Atlas Fallen: Reign Of Sand

Atlas Fallen: Rein of Sand Review!
Duration: 12 Hours
Score: 7/10


Sometimes, you find yourself rooting for a game on principle alone. It's not even that I'm some kind of superfan of developer Deck 13, but I think that regardless of anything else, games like Atlas Fallen need to exist: games that are clearly driven by a desire to fulfill a certain fantasy, that are focused on a specific experience, and are bursting with so many ideas regardless of their budget that the execution can't quite keep up. Atlas Fallen is janky, inconsistent, overstuffed - and a little bit genius.

The premise is simple enough, if told through some of the driest narration possible: there used to be two gods, they got into a big fight, and the winner, Thelos, took over the world of Atlas. You're a Nameless slave who finds a fancy gauntlet in which rests the spirit of the god who lost, Nyaal, and...well, it keeps going like that, but it doesn't matter; not really. The plot is neither inherently interesting or well-written, and banal dialogue is further muddled by wooden voice acting. All you really need to know is that it's a great excuse to get out there and fight, and *that's* where the game shines.

Atlas Fallen's so packed with novel concepts that the first hour of the game spams tutorials nearly non-stop, and they only somewhat slow down for the rest of the first act. It's a bit irritating, but also necessary; I've rarely seen such a short game want to give the player so many options. At its core, Atlas Fallen's a chunky but fast-paced ARPG in the vein of Darksiders, but it quickly distinguishes itself with its Momentum system, which the rest of the game is build around. Land hits and your momentum builds; get hit and you lose it. But the higher your momentum when you get hit, the more damage you take, meaning the better you're doing, the harsher your punishment if you make a mistake. As your momentum climbs, even your basic attacks transform, with each of your two equipped weapons growing in size and attack area; you can fight like this for an extended period, or burn your entire meter for a Shatter attack that can obliterate even bosses when used well, but slipping up is going to cost you.

This can be mitigated by the nine passive and three active 'essence slots' that you can equip with stones found throughout the world. For each of your three levels of momentum, you can access more of these skills during the fight, turning brutal challenges into absolute stuntfests through indulging your preferred playstyle. Personally, I created a sort of life-leeching aerial berserker, with giant fists of sand straight out of Asura's Wrath that sacrificed defense and range in favor of health-stealing attacks, boosted momentum generation, and accelerating damage at the cost of even more damage taken. By the end of the game, I almost never touched the ground during fights, ripping body parts off monsters to soften them up for enormous Shatter attacks and stealing their energy in the process. But I could have just as easily made a ground-bound hammer tank who fortifies their defense and armor to power through and knock out most enemies in a single blow, or a reaver who inflicts himself with Affliction, reducing his own maximum health, to unlock highly damaging spike attacks and enormously boosted offense.

On its own, this is already a huge amount of build customization for a game that can be knocked out in a weekend, but then you have the armor system, three weapons to choose from with entirely different movesets, upgrades for your healing stone that change how it functions - and the options grow. I was completely enamored with this system, to the point that the game's flaws, ranging from messy hitboxes to extremely unnecessary side content that turns the four regions into pseudo open-world zones, couldn't hurt my enjoyment much. But those flaws do exist, so here's the breakdown.

+Wildly creative momentum system that rewards risky play and allows for a huge amount of style customization
+Great combat that combines arcade action with Monster Hunter-style part-breaking
+Strong art and direction make deserts visually interesting, with distinct landmarks and intriguing monster designs
+Navigation is made fun through a 'sand-sliding' system that's far more dynamic than a mount and a responsive double-jump and air-dash
+Full co-op available to hit the sands with a friend

-The story is pretty throwaway, with poor acting, pacing and writing leaving it unmemorable at best
-Hitboxes and general jank can disrupt some of the combat flow, slightly weakening the game's strongest feature
-There's a lot of unnecessary side content that clutters the map and isn't very engaging, from dull errands to overly basic platforming challenges


In the same sense that some great games simply don't appeal to all of us, Atlas Fallen is, if I'm being as objective as possible, not *fantastic* - but some part of me still loves it. The combat, the character-building, the unrestrained flash of combos so long that I stay in the air for literally three minutes straight; whatever its failings, the game succeeds at being memorable, and while I can't be sure anyone else would enjoy it as much as I do, it earns a hearty recommendation from me solo or as a duo experience. Through the blinding sands of its middling budget and some unnecessary filler shines moments of unrestrained brilliance, as precious and unique as desert glass.

