Kiseff has made an amazing adventure with fast action, impactful class fantasy, relentless enemies, a strong emphasis on defense and positioning, a healthy amount of customization options, and the ability to host a small server of friends! Atlyss races come in 5 forms, mischievous imps, rabbit/fox like poons, the cheng rodents, corvid like byrdles, the scaley goobers the kobolds. You can play with face characteristics, tails, species-defining characteristics like ears or beaks, body size (we all know about this), color, and body patterns. It’s satisfying playing with these tools, making your character. You’re a reincarnated creature, summoned by the Guardian, Angela, to prevent the world from succumbing to corrupt energies. You get acquainted with the hub, accept your starting quest, and begin a deceptively simple task of killing slimes.
I say deceptively simple because these bouncy green jelly balls will mob you. Atlyss mobs like teaming up, encircling to beat your tail like you’re wearing gang colors in the wrong hood. But if you’re smart, you’ll block and dodge, pay attention to the vividly telegraphed attacks, and parry. Casters and archers are at an advantage here cause they can keep the mob ahead of them and avoid the thorough beating. You’ll likely learn pretty fast that the day/night cycle changes some enemies, and continue your adventure by learning whole new attack patterns before you even reach the first dungeon. These floating heads are gonna be common in that dungeon, so you’ll be better prepared for it, but if you’re not, that’s okay, there’s a nice re-spawn point at the dungeon entrance, so you can rush ahead like you didn't learn a thing and smash those ghosties.
I went with a fighter to endure the hits, suffering less stamina depletion when blocking, and I used their skills to the pain; plus, parrying makes that beefy ‘clank’ sound. Failing to block or parry a strong attack is also rewarded. On impact, it sounds like a car wreck; you’re sent flying, your character’s twisting in the air like you’re trying to clip through a wall, and halfway through the air, you’ll stop and can maneuver again. But that’s okay, Atlyss likes to treat everyone like this.
The weapons are most of your fantasy staples: swords, shields, scepters, axes, bows, spears. Instead of daggers, there are katars, and instead of staves, there is a big hecking bell! These weapons aren’t class-specific; you could be a mystic that uses a hammer, or a fighter using scepters, and you could always alter which attribute weapon damage scales with. Making magical weapons that scale off strength instead of mind keeps all options viable; however, there are class abilities that only work if you’re using specific weapons. Shockwave requires a heavy weapon or spear, shield bash requires a shield, and multi-shot requires a bow.
Atlyss does something other games in the genre haven’t done often: player-side multiplayer servers. You can host up to 16 people to play in your game, though parties aren’t more than 4 players. You’ll find people roaming the maps, engaged in PvP, delving through dungeons, and socializing. When playing with friends loot’s specific to every player, so you won’t worry about someone taking an item you’d need, and you can trade between your party, so there’s a higher chance someone has loot another player could use. It’s a great way to encourage partying up. Enemies remain strong, their health scaling with player count. When you’re doing dungeons at the encouraged level, you’d like to have more players to spread the aggro. The dungeons aren’t procedurally generated, and though the rooms remain in their respective locations on the map, there are several different layouts you could get when delving that make exploring them not feel tedious. Their reception in early access has been overwhelmingly positive on Steam, with over 14,000 positive ratings. Kiseff’s still hard at work, expanding class options, opening new dungeons, revising the maps, crafting new weapons, making punishing enemies, and expanding on character creation options. It’s rare for this type of game to get such a wide reception with little marketing, but the high-quality work they put out made, expanded the appeal of this quirky-looking game. Atlyss is available in early access, with an update coming July 7th.
