which remains as sumptuous as ever, stops unpulled notwithstanding).

In short, if you use Infernal Exalted in your game, as pro- or antagonists alike, you need this book. The Hearthstones and new Charms alone make this worth a fiver, but the Heretical Charms present a whole new viewpoint on the Infernals which could improve any game. The whole supplement is filled with the magnificent imagery and balls-to-the-wall cool that has typified most recent Exalted releases.

In short, very worth the price.