I recommend this game, but not heartily. For a more nuanced take: It's a nearly very good game that's unfortunately just okay overall. As such, a thumbs down just seems too harsh, especially for the people who brought me the overall more fun The Surge games.

To be clear, the game's definitely nowhere near bad, and is in fact quite fun for the first, say, three hours. Battles are mostly snappy, and upgrades are coming in fast, and the above average mobility is quite welcome in large environment games like this. But then... the game just slows down. Hard.

The meat of a game like this is in the excitement of finding new upgrades, be it via combat, exploration, or sidequests, and trying them out. But interesting traversal upgrades are limited entirely to upgrading your otherwise very cool air dash ability exactly twice ever, and possibly worse, battle-related upgrades quickly start VASTLY outpacing the slots you have to actually use them. So sure, getting new Essence Stones is super cool at first when you can plug them right in and get their bonus rolling, and unlocking new slots is an exciting unlock to work toward, but it's not long between you've unlocked all your slots and you're already sitting on five times as many Essence Stones as you can possibly use. And for me at least, games giving you way, way more abilities/skills/accessories/etc than you can actually use at once is more and more a thorn in my side. Having to decide what I want to give up to get a new thing really takes the fun out of a new thing, and the more things I'm already sitting on that I can't use, the less fun getting a new thing is. I counted up the Essence Stones I had by the end, and at 112 passive ones to potentially use across 8 slots, that meant I had 13 unused stones for every 1 I could actually equip at once. I'm not demanding that you be able to equip everything at once, having to design builds is fine, but 14 times as many accessories as you can use at once is way past a horrible ratio, and really took the fun out of earning new Essence Stones. Alright, another one to add to the unused pile! It especially bugged me when a character in-game would actively try to sell you on using another one by pointing out what it did– Yeah, sounds great, except that using that cool new one means giving up an equally useful old one. Awesome.

On top of that, the game suffered from a classic big open world game problem: Lack of exciting things to find. Most stuff you find laying around is just vendor trash, yay, and the bigger rewards tend to be, as noted, Essence Stones you can't use. Sidequest? Exact same unerwhelming reward problem. But if the designers had just added in more slots that required more elaborate unlocking means, such as upgrade materials to comb the map for instead of vendor trash, or connecting more slots to sidequest rewards somehow, then not only would the game have maintained exciting progression rewards, but it also could have alleviated the equipment limitations too, making for a far greater game in my opinion. Even just one more slot per momentum level would have given some additional much needed upgrade flexibility. And it would have made your character more powerful overall, which would have helped with the other big post-three hour wall:

Once you start regularly running into the big enemies, combat becomes a much less fun slog. They're way too tanky, building up momentum takes too long (aside from when it rarely goes weirdly fast, never understood that,) and even if you're wearing the maxed out best armor available AND all your stones are maxed too, you just feel perpetually underpowered. Not in a way that makes combat horribly difficult, just in a way that makes things feel slow and tedious. A couple more Essence Stone slots would have done a LOT to fix that problem. And even without the slots, just being more powerful stat-wise would have helped too, because after trying a bit of New Game+ with the much more powerful New Game equipment making combat much faster, it just plain felt better. So, limited slots aside, the game really had some combat balance issues with all the big monsters. Also, flying monsters were never fun to fight, and you run into more and more of those as you go. There really, really should have been less Tailwhippers. Never. Fun. At. All.

