Atomicrops review

Atomicrops is an interesting blend of genres. Part Stardew Valley, part rogue-like, part bullet hell shooter all presented in a post-apocalyptic setting. Think Stardew Valley meets Enter the Gungeon. Seems like an odd mix right? Well, I’m happy to report that this is far from the truth. Atomicrops is an absolute blast and a quick five minutes can quickly turn into several lost hours.

The gameplay loop is simple – you have the standard four seasons and each lasts 3 days and is bookended with a boss. You start your morning, till the soil, plant seeds and then dig up your crops. Then night falls and all hell breaks loose! Rampaging slugs and bunnies descend on your farm, dedicated to destroying you and all your hard work. If you manage to survive the night, you’re picked up by a helicopter and taken back to the town that you’re trying to keep fed. Here you can tool up with weapons, additional seeds and modifiers for your character among other things.

Days typically last around five minutes minutes with a day and night cycle and you’re free to explore your surroundings. On your travels you’ll find animals to help maintain the farm in your absence. You’ll also find spells that might fill every empty plot with seeds, summon a rain cloud to keep things watered or give everything a healthy boost with fertiliser. Or maybe you’ll stumble upon a massive tractor that clears weeds, or munches every enemy in its path. There’s tons of stuff to find that makes life a hell of a lot easier and let’s you focus on the fun of blasting critters.

And oh what fun the blasting is. Starting with a rather puny peashooter you’ll find enemies soak up a few hits before going down in the first few days. This gets progressively more difficult as the days pass so you’ll need to get some upgrades. Enemies explode in a satisfying manner, bosses are huge and threatening. Bullets fly everywhere and your ability to dodge the onslaught will definitely see you fall at the first hurdle until you get to grips with things. In fact it took me quite a while to finish my first year because you’ll definitely get cocky far too often.

Back in town a vendor sells rifles, shotguns and the like each of which can be upgrade with modifiers. The only issue is these usually these break at the end of each day so you’ll need to balance your budget with your needs. There’s also some really random stuff like the squirrel launcher.

There are a few locals you can get better acquainted with and these folks sell character bonuses. Do this enough and you can marry them to get buddy to help you in the fields. At the end of every season the mayor will bung you some handy gear depending on how successful your harvest has been.

So the exploring is fun, the shooting is solid, there’s plenty of challenge what’s not to love?!? Well, like all the best rogue-likes there’s a ton of randomness to contend with. Sometimes you might not get the drops or animals you need. Sometimes you’ll have all the best upgrades but a lack of crops means you can’t afford the weaponry you need to defend the farm. I usually found myself with a horrible weapon with terrible upgrades when taking on the boss at the end of winter and that guy and his cronies are bullet sponges.

Overall though, this is what makes the game such a joy to play. No run is ever the same so you can’t plan for anything. There’s no optimal strategy for min-maxing and the randomness means it’s infinitely replayable. If you want a challenge with a quirky sense of humour and are looking for something easy to pick up but difficult to master you won’t go wrong here.