Atlas Fallen Review on Xbox

Atlas Fallen is a hack-n-slash Action Adventure set in an unforgiving world who’s inhabitants worship a brutal sun god. All reviews (unless stated otherwise) are based on the Developer/Publisher providing myself with review codes, which i am grateful for, but do not influence my outcome.

The premise is you rise from the dust as a nobody who then glides across the sands of a timeless land, filled with ancient dangers, mysteries and fragments of the past, in a bid to bring back hope to all.

The game boasts an expansive unique fantasy world teeming with secrets, locales and dangers. The ability to hunt legendary creatures alone or with a friend. Super-powered combat with three deadly shape-shifting weapons. And unique custom skills and abilities and outfits for you to enjoy.

Accessibility

With regards to accessibility, there is a nice selection of options to tweak and adapt the way you play this game from controller re-mapping, subtitles options, bloom and flare intensity. There is a little lacking on the sound side, so those with hearing difficulties may have some issues. 

But in terms of combat visual guides for when monsters attack is backed in from the beginning. Overall a good selection that should allow more players to enjoy this game.

Gameplay

For those that are familiar with the developer Deck 13 Interactive, you will be aware of their souls like games and their unique take on that genre. I personally reviewed the Surge which I still think is one the best unique souls-like games out there, with the sequel improving on it. However their latest iteration is very different, and they have moved away from the souls genre into the more fantasy hack-n-slash Action Adventure.

The best way I can describe Atlas Fallen, is that it has a mix of Darksiders and Devil May Cry flavour to it, but in much more larger world setting. The game starts with you be woken in an alien plane being attacked by creatures (Wraiths), and is the games short tutorial of how future battles may play out. You then strangely get woken up by a tracker who has managed to save you from dying after your caravan got attacked. Back at camp you find you are one of the unnamed, a slave like majority, there only to serve the higher ups.

After trying to fight back from your oppressors, you are tasked with finding a thief, which in the process, you find a gauntlet half buried in the ground with a voice calling you. You pick it up and here is where you true journey in the game begins. Escaping your previous masters, you and the new voice in your head, enters the wide world and start to learn about the Sun god, that’s been keeping you and everybody else, enslaved.

When I say wide world, I mean very large hub areas to explore. These vast landscaped areas are huge and can easily take you 20mins travelling from one side of the map, to the other to get across, and are full to the brim with side-quests, collectibles, vantage points, hidden treasures and enough creatures to keep even the most pickiest person, content. Gliding across this world is a joy, as you slide you way across the sand, that its almost a disappointment when you have to scale a vast mountain structure. These verticality areas which you will need to traverse, in a bid to progress the story and get some of the juiciest rewards, are almost too huge but can provide the most stunning vistas, once done.

Again abit like Darksiders, some areas are locked off due to certain story quests giving you the correct ability in order to progress, but most of the maps are open to exploration at your own pace. I often found myself just exploring, killing monsters and finding loot, only to hit a town or village location, for a NPC to proceed to tell me their woes, and it end up me just answering, yup already solved that for you. 

Rewards from NPC’s are nicely varied as well, as they often give you map fragments to hidden treasure, tributes (money), or essence stone recipes, which I will talk about later. Progress can be saved by finding Anvils around the world and become your souls like bonfires which allow you to upgrade your gauntlet abilities, armour upgrades, momentum bar upgrades, perk unlocks and fast travel to other unlocked anvils.

But its the combat that you are probably most likely interested in and I can say, it’s a lot of fun without the need to really hone your skills, if you choose not to. The combat is fast-paced, abit floaty when in the air, but engaging, and challenging depending on how you choose your fights to play out. It revolves around lots of dodging, blocking and countering which are critical to succeeding. It also requires constant transitioning between ground and air combat, at the flick of a button, hence the Devil May Cry reference. Thankfully the parry system which covers your body in sand, can even be done in the air and can give you an edge should you see a tail swipe coming at you as your on you way to land.