Finishing out the problems with the smaller issues: The plot is just not interesting. At all. On top of that, while the monsters look... okay, the characters have no appeal. None of them have interesting personalities, and the visual designs are all either mundanely boring or just bad. Not a single character design I liked looking at, which is one thing when you're limited to realistic humans, but there were SO MANY more interesting things they could do with gods, but we just get... a blue glowing Na'vi looking guy with big googly eyes? C'mon, designers. The badguy god is a little better but still... not by much. Best I can say for the visual character design is that some of the armors look alright...

Which leads me to the good things: I very much like the visual customization. Both allowing recoloring of armor AND replacing one sets visuals with another? Great decision there, literally every game with visible equipment should do both of these things. You should never be forced to choose between the stats you want and the looks you want. My only complain is that you should be able to recolor every part of every armor instead of limited parts, and when you transmogrify, it should inherit the dye choices of the original as well.

Beyond that, while I wish it had more upgrades to find, the traversal is still pretty nice. Double jumps, up to three air dashes, and sand sliding keep moving fun and fast. When it comes to giving you a faster movement option, I really wish more open world games would just give your character the DIRECT ability to move extra fast like that. I am past sick of having to endlessly walk back to the horse or vehicle, watch the mount/dismount animation for the thousands time, etc. Instantly available abilities like the sand slide are THE way to go. Really, my only big movement complaint is that I wish the air dash didn't kill your forward momentum at the end of its animation. Getting around would have been even more fun if you could, say, hold the button instead of tapping to keep going forward at dash speed when you want, instead of the slow down to a gentle float at the end. And if that annoying dead stop landing animation were dropped too, even better.

So yeah. Nearly a good game, and as someone who was expecting the two great tastes of The Surge-esque combat with more mobility, but in big outdoor environments instead of all cramped hallways all the time, I went in expecting Deck13's best game yet... But after a strong start, it ultimately falls flat of truly good. If nothing else, it just needed more accessory slots so I could feel as powerful in Atlas Fallen as I did in its superior Surge predecessors, which in my opinion, got the player versus enemy combat balance much better. And seriously, I think a few more stone slots would have been absolutely all it took to make combat fun instead of a slog. Maybe loosening up the counter timing too. The stone that gave you increased counter time felt pretty much mandatory to consistently using it, in my opinion. Maybe make easier counters a difficulty option?

Also, always referring to Thelos as "they" just grated on me more and more. From looks to voice, he's so clearly a "him." WHY. There was exactly one line in the game where he was called "him," which proves I'm not the only person who thought that would have been the better option.

TLDR: Don't expect to be blown away by this by-the-numbers, relatively low budget action-adventure game, but it is definitely worth a play-through if you have a COOP buddy. I don't know that I'd recommend buying it to play solo unless purchased on a very large discount.

Pros:
The combat is pretty wild. Picture God of War or Darksiders style combat but with the ability to sand surf (exactly what it sounds like) and fly (for short bursts) both in and out of combat.
There are 3 weapons styles. Each feels distinct and serves its own purpose.
There are a significant number of build options achieved through passive power ups and 3 equipable skills that work outside of the weapon styles. Though, builds can favor certain weapon types. The builds range from glass-cannon to tank to self-healer to poison damage. It's incredibly diverse though not overly complicated or deep. Don't look for min-max stuff here. I'm not sure exactly how many passives and skills are in the game, but I had something like 40-50 options when I finished my playthrough.
The enemies are reasonably varied, but there is some repetition in archetypes.
Boss battles and major enemy events feel challenging and decidedly different from the rest of the encounters in the game.
Boss battles feel sort of like Monster Hunter or a smaller scale Shadow of the Colossus. They're big, unique looking, with unique mechanics you won't see outside the boss fight (though again, not incredibly complex).
Exploring is REALLY fun in this game, mostly because you can sand surf and fly all over the place. Plus, the game is very generous with the power-ups and materials it gives you for exploring and doing side events/quests.
The game has a new game + mode if you're into that sort of thing.
Played the entire game COOP, and my friend and I both really enjoyed the experience. Totally worth it for a COOP adventure (but don't pay full price for the game...maybe like $20ish or so would be fine).

Cons:
The story is...not the reason to play this game. It's not horrible; it's just not very memorable. There's a big bad doing sort of bad things? And there's another entity that wants you to kill the big bad who is also kind of morally questionable, but we don't really care cause the big bad is big-badding. And you go fight the big bad cause...idk reasons or something? And you're chosen cause, Idk, everyone else who was chosen before you either refused or was too weak. It doesn't make a lot of sense but just go sand surf and fly over there and kill the giant sand scorpion. Yeah, that sounds fun (spoiler: it's really fun)!
The low budget aspect of the game really shows through at times but not in a game breaking sort of way. Examples...some of the cut-scenes are still art with voice over. There is a lot of sand in the environments which is convenient since you get to sand surf, but it gets boring to only look at sand for most of the game.
I never really cared about anyone in the game. There are story points that make it clear I am supposed to care about this or that person, but I just didn't. The narrative wasn't there; there was almost no connection. Virtually all of the side characters are completely underdeveloped and serve as a vehicle to move the story, mostly by dishing out side quests. Again, the story is kind of weak and underdeveloped.
Quest are incredibly repetitive, especially by late game. Go get this material. Kill that big monster. What makes this tolerable is the sand surfing, flying, and combat.
The game lacks any real leveling and what is there is largely spoon fed to you. Example: armor is upgraded as a direct result of the story. You are literally given your next sets of armor at stages in the game. There's no real customization or exploration or dungeon crawling to find new gear. It just appears. This was never a real thorn in my side, but it could have added some depth to the game as even games like Assassins Creed allow you to make your own weapons or discover unique/rare equipment.

A very good game ( and which could be even better ), in spite of the not so good press.

The rpg part ( music, skill tree, dialogue, scenario - everything immersive really except for the stunning graphics ) is not very good, but the epic combat and movement system is incredible and reminds me of playing a metroidvania but in 3D.

I’m really enjoying it ( I’ve anlmost finished the game ) and feel like the game didn’t get the attention it deserved because it was marketed as an rpg when it truly is an action game.

I spent about 12hrs with this game. It's gorgeous and it plays/looks way better than it did on console when it launched. For me personally, the problem came to the difficulty level all of a sudden ramping up. Up until this point it'd been a challenging but fun game. When I arrived to the new biome I was getting one shot'd by enemies that were my level. I had fun with this game up until this point. It was worth picking up at the Black Friday price point, but it stopped feeling fair and felt more like a Souls game and I'm just not that sweaty of a player. Uninstalled.

Definitely hidden gem. already finished and starting their new game plus. i cant stop playing lol.
pros:
-good battle system
-fluid mechanism
-stunning visual
-manageable exploration
-flashy move
-has a ton of skillset

cons:
the only downside is the story, storytelling could be better.

but overall solid 8,5/10!

Really fun, nice graphics and it was interesting to explore and find all the collectables.

I really enjoyed playing this game. Bring back AA games! The story was good, and I enjoyed the sand sliding mechanic. There is a lot of customization in the "tile" system which takes the place of a more traditional skill tree. Fights felt satisfying. There was a bit of treasure hunting - not too much, and it was optional. Needs a decent pc to run my old setup had a hard time during combat at times. Graphics are pretty nice! I played co-op exclusively, and it is a nice co-op game. Runs well, you and your partner can go different places or run around together. Co-op combat is nice as well, you can synergize your builds. Atlas Fallen reminds me of the type of games I played 15 years ago, but this game updates it nicely.

Bought it on discount (either for 10 or 20 euros including DLC) and I'd say it's pretty worth it! The fighting and gliding through the world is very satisfying. The quests make you explore the entire map without having to back track too much. It's not super difficult, but there is still enough of a challenge (we're playing it in the 2nd highest difficulty). I am not sure if I would replay it/do a new game + campaign, but for now we're having a lot of fun in multiplayer! Would recommend waiting for a discount though, not sure if I would buy it full price.

