A 2D single-player side-scrolling roguelite, Atomic Owl is dynamic hack-and-slash platformer published by EastAsiaSoft. There is a lot happening in this action game but struggles to find a cohesive gimmick to gel it all together.

Playing as an owl who is chilling with his ramen eating bird friends, disaster strikes and you get knocked out for a couple of years. Upon awakening, it is up to you to save your feathered comrades with the help of a brash talking sword. The narrative has plenty of stereotypical “go save your brainwashed friend” tones but the overall presentation is a little weird. Sometimes the dialog is serious. Sometimes it is humorous. Sometimes it is fourth wall breaking. Unfortunately, these beats don’t necessarily fit with one another, making the approach awkwardly jarring at times.

Even though the action is more melee-based, gameplay is reminiscent of something like Mega Man from a platforming, combat standpoint. Stages have plenty of wall jumping, spikes to avoid, and ledges to grasp. There are also plenty of common enemies that try and impede your progress but drop cash that can be spent to upgrade abilities, so there is incentive to destroy as opposed to avoid fighting. However, as cool as the 2D spritework looks, Hidalgo, enemies, and even bosses are rather tiny.

Strangely, the game asks the player to choose between two types of games when initially starting: rogue-style or normal. Like most rogues, dying requires a full restart.

However, even when playing on normal, the player needs to replay the entirety of the most recent stage which is the biggest annoyance. For example, I was able to make it to the first boss after some trial and error but then got immediately smoked. Upon death, the player reverts back to the limbo land where cash can be spent on upgrades and the player is free to explore and awkwardly placed developer/support room. The problem is, the game then asks the player if they want to continue, but continuing requires a full restart of the last stage… but there is no other option. First, why even ask the player if this is the only option, and secondly, no, I don’t want to replay the entire stage, reach the boss with one hit left, then get smoked again. Going back to the Mega Man comparison, it sucks reaching the boss, dying during the fight, then needing to restart at the beginning again. Why can’t the player restart at the beginning of the boss fight?

Unable to beat the first boss due to the difficulty and from disrespect of the player’s time, I rage quit and deleted this frustrating game from my hard drive. Atomic Owl has some interesting design choices, but not all of them good. Instead of trying to drive on the line of both rogue and non-rogue gameplay, it would have been better picking a lane and staying in it.

By: Zachary Gasiorowski, Editor in Chief myGamer.com

X/Twitter: @ZackGaz

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