While Atlas Fallen may not innovative any new features, it’s a role-playing game with robust combat and exploration mechanisms.
Deck13’s newest action role-playing game, Atlas Fallen, features an open environment. They are the same people who developed The Surge and the first Lords of the Fallen. The ability to “Surf” across the sand, command it, and transform it into different weapons is intriguing. Many of us were wondering how the expertise of a studio that has primarily done AA Soulslike transfers into an open-world game. Entering a world that is primarily a landscape presents several challenges; the majority of the area is a desert, with the exception of a few steep cliff faces and ancient structures.
I wondered if this would hold my interest until the very end. In reality, the answer was an enthusiastic positive. There are mainly deserts in the level and world design; however, there are a few places where you can change things. There are caves to explore, settlements to visit, and ancient ruins to uncover, and then there’s the climax. I enjoyed it quite a bit, and I think a huge part of that is due to the wide latitude in how you play Atlas Fallen.
Atlas Fallen follows a rather standard good-versus-evil plot with no real surprises or anything. We take on the role of an Unnamed character who is forced to work for a God in exchange for a magical substance known as Essence. The discovery of a talking Gauntlet, however, somewhat changes the course of our adventure. This Gauntlet endows you with a wide range of magical abilities, such as the ability to mold the sands around you into improvised weapons, with which you can finally strike back at the God who has been so cruel to Humanity.
Although Atlas Fallen is technically a semi-open world, the story has you progressing through the hubs in a linear fashion. You can freely wander between the three hubs even after the game has ended, making it a breeze to acquire all of the game’s content. You can go wherever you want and do anything you want, but the plot progresses in a linear fashion.
Atlas Fallen offers a relatively distinctive setting, seeing how this society has been built around essentially just mining Essence, but even then, they’re still being attacked by these wraiths, which are also caused by this God, and then learning the secrets of a rebellion that took place a while back that ultimately failed, and then learning where this magic Gauntlet came from that’s giving you these powers, and there’s a lot to take in.
The main focus is pretty much running around and fighting the wraiths with your super-powered abilities, but it is slowed down a bit in places where the voice acting isn’t really doing Atlas Fallen justice and other parts where the narrative moves very quickly. But other than that, I thought the world’s story was quite original and interesting overall. I only wish it had been developed a little further. If anything, I wanted to know more about it, but there was nothing else to know.
However, I didn’t feel particularly engaged by Atlas Fallen’s plot as a whole. You find yourself all over the place after discovering the Gauntlet in a world where people are oppressed and where most people are simply trying to live. The protagonist jumps around and collects random items while the rest of the characters moan and groan about their lives, creating a narrative gap. Eventually, I found myself ignoring entire sections of speech in favor of moving on to the next battle, which is a very unusual feeling to have for a video game.
Because it seems unusual to experience alienation from the world while maintaining a want to improve and have fun, I completed Atlas Fallen, even defeating the final boss, and had a great time with it, but the story never really grabbed me. It’s not that this is a bad story, mind you. There were some enjoyable moments, but overall the story didn’t leave much of an impression on me.
I feel that the bar was set quite high, and this game had to live up to it in order to satisfy fans. Nyaal, the voice of the Gauntlet, isn’t exactly a standout. Like Cuff in Forsaken, you can learn about the game’s history by talking to him, and he’ll have varied conversations with you depending on the circumstances.
Atlas Fallen’s fighting system is one of the game’s highlights and a major point of interest. The dodging and parrying are reminiscent of Soulslike, and there are some references to the God of War series. There’s an element of Monster Hunter in there with the component brakes, and I’ve found the whole thing to be really enjoyable as I’ve played more and built up my combo potential. A blue bar that depletes at the bottom left of the screen indicates momentum, which is essential for fighting and serves as the game’s fundamental mechanic.
The idea behind the momentum gauge is that it fills up when you engage in successful attacks and parries against enemies. In-game, this momentum gauge is used to activate both active and passive abilities as the player continues to use them. The more skillfully you play, the more powerful you will become. In addition, as the battle progresses, your weapons will develop and become more effective.
The triple dash will come in handy when it comes time to knock. It begins with a single, then progresses to a double, and then a triple; having a triple air dash, in addition to a double leap and the ability to climb on anything, provides you a tremendous amount of mobility. That’s the main reason I kept traveling everywhere. As I was saying, there are other regions that offer variety.
The vast portion of Atlas Fallen’s environment will consist of a sandy wasteland, but that won’t be all there is. As you travel the world, you may notice a slight jolt in the performance now and again. That was the most noticeable technical issue, but other than that; the performance was flawless. Given how fluid it is, however, I suspect that similar lower-end hardware would also fare well on these settings.