It's unexpectedly good. Pretty much everything, especially battle mechanics. FUUUUUN GAME

Rarely played a game that put so much effort towards co-op. I highly advise to share this game with your gaming partner. Additionally, visuals are exceptional, gliding feels insanely good, fights are challenging and rewarding, I would say as good as a souls-like but without the death penalty. This game deserves more fame 🔥

Although the story is not that engaging, I quite enjoy the gameplay and builds that can be created for your character. Fairly good game overall.

Game has some fun combat and movement with a decent story. I definitely recommend, even more so if its on sale.

It took a couple of hours to get used to the combat and mechanics, but once I did, I really started to have fun. Nice twist in the story, wished it was a little longer, but I really look forward to a sequel or a DLC. Solid 9/10

Good Single player game with a decent story...Will recommend on special. Had fun....

Nice simple yet engaging gameplay/story

Heya folks, so, I just finished this game today, and honestly? I had a blast with it. The narrative is pretty ok, but my favorite part about it was actually the movement and combat system. Combat felt really punchy (I largely used the gauntlet and the whip), and I liked how the speed of battle increased as you gained momentum. Sometimes it could be a bit tough to build up momentum, which makes combat a bit of a chore, but when momentum is high it's mad satisfying.

The sand surfing mechanic was equally satisfying, and I liked the fact that you could air dodge 3 times when the gauntlet has been upgraded, it makes air combat a lot easier and more fun.

In the end, I would gladly recommend the game if you're in the mood to kick the crap out of monsters for a while. It's not super long so it won't wear out its welcome by becoming too repetitive and it's pretty fun to explore too.

I bought the game late with the updated for Atleas Reign of Sands and im giving it a 9.5/10 great game

A good game but it suffers from poor balance in latter half of the game and over-complicated character progression. The combat is fun at first but becomes chaotic and tedious later in game, even after switching to easy difficulty. There are dozens of "skills" you can find but you can only equip 13 of them, and only 3 of them you can actively use in combat. The character level and attributes are tied to your armor, and even a strongest one doesn't make you feel too powerful, it feels like the enemies level up faster than the player character does.

Despite those flaw I still enjoyed exploring the world, which looks quite beautiful and unique, and following the story. The character movement felt very dynamic and satisfying too, even if some platforming was frustrating.

7/10

Its good, exploration is fun, combat is great once you get the hang of it. The builds are fun as you can mix and match with so much possiblities

If you want to have fun with your friend or someone else, it's a good option. The game is not bad at all; it could be better, though.

Wow, this game surprised me. It was really fantasic. Fighting was fun, story was goo, voice acting was great.

It's a nice singleplayer RPG. Fully voiced. For combat, you only have melee weapons, but that's very enjoyable for me.

Thelos: ARE YOU GOING TO DO THE "ORA ORA" THING!?
Nyaal: Yes Yes Yes, Oh My God!

Normal Difficulty Completed in 35 hours while collecting just about everything.

The game is mostly linear, with equipment that you gather throughout the game being strict upgrades to what you have beforehand. This changes in the final area, where you have 3 max-level armors to choose from, but the final area isn't that large compared to the other regions in the game, so there's not as much toying around with equipment and essences as I'd like.

Enemies that hang around in the air (especially the Greater monster who drops down corruption mines everywhere) are completely cheeks to fight if you don't use the whip, so the only two weapons I really used are the whip for staying in the air and the fists to do the ORA ORA. My playstyle was to go for maximum momentum as often as possible to do max Shatter attacks, but momentum is a double-edged sword as it also increases the damage you take. Getting knocked down and staggered really messes with the ability to parry, so I died a handful of times feeling like I had no agency (though I probably should have recognized this and went for dodges instead of parries).

The main building comes in the form of the perk that gives you large bonuses if you have 5 of the same type of essence equipped. Offense / Defense / Tricks / Momentum are all decent to build around, depending on whether you want to be a crystal cannon or a pure tank. They are rather expensive to reach their max rank, especially if you're upgrading armor as well, but there are enough enemy encounters in the game that I never felt like I had to grind for them. There are mini-Arena nodes where your character has a significant buff and nerf, and also has a condition if you want extra rewards like "heal 100% of your health" or "shatter 3 times" - these were my favorite things to seek out.

