Rather than building up your firepower through in-game power-ups it treats the game as an action-RPG where you must collect and sort through loot then equip that loot to your ship. I love the twist that Drifting Lands puts on the shooter genre. I was a big fan of the railgun for a few levels only to reach a level where I died almost immediately because now, I was fighting massive waves of smaller one-hit enemies that were more susceptible to a trident or mini-gun type weapon. It’s also possible to learn which weapons and abilities work best in certain levels. I really appreciated the icon designs that clearly show the type of weapons or abilities, because once you start switching things around it’s hard to remember what does what.ĭespite each mission being randomly generated, enemies appear on screen in predictable and repetitive patterned waves, so it is possible to learn their pattern if you repeat a level multiple times. Abilities are intuitively mapped to the face buttons and their smartly designed icons switch to a cool-down counter when activated. The actual gameplay is pure shooter goodness with smooth analog movement and rapid-fire trigger action for your primary weapons. These prove exceedingly challenging as you go deeper into the game.
Missions must be completed in numerical order, and while it is possible to replay older missions, if you break the sequence, you must start over, but at any given time you will have your primary mission as well as a covert ops mission assigned to you by a story-based contacts. The latter option brings up a mission map with icons representing available missions as well as story bubbles to advance the story and unlock more missions. The main screen had this cool Wing Commander vibe with a visual menu that lets you click on parts of the screen to access the market, hangar, leaderboards, and command ops. There is a simple and somewhat disposable story being told through gorgeous story panels and pop-up characters with dialogue bubbles – no speech. There are seemingly endless combinations of equipment including primary and secondary weapons along with passive and active abilities that can boost credit earnings, magnetically attract collectibles, or even rescue your ship in near-death conditions, because yes, you can die and lose your ship, but if you are rescued you only lose your cargo. With three classes of ships, there is something to suit everyone’s play style, and with so many ways to customize it is very easy to create slow heavily armored ships that deliver powerful railgun attacks, or fast nimble fighters that can warp around the screen raining down endless streams of mini-gun fire.
Throughout this massive adventure you will either collect new gear or sell off your scrap for credits to buy stuff in the store that can be equipped to these various slots, and much like your typical RPG, gear is limited by level and prerequisite stats.
DRIFTING LANDS WEAPONS UPGRADE
The sheer scope of the game impresses with stats alone, boasting 100 levels of difficulty, 70 active and passive power-ups, and all sorts of parts and gadgets used to equip and power your fully customizable space fighter.įans of Diablo-style RPG’s will instantly be at home with their ship config screen that resembles a character sheet complete with assignable boxes for engines, shields, thrusters, weapons, helmets, and a pair of ROM chip upgrade slots. Drifting Lands might sound like your next big fantasy adventure or role-playing game, but in reality, this unique hybrid blends equal and perfectly balanced parts of RPG-lite and side-scrolling shoot-em-up gameplay to create one of the most original shooters I’ve played in years.
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