You’ll eventually have the ability to raise certain objects from the earth. The ability to raise is your starting point. The game makes excellent use of its exploration by rewarding you with a variety of skills that will augment your progress, such as the ability to crush items and chains that bind stuff. When you put those skills to use, the game will reward you. There are a few difficulties you have to face. That kind of flexibility is yours to explore, and I think it really shines through in Atlas Fallen, especially in combat. One of the most notable changes is that your aerial dash will be reset if you land a hit on an adversary.
The concept is that you can stare eternally upwards so long as you’re dealing damage to adversaries, which is something you rarely see in games. The concept is well designed, with a natural progression between the emphasis on combat and mobility. Even while covering great distances, you don’t feel like you’re moving all that quickly through the environment. You will, in most cases, be able to ignore them entirely. If you need to cover even greater distances in a shorter length of time, you can use quick travel.
Atlas Fallen’s enemies use a unique mechanic as well. The red pieces, which you must break, and the gold piece, which you can break, are easily distinguishable from one another. The red areas suggest where you should focus your efforts to destroy this ghost. The gold pieces are optional extras that you can disassemble for a little reward.
Atlas Fallen excels in making you aware of your surroundings during combat, even if your attention isn’t specifically on a specific target. A variety of on-screen alerts will let you know when an attack is coming your way, and a red or blue shed run will appear to let you know if you should block or parry it. A red light indicates an assault that must be parried, while a blue flash indicates an attack that must be avoided. Of course, you can also avoid the red assaults.
When that happens, your battle routine will center on aiming at various parts of enemies to fill a gauge and unleash a shatter. This will provide devastating damage, severing limbs and even killing the monster in extreme circumstances. What’s fascinating about this kind of fight is that the shatter mechanic requires you to utterly expend all of the momentum you’ve built up until that point.
As such, you must strategically decide when to get damage in and when to fully unleash your strike in order to use all your momentum for a devastating shatter that will finish off the victim. The fighting loop that I came to appreciate so much looks like this. It feels great to wear down a formidable enemies working with major components to the point when you can drop a massive shatter and wipe them out with a single, decisive, overwhelming blow.
Atlas Fallen’s shining points were the game’s character creation and customization options, of which Gauntlet is the bare bones. The Essence Stones are structured into three layers, representing progressively higher quality: bronze, silver, and gold. Your skill set consists of an active ability, three passives, another active ability, three passives, and a final active ability and two passives.
The several levels of these are naturally distinguished from one another. There is a wide variety of Essence Stones available, and many more can be created. Damage, Impulse, Survival, Tricks, Healing, and Cursed are the six types of stones available. There is an abundance of variety, and each has unique outcomes.
Some of them are designed to deal extra damage or increase your current damage output. Generally speaking, Trick stones will either impede enemies’ movement, crystallize them, or weaken their defenses. The rate at which your gauge fills up will be affected by the momentum stones you use. Heal or recover more quickly from specific attacks thanks to healing stones. The capacity to stay alive is a great supplement to a parry or, in some situations, a bare defense. Stones of the Curse can come in any color but typically have both beneficial and harmful effects.
In addition to the stones, you have access to three different primary and secondary weapon kinds. Then there are Idols, and there are many different kinds of Idols, each of which has its own unique function, such as healing for a percentage of the damage you deal, healing if you get a parry, having an extra charge, or hitting slowed enemies to replenish your healing faster. There are a ton of various ways to engage in combat, and we even have three different Presets to choose from.
You may customize the Presets for each particular situation, so long as you know whether you’ll be facing an enemy that mostly stays in the air or beneath. The Whip’s ability to hook you on over to the target made it my weapon of choice. The Doom Cleaver may be used more frequently when facing an opponent with difficult-to-reach locations. If I knew I could do a lot of damage, I would whip out my gauntlets and concentrate on shredding my opponent to pieces.
What really piqued my curiosity was the sheer breadth of customization options available when making a character. By combining this with the ability to choose between your Presets outside of battle, you can tailor each set to the specific circumstances of each encounter. The game’s combat system surprised me with its depth and enjoyment; I stuck with it to the very end.
However, there are moments when the combat feels clumsy. Target locking becomes problematic while facing off against many enemies. It’s not easy to navigate the target list when you’re surrounded by so many of them. Since they are always shifting position, you will miss too many times.
When fighting enemies in Atlas Fallen, you should concentrate on the exact sections you need to destroy. Your attacks won’t do much good if they’re directed against indestructible or already broken portions. As a result, some skills ended up being more noticeable than others. At first, I specialized in fire-based powers that targeted certain organs.