Overall - quests are fine, the various things to collect both rewarded exploration and netted a ton of gold if the trader has a special interest, but not so much gold that economy ever became irrelevant. Outside that one enemy type that drains momentum everywhere and loves hanging around in the air never coming down close enough for me to reach it, all the enemies are fun to fight with reasonable parry windows and fair damage output. 7/10 game, definitely would ORA ORA the gods again.

I want to be positive about this game, but it seems like I can't do that.
The real reason here is the combat. The Momentum mechanic seems like a really nice concept that opens up so many opportunities, but why? Why do I have to take more damage to deal more damage unwillingly? Is there any reason behind it, or is it just a gimmick to balance the game? And the fact that at Mark 1 I'm a melee fighter, and at Mark 3 I'm a spell-like swinger, doesn't make it any better. I can't keep adapting to every freaking Mark that's trying to make me feel like something I didn't sign up for... Damn, it could have been the next AA Monster Hunter. Ask me if you need to know more.

I'm not sure why the reviews are so polarized about the control scheme, but it worked fine for me with a controller. Maybe the folks having trouble used a keyboard? Anyway, I liked zipping around the battlefield with a double jump and a triple dash, weaving in and out of the enemy's attack radius.

I dont know the state of the game when it was new. Just bought it and I have to say. Its so much better than I thought. The movement is fun. The world is rlly rlly nice - worldbuilding. Story so far is ok but the gameplay and world is allready on a rlly high lvl. I feel like a thief because I got this on sale for 10 euros. You guys deserve the full price :)

I cant recommend it combat just too frustrating decided to purchase it because the world looked beautifull which it is. But the combat just ruins it. Devs decided that combat difficulty = swarming you with flying mobs random mobs with a shield in front of them that take 3x the damage what they HP's are. There will be alot of times where your charged attacks just simply miss why have a target system then? My character is just hitting backwards the air? There is an execute button WHICH CAN MISS? Skills that you can unlock WILL MISS WHILE BEING LOCKED ON THE TARGET. These are skill that shouldn't be aimed just saying, not AOE attacks locked on target attacks. Flying enemies constantly going behind terrain damage you from there you cant kill them. I can't, don't buy it, you will be frustrated by the combat. Unless the combat gets fixed don't buy it not even on sale. Others have said that the sand surfing is fun it isnt. If you go from sandsurfing to other surface where you cannot your character just starts walking breaking the momentum and fluidity of the movement. There is alot of time where you need somewhat precise movement and sandsurfing just sends you waay past what you were trying to do opening chests trying to pickup lore books its frustrating.

I played it for about a hour and had no urge to keep playing it's just a hack and slash but just feels like it doesn't do it all that well. I didn't have it but i legit got to a point where i just felt like i didn't want to play this at all anymore. If that happens within the first hour then your game isn't for me at all.

After a year there are still game-breaking bug there should have been fixed already.

I'm stuck because i killed some monters before taking the relative quest and there is now way to make the game understand that the monsters are already gone :D

I've searched online and the solutions are: restart your run or edit the game save

8.5/10 game i recommend this game to any rpg games lover, you just can sit back, relax and discover the game fight foes and make your own skills combinations and choose how to fight so it's pretty cool

The sprint doesn't work when on sand and it is very difficult to make the jumps in the open world. All in all, meant as a pay-to-play game. Not recommended.

Fun Combat so far, best part of the game by far. Visually looks decent for a double A studio...

Quest design and system progression is kinda boring and or not intuitive. It feels as though its only there to drive a reason for the combat, which is fine. I think if this is the intention they should of gone with a more arpg approach, of more enemies and loot and have that as the driving force. Sort of think Nioh but more open world. This would require more reason to fight enemies, i.e the loot and more density. Travelling around is fun and maybe later on in the game it will be incorporated in the combat more, but right now it feels like I go around, have fun with a few fights and progress for main system mechanics that dont add anything crazy.

