Earth’s Dawn, a new sidescrolling action RPG from Japanese
developer OneOrEight, will immediately capture your attention with a fantastic
art style and fascinating concept that mashes a story similar to Gears of War
with your favorite anime to create something awesome. The combat, too, is very promising with a surprising amount of
depth for a 2D beat-em-up. The only
thing that really drags Earth’s Dawn down is an overwhelming amount of sorting
through confusing menus for skill management and crafting new weapons. Earth’s Dawn is definitely one of those
games that would have greatly benefited from choosing a single genre and
getting that right rather than trying to do so much at once. It is good, but would be better with some
edits. See our full XONE Earth’s Dawn
review for details.Game Details
- Publisher: Rising Star Games
- Developer: OneOrEight
- ESRB Rating: “T” for Teen
- Genre: Action RPG
- Pros: Great art style; deep combat system; addictive and fun
- Cons: Repetitive missions; button mash-y; overwhelming sea of menus
- MSRP: $30
Earth’s Dawn takes place in a post apocalyptic world where
aliens have invaded and decimated mankind.
You play as a member of a squad of specially equipped soldiers that
boldly venture into alien held territory and try to take it back by hacking and
slashing through dozens upon dozens of creepy enemies until the job is
done. That’s the cliff’s notes version,
anyway. The story is told through
static cutscenes with Japanese voice over, but honestly, it is kind of hard to
follow. All you need to know is that
there are aliens, you have advanced weapons, so go kill stuff.
The gameplay takes place on a 2D plane and plays out like a
beat-em-up. You have a sword and a gun
and by using them properly together you can create devastating combos. There is also a fantastic movement system
where you can jump and boost through the air multiple times in order to reach
new heights or simply juggle enemies in the air. Different enemy types require different tactics, so learning how
to fight and dodge and boost around effectively is vital. The combat is pretty intuitive and the
movement mechanics feel great. When you
get it all figured out, Earth’s Dawn can be a ton of fun to play as there is a
lot of depth here. It reminds me of a
Platinum Games action title, just in 2D, which should be taken as the highest
of praise.
What happens in between missions is where Earth’s Dawn might
start to lose you, however. This isn’t
just an action game, but rather an action RPG, which means it is loaded with
systems and subsystems and stats and skills and all sorts of stuff you have to
try to keep track of. The first big
chunk of your time with the game is spent introducing you to all of this, but
not really explaining how any of it works, and it gets overwhelming almost
immediately.
Part of this feeling of being overwhelmed is that crafting
weapons plays a big part in Earth’s Dawn.
The idea is that normal human weapons can’t beat the aliens so you
infuse the bits and pieces of the aliens you pick up during battles into your
weapons and armor to make them stronger.
Not only can you make your existing weapons better, but you can craft
totally new ones as well. It is an
interesting concept for sure, but there is just so much “stuff” involved that
even after several hours of play I’m still not sure I’m actually doing any of
it correctly. All I know is that I’m
making numbers go up, which means my stuff is getting better.
It also has to be said that the mission design isn’t
spectacular here. There are only a
handful of levels that you return to over and over and over again, albeit
usually with different enemy configurations, for the dozens upon dozens of
missions, though many of them are less than a minute long. The missions are all almost exclusively
“Kill everything you see”, too, which means you’re going to the same place and
doing the same stuff an awful lot. You
also learn fairly early on that, despite the fact the combat does have a lot of
depth, your best bet is to stick with the same handful of super effective
combos for pretty much the whole game.
This makes the game pretty darn repetitive fairly quickly.
With that said, however, Earth’s Dawn kept me coming back
for a couple of reasons. One, I really,
really love the art style. You get to
slightly customize your character and I just love the sort of gritty anime look
to it all. Also, while the combat can
be repetitive and sort of button mash-y, it can still be really, really
satisfying and fun. Honestly, Earth’s
Dawn reminds me quite a bit of Phantom Breaker Battlegrounds (criminally
underrated and under appreciated beat-em-up that is BC on XONE if you want to
play it …), so if you enjoyed that game there is a good chance you’ll like
Earth’s Dawn too.
All in all, Earth’s Dawn has some mission design
issues and is a little too complicated for its own good, but the core gameplay
and art style are pretty fantastic and make it worth a look for action RPG and
beat-em-up fans. The $30 asking price
is a bit over the top, but it does offer a ton of depth if you are willing to
dig in and really learn how everything works.
It can also be said that it is one of the most distinctively Japanese
games on Xbox One at the moment, which also definitely gives it a certain
appeal. Action RPG and beat-em-up fans
will find a lot to like in Earth’s Dawn and should check it out.
Disclosure: A review code was provided by the publisher.
