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Earth's Dawn
Released On: Nov 1, 2016
68
6.9
All Platforms
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 12 Critic Reviews
68
17% Positive
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
75% Mixed
9 Reviews
9 Reviews
8% Negative
1 Review
1 Review
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 12 Critic Reviews
68
17% Positive
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
75% Mixed
9 Reviews
9 Reviews
8% Negative
1 Review
1 Review
Earth’s Dawn is a great game. If you’re at all a fan of 2D beat-em-ups, 2D shoot-em-ups, or action RPGs, I highly suggest you play it.
Earth’s Dawn has the genuine feel of being developed by people that have played other similar games in the genre and have established the groundwork for a successful action RPG. Unfortunately, their execution fails to hit the mark in a number of instances that quickly add up to work against it. Perhaps by drawing too much inspiration from the likes of Odin Sphere, Earth’s Dawn ran the risk of riding the success of the recent Leifthrasir instead of being celebrated as a unique infusion of genres.
User Score
Mixed or Average
Based on 15 User Ratings
6.9
60% Positive
9 Ratings
9 Ratings
20% Mixed
3 Ratings
3 Ratings
20% Negative
3 Ratings
3 Ratings
User Score
Mixed or Average
Based on 15 User Ratings
6.9
60% Positive
9 Ratings
9 Ratings
20% Mixed
3 Ratings
3 Ratings
20% Negative
3 Ratings
3 Ratings
I've been passing on this game for years even though I like the art style. I thought it was a slow long-winded turn based RPG like darkest dungeon. But it's actually a side scrolling hack and slash beat em up game similar to Odin sphere and Muramasa blade and other vanillaware titles. The visuals are beautiful gameplay is extremely fun there's heaps to level heaps to craft heaps to do. My only issue with the game is an issue I have with a lot of Japanese games that throw hours of reading at you and exposition. On top of long winded tutorials and overly complicated menus that are more obscure than they need to be. Would definitely give this game a try though if you liked the other games mentioned.
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PlayStation 4
Decent Vanillaware clone. Doesn't quite have the depth or amazing backgrounds a Vanilla game would have but still fun. Best way to describe this game is Odin Sphere meets Gears of War. Also at 20 bucks it's worth the money.
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PlayStation 4
A fast action game that looks great and is very satisfying in small doses but in long term annoyed me with repetitiveness and wore me down with grind. And where’s the co-op?! [01/2017, p.52]
Repetitive gameplay is the only thing holding back Earth’s Dawn but it is a pretty major part of the equation. The missions reward you well and it always feels like you’re making progress, but the lack of variety may be a deal breaker for some.
Earth’s Dawn is the perfect example of a videogame with good ideas. It is entertaining, however, it does not achieve the goal of becoming a big installment in the genre. It is good, but not great.
Interesting but repetitive action/adventure that could have been much better with a little bit of imagination on its missions and combat system.
A game which offers a lot of depth for player choice, but poor execution makes all the effort feel pointless. Earth’s Dawn tries to make up for its lack of content with too much repetitive gameplay.
For $30 this is a decent little ARPG. Awesome art style, great sense of humor, deep customization, plenty of freedom in determining your own difficulty/pacing and a smart combat system that uses long combos, extreme mobility, parries, near-infinite juggling, "sword clash" attack-while-blocking mechanics and more. Great hitboxes and solid controls help give the whole thing a very polished feel.
The game has definite problems as well, though, mostly of the typical "budget" variety. There is a limited number of animations, environments and enemies with re-skins everywhere. Most of them are clever or unique enough for me to give it a pass, especially considering how much I like the bosses, but it's still repetitive. Soundtrack is alright (sound design is better), but I would bring my own music for the long grind sessions since it is mostly silent anyways.
Overall, pretty good imo. If you like Odin's Sphere or Dragon's Crown and are looking for something to scratch that itch, this is worth checking out. Makes me hopeful for more from this dev in the future.
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PlayStation 4
Earth's Dawn is a boring game, and it does nothing to help itself in that regard. The opening scene is stills with a Japanese voice over and English text explaining how aliens invaded and almost wiped out humanity because our weapons couldn't harm them. It wasn't until we grafted their guts onto armor that we could fight. Now, this is a promising idea, unfortunately it's horrifically let down by weak combat that lacks instruction, a nonsense skill tree, and a failure of a story.
Let's start with the story which is easily the weakest part. It's weak because after that introduction there's nothing to latch on to. You are a generic create-a-character, either stick leg woman or Hulk sized man, neither of which are really artistically appealing. I'm not the kind of guy that thinks graphics matter, but this looks like it was designed on Newgrounds in 2008. The graphics certainly do, but the art style is this weird mix of anime and Gears of War that comes off as unnatural and awkward when put with what looks like flash animation for gameplay and realistic portrait art for cut scenes. There's no one in the story to latch on to because of this, and the only characters you'll see in the first half hour are boring and generic, which is a good term for this game. It's boring and generic.
The combat exemplifies this point because it's all done with one button (the other button shoots a gun, but the gun is trash because it's slow, nonautomatic, meaning you have to mash it faster than melee attacks for it to serve its one purpose, and you can just make the sword serve that purpose with upgrades) and directional input. Press up and Square, you launch the enemy. Down and square you get another move, etc. The problem is none of these are explained anywhere in the game. I had a whole fight where I couldn't stop throwing the enemy and I had no idea what did that. The worst part were flying enemies where I would sometimes tap a direction before attacking and do something completely different than what I wanted. You can chalk that up to inexperience, but I personally despise when holding forward while attacking isn't "Move forward and attack" but a separate combo altogether.
Combat also grades you based on some kind of criteria, but I also couldn't find that information anywhere. In something like Devil May Cry you can tell what they grade you on, getting hit and doing sick combos. Earth's Dawn I did a whole fight without getting touched, never stopped moving, probably did every combo I could do, and I got a friggin' B rank. It was the fastest and most fun fight I had in the whole time I played, and the game said, "Wow, that was just barely average" but another fight where I mashed Square to get through some basic scorpion enemies was an S. A fight where I used all the systems in the game and didn't get hit, B; a fight where I walked forward and mashed Square, S. What?
Even if this game had a budget and graphics these two core problems would still be there and it would still hamper the game greatly. None of the enemies are unique except in design. If you've played a beat em up in the past decade you'll know what all these guys do the moment they come on screen. The combat has some depth but without anything to explain it, and the apparent ease of mashing your way through a fight, there's not a lot of reason to dig into it. Worst of all was the story that reads like a typical alien invasion movie except for the bio armor idea, and ultimately no characters to latch on to and empathize with. It all leads to a game that had potential and squandered it by doing everything that every other game has already done without bringing anything new or changing up the formula in any significant way. The back of the box gave me promise, but in the end I was let down.
The game gets a 5/10 from me because there's nothing broken here, they delivered a product that works as intended, no glitches or bugs to be seen, but beyond working there just wasn't anything that stands out. The absolute pinnacle of mediocrity, like a bologna sandwich without condiments, it does what it's supposed to (turns on and runs) but fails to be memorable or unique.
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PlayStation 4
Summary Earth’s Dawn is looming and the fate of the planet hangs in the balance. Become a member of A.N.T.I. — a squad of super-human soldiers powered by alien technology — and fight to reclaim Earth from the alien invasion known as E.B.E. [Playstation.com]
Rated T
for Teen
Platforms:
- Nintendo Switch
- PlayStation 4
- Xbox One
- PC
- iOS (iPhone/iPad)
Initial Release Date: Nov 1, 2016
Developer:
- One or Eight
Publisher: Rising Star Games
Genres:
