Ash Crimson's character had a mixed reception in video-game publications. When he was introduced, GameSpy's Christian Nutt called him a "clone" of Guile from the Street Fighter series because of their similar movesets but Ash's team was praised as new characters with new elements in the series.[29] Lucas M. Thomas of IGN wrote that a major fan complaint was the character's strength in the games, which made him one of the strongest opponents despite an apparent lack of effort. According to Thomas, Ash is "nothing if not strange" and the writer lamented his many appearances in the KOF 2003 manhua compared with more-popular characters.[30] When playable characters for the arcade version of The King of Fighters XIII were introduced, Anime News Network's Todd Ciolek speculated about Ash's lack of teammates and wondered if he was alone because "no one likes Ash now."[31] Marissa Meli of UGO Networks ranked Ash sixteenth on a list of "The Most Androgynous Video Game Characters", with Meli jokingly attributing his androgynous appearance to a desire by Japanese designers to confuse Western gamers about their sexuality.[32] Although he called Ash's voice one of "Gaming's Top 10 Deepest Voices", Dan Howdle of Now Gamer referred to him as a female character[33] and writers for Game Informer joked about their surprise at the discovery that Ash is a male character.[34] After UTV Ignition Entertainment polled fans to choose an artbox for console versions of The King of Fighters XII, the company announced that Ash's unpopularity reduced the number of potential covers to two (featuring Kyo and Iori).[35] Den of Geek listed Ash as the 23rd best The King of Fighters with the writer comparing him with Loki based on their antagonistic and tricky behaviour as well as how his heroic traits in KOF XIII gave fans different thoughts.[36] Complex listed him as one of gaming's "douchiest" characters androgynous look as well as how he steals the powers of Chizuru Kagura and Iori Yagami.[37] GamesRadar found the character's name as one of the worst one ever seen in gaming.[38]