Enemies are similar to Deck 13’s previous soul like iterations, in that you can target specific limbs to weaken your enemy before finishing them off, prolonging the fight which in turn will provide better chance of rewards. But you can just choose to hit the main bulk of the target and for a quicker takedown if things get abit too hectic for you. And these battles can be hectic, as often or not, these wont be one on one battles, but a blend of a larger creature surrounded by a few smaller minions attacking at the same time.

Mix into the match these enemies can a be a variety of ground based or air based creatures and you will quickly be darting around looking at all directions as you are attacked. And this is where thing can be abit hit-n-miss as the targeting system is fine for the bigger enemies and the choice of limb you wish to focus on, but can be a pain when other smaller enemies are involved. The amount of times I was targeting a tail or head of the largest creature, for a smaller enemy to dart in my view and then it swap my focus onto that instead, lead to a few of my deaths.

When it comes to the weapons you use, you will start off with only two weapons, a Dune cleaver that is your slow heavy attack and your Sand whip, a much more longer light ranged attack. As you progress you finally get KnuckleDust, which is your fast medium close attack for those wanting a more intimate encounter. You can only choose two of these weapons to fight with, but these can be switched out on the fly using a Character build. 

But it’s the combat system that sets the game apart from others in the genre. This is due to the game's Momentum mechanic, a charging meter at the bottom, below your health, that will gradually build as you land strikes on enemies and generally perform well in combat.Below your momentum bar you will see a three tiers which hold a variety of slots including special skills in the shape of diamonds and a number of square slots for boosts. 

As your Momentum progress up the tiers, you’ll unlock both passive boosts (things like damage and defence) and its special skills, like a magical wall to prevent damage etc. However, once you use a special skill your momentum bar drops slightly. To get to the stronger higher tiers you need to keep attacking and wait for that tier to get highlighted. 

Once you hit all the tiers, you can use all special skills and all boosts are active, but stay out of combat too long and the bar gradually decreases on its own ensuring you need to be in the fight as much as possible. This risk vs reward is something you will need to manage in the middle of every fight.

This Momentum Bar is customisable but only at an anvil, and as you explore the world, opening chests and defeating enemies, you’ll collect Essence Stones which will slot into the tiers providing you with a variety of boosts and skills. There is a huge variety here and ever increasing collection will help you pin point the style you wish to play as. Bad at parrying, well create a build on taking hits and automatic parrying. Want an air attack only build, not a problem, and its this versatility which really opens up the games possibilities in how you wish to fight. There is also a crafting element to the game that ties into all of this too, allowing the stones you have to be increased in strength and reduce their cooldowns, by combining random crafting materials you’ve collected in the world and spending essence.

Along side this is Idols collecting, this is the item that holds three charges on the bottom right of your screen and will allow you to heal at the click of a button. Like the momentum bar, this also slowly refills over time, and depending on the idol you choose to pick, will also provide a constant buff, like an extra charge slot or for every damage you take you receive a portion of health back. Both the momentum bar, Idols and weapons are combined to create one Character preset, which the game supports three of. This means you can create multiple builds on the go, and then flick between them all at the press of a button before a fight, allowing for even more experimentation.

One thing that doesn’t switch with you character preset is your overall character level, which is solely based on the armour set you will be wearing. As you progress through the game you will see monsters with a number above them and this indicates their level, and if your level matches there’s you should be ok. Armour sets are often quests items, though some can be brought from vendors using tributes or finding them.

Each of the ten armour sets has a basic level, unique stats and generally, three tier levels it can be upgraded above. To do so, you will need to gather essence through fights, which then at an anvil and enough essence, will allow you to unlock that armours higher tier. Each tier provides a massive boost to that armours spec, and unlocks a perk point. Perk points unlike idols are a constant buff, like more speed, more tributes when you sell to vendors or a parry buff. Besides upgradable stats, armours also have additional stat bonus which unlock using a number of specific essence stones in your momentum bar. These then not only buff you armours stats more, but also provide unique armour traits.

Now if this wasn’t enough to keep you busy, you’ll also be collecting Gauntlet Shards, which feed into the three gauntlet abilities you will need to find in order to progress the story. You have Dash, Raise and finally Crush, with each of these needing three shards to become the more powerful version. For instance, Dash only allows 2 dashes, but once upgraded provides a third, which is essential for combat but more importantly getting to hard to reach places within the world.

