Atlas Fallen Review (Xaybas)
I just got the completionist for this game in 55h really taking my time and messing around with everything the game has to offer
I wanna start by saying that this game is literally the clunkiest game I've ever played in my life, and I've been playing video games non stop for about 25 years. I really enjoyed it but god damn, let's do a simple good and bad list, starting with the bad to get it out of the way.
Weaknesses:
- The combat feels like it was made clunky on purpose, probably to try and get a Dark Souls feel to it but it's freaking horrible. Every attack is painfully slow while the enemies' aren't, which makes it feel really unfair, the hitboxes are quite messed up and the movement also is, like your character aiming at a completely different direction sometimes when you're locked on something, getting blocked on an invisible wall, it's things like that constantly and by far the worst aspect of the game imo
- The targeting system is terrible. Elites/bosses have several parts and each can be locked on individually, but since they constantly spawn adds that you generally wanna get rid of asap they're usually really hard to switch to with the game's locking system. Why? I don't know, but it made me die a lot of times so I do recommend to get rid of the smaller enemies without using it, it just makes the process easier
- NPCs. This game is known for having bad dialogues and it's pretty true so to speak, but more than that it's the fact that they constantly repeat the same one line of dialogue each time you pass by them even when a certain event should change what they say. IE: when a person asks you if you can help them and still do after you finish their quest, it makes no sense and breaks immersion. That and also the fact that they don't do anything apart from standing around or cycling through the one animation that was given to them, for that reason the world kinda feels lifeless.
- The balancing around essence shards is just not there, there are too many ways to become invincible/one shot every enemy in the game and it's not hard at all to get the components for those builds, I messed around with those a little before switching to fairer builds which made it a bit more enjoyable
- The animations are not that great imo
Strengths:
- The combat. Although it's clunky as hell I really enjoyed it, picture something between Devil May Cry and Monster Hunter but way simpler, if you're willing to be patient with this game it will reward you with a lot of fun
- The build system is pretty good, intuitive and there are a lot of interesting builds to make. Some builds will make you OP really fast though as mentioned above, try them out and let them go because they're fun but also take every risk out of the game
- Sand sliding, probably the most unique feature of this game and the reason why most people wanted to play it, it's fun, I just wish you could go faster
- It doesn't drag on forever, it's a straightforward game that doesn't try to trick you into playing longer than necessary by bloating up the map with too many useless objectives, those open world activities are there but it felt like the right amount
- The story is okay, I enjoyed it
There you go, thank you for reading, I do recommend this game and although it has flaws, I felt it grow on me the more I was playing it and I ended up having a really good time with it. I just started a new game+ playthrough despite getting the completionist because it's just pretty fun, I feel like overall this is an underrated game but people not liking it is definitely understandable
TLDR: This game is the game I would use if I had to explain what "clunky" is, but it's pretty damn good imo, it's also not too long which is a good thing.