What on earth is Earth’s Dawn?
When I first looked at it I was puzzled. It looks like a game that is impossible to put into words, but at the same time reminds me a tad of titles gone by from my SNES and Megadrive. It’s been out in Japan for a while now and on the 1st of November, we’ll find out exactly what it’s all about, as developers OneorEight release their 2D side-scrolling action adventure to the general Xbox One, PS4 and PC public.
Earth’s Dawn is just around the corner and the fate of the planet hangs in the balance! You play as a member of A.N.T.I. – a squad of super-human soldiers powered by alien technology – and the game focuses on the fight to reclaim Earth from the alien invasion known as E.B.E before it’s too late and Earth is destroyed. It promises to let us experience super fast 2D gameplay, through a backdrop of a unique hand drawn art style. Combat is engrossing and needs fast fingers in order to get perfect scores after each level and thereby progress further through the 100 or so levels available.
The game has a lot of depth and you can customise your character and weapons, as well as crafting a whole array of new equipment. You get crafting items from fallen enemies you’ve defeated, as well as special rewards for doing a mission well. There are over 300 unique crating elements to collect and you use these across five categories; Swords (one-handed melee), Long Swords (two-handed melee), Guns (one-handed ranged), Bows (two-handed ranged) and Shuriken (melee and thrown). Other craftables can be categorised as amour suits, accessories (iron masks, night vision goggles, berets etc), and “exceed units” (large exoskeletons).
There is a skill tree system where by you use experience points to change or personalise the way you play the game. Making it more defence based or more attacking for example are possible options in how you complete the challenge of the game. From the start of Earth’s Dawn you are provided with 30 points pre-invested across the board of skills, which can be relocated as desired into different abilities, proficiencies and stat modifiers. As you rise in power, the cap will be raised allowing you to unlock new moves, weapon classes and all-round increased power levels.
The story mode promises to be very unique, where by the narrative changes depending on the mission you take and how you play it. Also, it includes equipment and missions that were not available when the game was released in Japan. The developers said that the game might feel overwhelming to begin with, but if you listen to what the game is telling you, it will reward you in spades as you play through.
I’m really looking forward to spending some quality time with Earth’s Dawn as it looks as hard as nails, but accessible and more rewarding with the more hours you put into it. We’ll get you our review as soon as possible…after we’ve saved the world a few times and killed some E.B.E robots.