While a large swing would strike or miss depending on where the monster was standing, I knew those would come in handy regardless of the circumstances. There were instances when I knew something like that wouldn’t help me because I couldn’t guarantee that it would result in a hit. I was squandering my cooldown, and so were my abilities.
Most battles in Atlas Fallen will begin with a stronger enemy calling in reinforcements to attack you; at this point, you can choose to eliminate the larger enemy first or wait until its reinforcements have been dispatched. Parries still play a significant role in combat, as they can temporarily freeze or crystallize an opponent, opening them up for free attacks.
It doesn’t take long to crystallize smaller enemies, but larger ones could take a little longer. Your Tier 3 ability summons a hammer, which you can use to do massive damage to and obliterate weaker enemies. If you take damage, not only will your health decrease, but so will your speed.
As a result, evading the assaults of larger enemies or leaving their zones of impact is essential. The main focus will be on partnering and dodging as many hits as possible, filling up the blue momentum gauge, and then unleashing devastating assaults on the crystalline enemies. The blue bar signifies that you can kill the adversary with the final strike of The Shatter, which will utterly destroy them.
Once you have defeated an enemy, they will drop an Essence stone. If it’s an opponent you’ve faced and defeated previously, all you’ll probably get is a rare upgrade material. When facing an adversary for the first time, though, you have the chance to obtain brand-new Essence stones. Thus, you can collect essence stones by repeatedly killing enemies.
After the first few kills, you might start getting some. You can obtain them by completing in-game quests. You can find them in world chests to get them. You’ll want to keep playing so you can collect all the stones and unlock all the upgrades; that’s the main hook that will keep role-playing game lovers coming back for more.
Now obviously, apart from the fighting, there are other activities to do in the world, most of them entail running around and platforming. In order to keep the beam going, you must race to several beacons and lift them from the ground within a set amount of time. Upon completing the task, you are usually rewarded with a valuable item.
The final item could be a cosmetic, an item for sale, or even an Essence Stone. Sometimes you’ll be sucked into a zone where waves upon waves of enemies await you. Animals are also present, and they’re mildly fascinating. The goal is to sneak up on the animals and follow their tracks in order to get a prize.
There aren’t an infinite number of things to do in Atlas Fallen, but these will keep you busy for hours. This is something that normally only appears in AAA games because no developer wants to make a boring or lifeless setting. In spite of the fact that there are only about four or five things to do in Atlas Fallen besides searching for treasure.
I had a great time constantly exploring the world in search of new enemies to fight, new Essence stones to obtain, and new places to dash to. I’d say the gameplay is excellent as a whole, and I completed the first playtime in just under 20 hours. And that was without the cooperative mode or even completing all of the optional tasks.
Atlas Fallen’s sound design and music, especially the former, are top-notch. I thought the game’s use of sound cues was particularly well done. A lot of the time, when you go into confrontations, there will be adversaries on the sides trying to attack as well, and Atlas Fallen does a great job of warning you visually and aurally of their impending attacks.
There will never be a time when you feel cornered by an overwhelming number of enemies. You are constantly prepared for anything that might be thrown my way, and you know just when to dodge, parry, or simply get out of the way. I don’t think many games do a good job of making sure you know what’s going on at all times, but Atlas Fallen does a fantastic job.
Atlas Fallen is extremely phenomenal in terms of presentation and performance. The landscape and the characters are both built from a fresh perspective and fit the game’s overall theme really well. Although some may find the restrictive nature of the character designs, I didn’t have a problem with them. There has to be a redesign of the armor because it all looks the same in motion and is boring.
Apart from the design, there were a few minor problems here and there, most notably during a boss fight where I unleashed an ultimate strike at the exact same time as the opponent, causing the game to crash due to the sheer number of on-screen effects. The occasional boss fight was the only time I experienced significant frame drops or hitches, but other than that; the game ran well throughout.
If you’re looking for an RPG with a solid exploration and fighting system, Atlas Fallen is a good option. You might be let down by the game’s plot if that’s your main motivation for playing. If you don’t care about the story and just want to explore the world and build a wide variety of characters, this game is fantastic. Especially with Co-op, I believe it would be fun to just run around in this environment and wreck and blow stuff up with a friend.
The map is fairly large, with several explorable zones and an additional, optional zone off to the side. In the end, Atlas Fallen is fun; it doesn’t exactly break new ground, but it has enough to entertain you. Even while it doesn’t do anything really innovative in terms of gameplay mechanics, it’s still much fun to play. The environment is fascinating, and both the battle and exploring are enjoyable.
