{"id":17043,"date":"2017-11-15T00:01:54","date_gmt":"2017-11-15T00:01:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/?p=17043"},"modified":"2017-10-17T05:10:05","modified_gmt":"2017-10-17T05:10:05","slug":"earth-atlantis-switch-pc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/2017\/11\/15\/earth-atlantis-switch-pc\/","title":{"rendered":"Earth Atlantis (Switch, PC)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>An apocalyptic event has left the Earth 96 percent covered in water.\u00a0 Machines have evolved into sea-like creatures and it\u2019s up to you to hop into your submarine and destroy them.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Who knows? \u00a0But that\u2019s just what you do in Earth Atlantis, a 2-D shooter with elements of exploration and strikingly unique visuals.\u00a0 It\u2019s available to download on Nintendo Switch and PC, but reviewed on Switch here.<\/p>\n

As 2-D shooters tend to be, controls are fairly simple.\u00a0 Use the control stick to steer and hold down a button to fire your weapon.\u00a0 Pressing another button will cause your ship to turn around and face the other way.\u00a0 Rather than scrolling in one direction, you are free to explore the mazes of underwater caves, ruined building scaffoldings, and more as you shoot down mechanical piranhas, sunfish, crabs, among other things.<\/p>\n

As you defeat enemies, they\u2019ll drop power-ups.\u00a0 Collect them to increase your projectiles, gain shots from behind, refill your energy, fire homing bombs, and much more.\u00a0 Hidden about the mazes are crates and barrels with more power-ups to find.\u00a0 As you play you can unlock different subs which have varied fire and power-up progressions.\u00a0 Scattered about the mazes are bosses that you must destroy, like giant squids, sea turtles, and more.\u00a0 Defeat them and a path will open up with more of the map to explore.\u00a0 If you lose all your energy you\u2019ll have to begin again at the starting power with none of your power-ups intact.\u00a0 Which is a bummer but at least the game saves which bosses you\u2019ve already defeated.\u00a0 When you beat the game you can try it again on Hunter Mode, where you only get one life to do it all again.<\/p>\n

One highly noticeable aspect of the game is its unique visuals.\u00a0 At first glance it just looks like a black and white Game Boy screen, but as you look closer, you\u2019ll notice it looks more like an old fashioned map or sketchbook.\u00a0 There are lots of neat things to see in the background as well, like the Statue of Liberty underwater with only the tip of her torch sticking out at the surface.\u00a0 With its enemies that all look like robotic fish, the game reminded me of another classic 2-D shooter: Darius from Taito.\u00a0 The bouncing bubble power-ups also make me think of Darius.\u00a0 The post-apocalyptic themes also reminded me of Metal Black, another one from Taito.\u00a0 Plus, the undersea submarine made me think of a unique underwater arcade shooter called In the Hunt.\u00a0 So yeah, this game will get your nostalgia going.\u00a0 Too bad they didn\u2019t have a \u201cclassic mode\u201d that played more like a 2-D scrolling shooter.<\/p>\n

Aside from the high difficulty level, which is tough even on the \u201cEasy\u201d setting, the only other problem I had with the game was the map that tells you where the bosses are like a radar.\u00a0 It\u2019s a white overlay on the left top corner of the screen, but since the backgrounds are mostly beige it blends in and is hard to see.\u00a0 You can turn it off, but it\u2019s not useful either way.\u00a0 But if you like unique classic styled 2-D shooters, you should check this one out anyway.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Kid Factor:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Earth Atlantis is rated E for Everyone with an ESRB descriptor of Mild Fantasy Violence.\u00a0 You just shoot at robotic fish that explode and break apart when defeated and that\u2019s it.\u00a0 Reading skill is helpful for some of the text, but not necessary just to play.\u00a0 Younger gamers and less experienced players may find the game too difficult and frustrating.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An apocalyptic event has left the Earth 96 percent covered in water.\u00a0 Machines have evolved into sea-like creatures and it\u2019s up to you to hop into your submarine and destroy them.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Who knows? \u00a0But that\u2019s just what you do in Earth Atlantis, a 2-D shooter with elements of exploration and strikingly unique visuals.\u00a0 It\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":17041,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-game-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17043"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17043\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17045,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17043\/revisions\/17045"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}