I am early in the game but these are my first impressions, I do think the combat has lived up to my expectations and is satisfying, but I want it to go more crazy and maybe more loot and items to push different builds. The loot and build progression so far is odd and boring at the moment.

Ultimately it feels like a good tech demo that that is waiting to be implemented into a full game. Definitely worth the buy on sale though as the combat is fun and the world is interesting enough.

The Game's combat is amazing. World design and this new concept of Combat is awesome. If you are a person, who loves badass combat, fighting Giant monsters, this one ia for you.

Playing on a 1070 from 2016 and the game runs great. Everybody complaining about performance has bigger issues than this game. Also the people calling the combat "sluggish" are either Fry in the episode of Futurama where he drinks 100 cups of coffee or lying. Really great action rpg now, I'm not sure how it was at release but now everything runs great.

can't progress in the game because im soft locked in finding a whispering voice and then forced multiplayer qeue that never does anything. good job incompetent devs. Refund

The game requires you to look things up on the wiki or internet to progress, extremely poor game design.

Fun game that brings back an old school ps2, ps3 style game. Worth the money for $20 but wouldn't bother picking it up at full price

First, the game. Then Deck13.

Game is gorgeous, open world, lots of sidequests and exploration. "Levelling" mechanic is upgrading certain abilities to do with a god-tier gauntlet affixed to your arm. Story is interesting and doesn't pull you away from the gameplay. The combat is where this game shines. You can fight the same enemies over and over and each time you feel like you could have improved something or pulled another trick out of your hat. Challenging, but not Souls-level. When you hit that magical parry or dodge just right and follow up with a tremendous hit it is satisfying. Lots of stuff to collect as well, so it scratches that itch too. Also just has an awesome sense of style. Very cool, new take I haven't seen in this kind of game.

I have a couple complaints about minor things: 1) the voice acting is very overwrought; breathy and soap opera-esque quite a bit of the time. 2) all the chests look exactly the same, the animation for opening them is always exactly the same, and you can find 20 in an hour if you want (there are quite a bit), so you get bored of the same animation over and over if you're looking for items. 3) There are other things, but I can't recall them at the moment. Will add if they come to mind later.

Overall, wonderful game worth asking price. 8/10

Now Deck13. I want more funding, more employees and more everything for this company. They have been on an exponential curve of improvement and never leave a game behind. Lords of the Fallen (meh), the Surge (good), the Surge 2 (VERY good), and now this (VERY good, but a completely different genre, so I give them a little bit of leeway for not exceeding my expectations yet again.) Each one of those games you can get relatively cheaply (in the case of the Surge and Surge 2 when they are on sale they're like $5 COMBINED) and they reward you with 30+ hours of game time apiece. Love, love this company. Check out their YouTube sometime.

The combat felt slow and sluggish. The game sort of wants you to finish a full playthrough before the combat is any fun. I have to grind the same attack moves against the same monsters every 5 mins.
Story is weak and there is no sense of continuity.

Exploration is somewhat fun though.

5/10

Fun gameplay, fun open world, interesting world and more than decent story

It is a fun game and kept me entertained. Graphics, and combat are good. Story line I would say is a 7/10 which is good. On sale I would say get it.

The little bit I played of the game was fun. I didn't find the story to be too interesting, but the combat was pretty fun. I'd recommend this when it's on sale.

Its a decent Game.
Nothing too special really but its crafted well and felt pretty polished.
I only had 1 Bug in the DLC Area that prevented me from progressing but that was fixed by loading a previous save ( dont interact with the shards before talking to the statue in the Arenas in the DLC Area otherwise you cant interact with the statue anymore).
The Game is also the right size to be able to actually finish everything in a reasonable amount of time (Unlike those Open World Ubisoft Games).

