Atlas Wept Review

Atlas Wept is a “Humanist retro-style RPG game about sincerity and empathy” developed by Kbojisoft and published in collaboration with Wings. This is a pretty classic RPG that calls to mind games like Earthbound and Undertale but brings in its own twists, so let’s see what this small game has to offer.

The story is told from the perspective of two groups. One is about Hal and Lucy, refugees of a now-sunken city, who find a robot dog they name Gigi who has lost their memories and now must go on an adventure to recover them. However, they may get caught in the middle of the ongoing war between brown and blue-eyed people and the secrets of the planet. Meanwhile, in some other part of the world, you play as a grumpy girl named Dezi, who teams up with a wannabe investigator named Charlie to figure out the mystery behind the giant spire that no one can seem to remember how it got there and the Grins that seem to be causing the citizens of Boggleville to be weirdly happy all the time.

I found the story was well-written and has a fair amount of world-building and lore to dig into if you're interested. And just like its main inspirations, it's not afraid of going into some darker and more mature subjects. Like, there are some surprisingly brutal scenes that made me flinch, all while looking like all the sprites were made with MS Paint.

Not exactly easy on the eyes.

Actually, let me talk about the presentation of the game now. The graphics are serviceable; I certainly don't dig the art style, particularly when dealing with human characters, but where the design shines is in its creatures: They're weird, creepy, or fun to look at. Even something as simple as a traffic cone with a smile can be rather unsettling. While the visuals can be unnerving despite the crude style, the soundtrack, on the other hand, is nothing special. It's fine for what it is and fits the locations, scenes, and battles you go through, but they aren't very memorable in the slightest. Also, I found some of the sound effects are ear-piercing and unpleasant to hear. 

But enough of that, let's get into how combat works. It’s a turn-based RPG, but it has some interesting mechanics you’ll have to deal with. All enemies have a stun meter, which you fill up by constantly dealing damage. If you max it out, they won’t be able to act, so it’s free damage for you until the meter empties. However, attacking is more than just selecting an option in a menu. You'll need to take into account the attack type, as magic fills the stun meter more, but melee deals bonus damage to stunned enemies. And, no matter what you choose, you’ll have to perform a quick skill-based mini-game to determine its power. No auto-battle here.

What is with worlds needing kids to save it?

But now for the enemy’s turn, where you have to dodge their own attacks. It plays out like in Undertale, where you have to survive a bullet hell-like segment. These can be very difficult to get through perfectly without any damage, often throwing you into the deep end, but rewarding to perfect. There are training dummies that allow you to practice the dodging mini-games, but it's only after you encounter that particular attack.

If a party member runs out of HP, they aren’t down yet. Instead, they'll have a Panic meter, and if you can heal them before it empties (how fast it drains depends on a party member's Stubborn stat), they'll be fine and can keep fighting. That being said, all damage received causes a small amount of Fatigue, which reduces Max HP, and it carries over to future fights, so you better rest in bed or on benches regularly. Overall, I found the combat really fun, but it gets better with more party members. I also preferred Dezi’s group’s battles since they have a unique mechanic to sing songs that grant unique buffs, such as the ability to activate slow motion in the dodging mini-game.

This is from, like, the first boss, and I'm dealing with Sans-level insanity.

Now, onto technical performance. It ran perfectly fine; it is a pixel art-style game, so you don’t really need the most powerful PC to run it. I didn’t encounter any glitches during my playtime as well. But for my problems, I didn’t like exploring the levels. Some areas are pretty big and a little confusing to navigate. There isn’t anything obvious to guide you to your next objective other than intuition and what the game tells you, which sometimes isn’t enough. You might get lost, and the map that you can bring up at a button press is too zoomed in to be comfortable to look at. It kind of sucks that I didn’t like wandering around since Atlas Wept encourages exploration by rewarding you with money, stat-increasing stamps, and skill chips to add more moves to your arsenal. It is an annoyance to me, but that’s my only real big gripe with the game.

You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll wonder what drugs have been used here.

Atlas Wept is an excellent little RPG that doesn’t overstay its welcome. The fun battles keep you engaged with every enemy encounter, and the story balances out its mature themes with great characters and small but fun moments. It can be dark and unsettling but also sincere and loving. It has a pretty short playtime, clocking in at around 12 hours, so if you want a quicker RPG for cheap, this is the game for you.