Earth´s Dawn - Simple but effective

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Hello everyone! How is it going? Did you try already Grand Kingdom, the RPG game of which I talked about in the last entry? In this new entry I’m going to talk about another game made in Japan that, just like Grand Kingdom, reminds a lot of other titles developed by Vanillaware. The game is called Earth’s Dawn. Do you like 2D Beat ‘Em Up games? Yes? Then I suggest you keep reading, as most probably Earth´s Dawn will be your kind of game.


Released last year on the PS4, Xbox One and PC, and developed by the small Japanese studio Oneoreight, Earth’s Dawn (known as Earth Wars in Japan) is a 2D classis style Beat ‘Em Up with RPG elements. Planet Earth has been invaded by an alien race knows as the E.B.E, pushing humanity to the edge of extinction. It will be up to the A.N.T.I., an elite combat unit, to fight back the aliens using their own technology to save humanity. Period. Just like the classic Beat ‘Em Up games that ruled the arcades by the end of the 80s and early 90s, in Earth´s Dawn the story is a just a mere excuse to start smashing everything that stands in front of us.

Luckily, Earth’s Dawn gameplay it’s more complex that its story. As I was saying before, Earth’s Dawn is basically a 2D Beat ‘Em Up, which means we will spend most of the time going from point A to point B while we beat the crap out of everything we cross paths with. Before we start, the game will allow us to create our own character, being able to choose between male and female, with several appearances for each genre. The game will be divided in several missions that we will have to complete in order to keep advancing. Whenever we select an area of the map, we will have to complete a main mission, each of them with a huge final boss waiting for us at the end. Once we have completed the main mission, we will unlock secondary missions that we will be able to complete to obtain all kind of rewards while we wait for the next main mission to be available. There will be several types of secondary missions, but being the classic style Beat ‘Em Up that it is, most of them will be solved in the same way regardless of the objective. Yup, you guessed right. No matter what the objective is, all you need to care about is beating the crap out of any alien scum you find in your way, which on the long run that get a tad repetitive. Also, just like it happened in the classic Beat ‘Em Up games, the number of actions we will be able to perform with our character we will be rather limited, with a gameplay that focuses more in the simple button-mashing-combos than more elaborated finger-twisting-combos, which certainly makes the game more accessible despite adding also a bit more to that feeling of constant repetition. We will be able to equip our characters with two weapons at the same time, so there will be two attacks buttons, one for each hand, and there will be a huge variety of weapons for both, close and ranged combat, although the efficiency of the ranged weapons will be somehow limited in order to stop the players from abusing them, after all, this is a Beat ´Em Up. But not everything will be hacking and slashing in Earth´s Dawn, for the game also includes certain RPG elements. Every time we eliminate an enemy, they will drop items that we will be able to use to improve our arsenal or create new equipment, as well as creating all kinds of cybernetic enhancements that we will be able to attach to our character´s body in order to obtain new skills and improve their stats. On top of that, we will also have the option to disassemble our equipment in order to recycle the parts to create other items, for in Earth´s Dawn it will be indispensable to keep our equipment updated if we are to be successful in our missions. The amount of items we will be able to create it´s pretty big, which certainly adds some much needed variety to the gameplay, although the game never quite manages to shake off the feeling of repetition as well as other similar titles of the genre do.

We will be able to create a wide variety of equipment to customize our character.

Regarding the graphics, Earth´s Dawn makes use of a flashy 2.5D style with an art style that reminds a lot of Vanillaware, although it never reaches the level of excellence achieved by the Japanese pixel masters. The characters´ have a good design, although they don´t stand out in anything in particular. However, the animations are not up to the same level, not only because they are rather limited, but also because they are a bit stiff, although it matches somehow the cartoonish art style of the game. The stages also have a good design, but a bit more of variety wouldn´t have hurt.


Earth´s Dawn it´s not a perfect game or even one of the best in a genre that is full of great classics. It´s a conservative title that can be a little bit repetitive and that perhaps could have offered a bit more, but it´s still a fun game that will please the fans of the genre thanks to its frenetic action and well-balanced difficulty. The game is available for download on PS4, Xbox One and PC, with the PS4 version being the only one to have been released also in physical version. If you are looking for a classic style Beat ´Em Up game, you should definitely give Earth´s Dawn a chance. It might not be a revolution, but it can be a very good option for the fans of the genre, especially if we keep in mind how scarce this kind of game has become in the recent years. Enjoy!


GAMEPLAY VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33nA5gP7cz0