The Best Part of it is the sand-sliding Mechanic that makes traversing the Open World fast and fun and you can tell that the Developers made sure to get this right. The transition between running and sand-sliding is seemless and feels super smooth.
The Open World itself is relatively empty but that also ties into the Story (most of it is a desert after all) and I had fun exploring it. It also looks very ragged and torn open and has some interesting rock formations to break up the desert
You also can do so pretty freely and in general you can get to every spot you can see (within some boundaries of course) which made it fun. ( there is also a nice underground Area with some buried tory bits that was fun to explore and more or less optional)
There was only one Area that was blocked off by an invisible wall until you unlocked a special ability, that felt a bit weird and out of place)

The Combat is a little clunky at times, especially when you are fighting Flying Foes (F those Tailwhippers) but overall it is satisfying to break the various parts of the Wraiths and then smashing them to bits in a slow motion finish.
I only wish that there would have been more weapons because I ended up using the Knuckledust for everything as they dished out the most damage.
The Armor sets you can collect are also looking very cool and the overall Aesthetics reminded me a lot of original Lords of the Fallen (which I liked). It was also nice to find some nods to The Surge with some fun Helmet Cosmetics.
The Customization was a bit wonky tho. I never knew If I selected the slot and sometimes it applied dyes I did not select or my Character spinning around while I hovered over the Dyes (Nothing Game Breaking tho and I played with MnK so its probably working better with a Controller)

All in All its a Good Game thats pretty polished and keeps you entertained for a good amount of time.
I got it in a recent steam sale but I think it would have been also worth full price.

I really liked this game! The combat is fun and engaging. The way you character moves around is very fluid, which made traversal and aerial combat feel great. There are many different build possibilities with the game's mechanics called essence stones, and experimenting with the different combinations allowed for very different play styles. If you enjoy open world action games with RPG elements and lots of platforming, give this one a try!

I will start this by saying, I honestly don't want to recommend this game, but I did enjoy like 75% of my time with it. It's not inherently a bad game, just a lot of back and forth fetch quests, jank out the ass and the camera is right up there with the Souls franchise if not worse.

The story is decent, but I also lost interest a little over halfway through it, so just skipped all the dialog and cutscenes. The jank, well, you have a parry button (which I remapped along with the attack buttons and dodge/dash because the default felt awkward) but it didn't work more often than not. And I don't mean like I was pressing to early or too late, as the window is pretty generous, but like I'd press the button (the cooldown was over) and nothing, I'd just take the damn hit; and that led to a decent amount of failed combat challenges, so overall frustrating.

The game is really pretty and each area is fun to explore, to an extent. For a game that gives you double jump and air dashes (3x eventually) there's a LOT of invisible walls all over the place. There are a lot of places that the game pigeon holes you into waiting till you have a late game ability (even though you can get to it with mid game abilities). Another weird thing is the "level up" system, its all based on armor that the game gives you after specific story beats, so it kind of content gates combat arenas and the "elite" fights around the map.

All in all, its a fun(ish) game, if you can get it at a VERY DEEP discount, I'd recommend burning through it in a weekend like I did. I did almost 100% and its around ~20hrs, otherwise I'm sure I could have gotten through it in around ~12hrs.

Highly Recommend!!

This is one of the best games I've played in a LONG time. I have over 60 hours into the game at this point and I'm still loving it. The story is unique and gripping, there are loads of items hidden all over the world making exploration worth while, and the play style is awesome. The amount of abilities they provide leaves an infinite possibility of mixing and matching until you find that unique equilibrium no matter what play style you enjoy. I hope this developer continues to make games because this one is great!

Darksiders mixed with Elden ring combat, Diablo desert aesthetic, AND co-op? I'm here for it.

Good fun to play with someone else, satisfying if a bit annoying at times combat, and a cool world to explore, its pretty fun

Idk what this game was like at launch but i heard ppl say it sucked
but honestly now its a solid game
very fun, big ass world lots of exploration, neat combat
fully playable coop with a homie n we enjoying it

it aint no masterpiece but its a solid action rpg