Game: Atomicrops
Genre: Action, Strategy, Simulation, Adventure, Farming
System: Nintendo Switch
Developer|Publisher: Bird Bath Games | Raw Fury
Age Rating: PEGI 12 / ESRB:Teen
Price: USD $14.99| CAD $18.89| AUS $ 22.50 |UK £13.49 |EU €14,99
Release Date: 28th May 2020
Review code used, with many thanks to Raw Fury!
Farm. Marry. Kill.
“Farm. Marry. Kill.” These are the titular words plastered all over the promotional materials for Atomicrops, and for good reason. Pick up this game, and you are most definitely going to farm and kill, and sometimes if you’re lucky you will marry (maybe even more than once!).
I had an AMAZING time with this game. This is the second game published by Raw Fury that I have absolutely loved; it is like Raw Fury gave me five roses, and now my trust-in-them stat has gone way up. It’s like when you have a favourite authour (Tamora Pierce for me): you go out of your way to read all of the books he/she/they have written. I will now go out of my way to follow any projects Raw Fury are a part of.
So let’s jump into the game itself, shall we?
If A Potato Could Talk…
…what would it say? Well, at the very least, Atomicrops has taught me that it would laugh happily while it is being watered.
Atomicrops may look like a fun, easygoing farming sim from some of the promotional material, but let me assure you it is NOT that. If you’re thinking about getting this game because you want a cute, relaxing farming sim to hold you over until the remake of Friends of Mineral Town comes out… well, this is NOT the game for you.
Atomicrops is an action-packed top-down shooter with a splash of farming (if you’re lucky). I do not say any of this to diminish the fun-factor of this game, rather to warn off casual gamers who are trying to de-stress with a slow-paced farm-sim. This is anything BUT that.
If you have ever heard of, or played, Enter the Gungeon then you’ll know what kind of game Atomicrops is. It’s a “bullet hell roguelite” game. You view your character from a top-down perspective, and they stay in the middle of the screen while hordes of enemies fly at you from all directions.
Controls are simple enough, but took me some time to get used to: you move your character with the L-stick, and aim your gun with the R-stick. To shoot you hold down, or press, ZR. To farm, you simply stand by your farm land and press ZL. ZL will either hoe the targeted spot on the ground, or plant the seeds you have selected (you can switch between seeds with the L and R buttons). Y will let you use any special one-time abilities if you have them, and pressing down the R-stick will let you aim, and then activate your tractor (if you have one).
WHEW! That was kind of a lot. Like I said, it took me a while to get used to the controls, but once you do it’s simple enough. The game is very fast paced, and even when you’re trying to farm there are enemies and projectiles constantly coming at you.
Like Peas In A Pod
So you own a farm during the nuclear apocalypse, the last farm to be exact. In order for your town to survive you must farm, farm, FARM for them!
Predictably, you start your adventure in Year 1 of Spring. Every day you can choose to plant, water, and fertilize some crops, and/or go out around your farm to explore. Exploring is always VERY worth it as you can kill various enemy camps to receive rewards like seeds, power-ups, tractors, and even friendly animal friends who help you farm (the cows help you water your crops and are SOOO useful, especially early game).
Every night the game will shout at you “DEFEND YOUR CROPS”, and if you’re out exploring you better high-tail it back to your farm or the mutant monsters will come and start eating them up.
Each season lasts for three “days”. At the end of the three days you fight a boss, as well as all the crops you’ve managed to grow/collect will be tallied up, and you’ll get a score based on how well you were able to feed the hungry mutant town. Obviously, the more satisfied the townsfolk, the better rewards you will receive.
I gotta say, all of the bosses were a LOT of fun, and each one was a good challenge. On top of that, the challenge had a good curve in terms of the Spring-boss being a bit gentler as opposed to the boss at the end of Winter.
If you can manage to survive a full year, the game will “save” (in a way). You’ll go back to the spawning area, but now you can choose to go back and replay year one, or start year two from scratch, and so on to the tune of TEN years. I could BARELY scrape past year one… I shudder to think of the difficulty year ten will pose.
Love In The Time Of The Apocalypse
They don’t say “Farm. Marry. Kill.” for nothing. There is one special crop you can plant on your farm, and it is roses. Now, when farming, you sell your crops for the in-game currency “cashews” (get it? The game is FULL of clever veggie puns), you can use your cashews to buy more seeds or a better gun/gun upgrades. But roses… roses are the top-tier currency.
You can use your roses to flirt with the two random characters that will be sitting in the town at the end of each day. If you manage to give them enough roses, you can choose to marry them. Don’t worry, your roses don’t just go to waste. Each time you flirt with a character and give them a rose they will give you a permanent powerup (such as better farming stats, or a gourd to help you block enemy projectiles, etc.)
Once you marry a character, they will join you and help out on the farm. I have married three of them so far, and think it’s SUPER-COOL-FANTASTIC that the seemingly-female characters will follow you with their guns and help shoot enemies, while the seemingly-male character I married just helps you dig and water crops and stuff.
BOTH ARE IMPORTANT THINGS! I just love it when girls be kickin’ butt!
You also need roses to buy “heartbeets”, and at the end of each season you can spend roses to buy helpful upgrades. It always seemed like I never had enough roses. I suppose that’s probably the point.
If A Potato Could Sing…
… it would sing the songs of this game! The music in this game is spectacular. Even now, just thinking about this game, I am humming the end-of-season-harvest-festival music. I don’t even know what else to say about it, the soundtrack is amazing. There is a lot of fun banjo-twang to get your toes a tappin’. As well, all of the sound effects are awesome.
One of the main types of enemy camps as you venture beyond your farm is the “squirrel held hostage” camp. Of course, I absolutely LOVE squirrels, so it was imperative that I rescue any that I came across. They are being held hostage, usually, by bunnies with gunnies (well, guns, but I just liked the rhyme and had to say it). When you hit an enemy bunny with your gun they make cute “Ooo! Ahh! Ooo!” noises before dying.
The artwork as well is candy for the eyes, eye-candy as it were. The way all of the radioactive crops have little eyes and faces. I especially liked the tomatoes. If you plant four of the same kind of crop in a square, and then manage to fertilize it enough, it will morph into a large version that’s worth more money (little tip for y’all right there); then it is easier to see the cute, kooky, derpy faces on all of the mutant veggies and fruits.
The Little Niggles
I only had one little niggle, and it’s that sometimes it’s hard to distinguish between what is friendly, and what is a foe. Once you have a gourd and/or a few drones floating around your head, as well as a wife/husband following you around, it can become difficult to tell what’s an enemy and what isn’t.
Especially with Furryosa (the cute bunny wife you can get). She runs around, being a bunny lady with a gun, just like all the bunny enemies with guns. I swear there were a bunch of times I thought she was an enemy coming after me, and I shot in her direction with reckless abandon! Sorry babe!
Final Verdict
I will be honest, this game was TOUGH for me. I died a LOT, and I became very frustrated with myself a lot as well. As someone who enjoys a slow-paced farming sim, I can tell ya that a fast paced one is a whole different ball game.
Nevertheless, I had a lot of fun with it and enjoyed myself immensely. Congrats to the developers Bird Bath Games: you have created a fine work of art that deserves to be experienced by many. And Kudos to Raw Fury for knowing a good game when they see one, and being the people who help make it come to life.
Get. This. Game. (Unless you know for SURE that this a genre you will always hate). But hey, I know Enter the Gungeon was a well received game, and I tried it and didn’t like it very much… so if you’re like me, maybe Atomicrops will change your mind too.
Final Verdict: Two Thumbs Up! 