I unfortunately did not have the ability to check out the co-op as this is friend invite only. I hope they change to fully online later, as there is a number of the essence stone buffs that are well catered to co-op play. And if its anything like the single player experience is, it will be a blast to enjoy with friends and more. There is so much here to see and do, that I was always exploring, looking for a way up to somewhere or killing a monster for a specific essence stone, that I was constantly engaged. This is a well crafted world that really is enjoyable to just be in.

Graphics

The games visuals are gorgeous and showcase off the brutal landscape in a number of stunning ways that shows its harshness but still its beauty. The differences in diversity from underground chasms, spider web like mountain tops to desolate dessert, all finely woven in as you make you way just across one area. Level design is especially brilliant, as the developers have backed in tasks that fundamentally change the landscape as you progress through the game.

There are watchtowers around the world that turn the landscape vicinity its in, into a dark red dust storm area that is hard to see through, let alone fight through. Though once these watchtowers are defeated, the landscape changes and the dust storm is lifted, allowing the sunlight to penetrate the land again. Battles are equally as impressive with its vast array of visually stunning skills that enemy attacks that shake the battlefield you are in. Colour is used in amazing ways, from signifying an incoming attack, to being pelted with a swath of colourful mines, all hell bent on taking you down.

Character physical customization is also well done, lots of options to create your own personalised Gauntlet bearer. And they have gone further so that cut-scenes renderings hide your helmet, so you can enjoy the work you put in at the beginning. Amours can also equally be customized with a variety of colours, which you purchase and add-ons to be found. However you can transmogrify any armour piece to look as an another armour set if you so wish.

Character models and monster models are detailed and varied enough for you to not get bored, however, a few more different types of enemies would be appreciated from the 15 types on offer. But it is good see a Bestiary has been added, so you can study their rewards at your own leisure.

The lighting is also a highlight as it shines amazingly and cast some stunning shadows, that produce some stunning vistas which can only be truly appreciated when up on high. Each surrounding world is brilliantly sculptured and varied and showcases off a wonderfully polished world to engage with.

Sound

The game is fully voiced, and the voice actors does a superb job portraying their avatars, be it in the comic book historical telling or in-game renderings used to tell the story. With regards to soundtrack, the developers have gone for a more a beautiful choir vibe that only appears in battles or cut-scenes, which then ramp up depending on the situation to push the tension more in your face. Villages and towns are given more the soothing flute treatment to instil a down to earth aesthetic, but it never goes above the sound of your movement or actions.

This leaves the vast majority of the game sounds using the harsh environment weather of wind and sand combined with animals or monsters growls in the distance to flow through. In terms of combat though, these however, are punchy vibrant and weighty as your hits against an enemy connect. Screams, growls and screeches from the monsters alert you from afar and NPC’s will call you to the should get close to their location.

My recommendation here, is a good quality soundbar to enjoy the weight of your attacks as they deal damage after damage on the Wraiths. 

Verdict

This leads me onto the rating of the game:-
Now I rate games in order of, avoid, on sale, great purchase and must own. My rating for Atlas Fallen is a "Must Own’’.

The games old school Darksiders vibe, in terms of drip feeding the story and powers as you progress, combined with their signature limb targeting mechanic and fluid combat, just works so well. Stunning vistas and deep exploration mixed with a versatile collection of battle builds is icing to a really great game.

The game is currently priced on Xbox at £49.99 or approx. $60 and depending on skill and patience would give you about 35+ hours worth of gameplay. Combine this with a huge selection of hidden collectibles, creatures to kill and essence stones to find, and you can easily add on another 10 hours. Being that there is co-op, this will also mean that replay ability Is there should you wish to engage with friends.

Deck 13 Interactive should be commended here and bringing something fresh to the world of gamers, and for cementing in a new franchise that I look forward to growing, as they continue their journey in this genre. I hope dlc will be added, as this is a world I look forwards spending more time in and engaging with.