Review: Drifting Lands (Steam)

by Jim Smale · August 9, 2017

Drifting Lands is an hybrid of classical horizontal shoot’em’up with a lot of strong gameplay elements coming straight from the action-RPG genre.

Pros:

1653MB Download size.
Steam achievements.
Full controller support.
Three save slots.
Decent graphics.
Two modes of play- Normal and forgiving.
Three ships to initially pick from.
Optional tutorial.
Graphic options- Resolution, Fullscreen, Dynamic shadows, AA, V-sync, Scaled UI.
Main hub- Here you can buy/sell items, Craft, Get missions and upgrade your ship.
Abilities- Unlock/buy new abilities. You have 4 slots that can be equipped with your abilities.
Earn upgrade points and spend them in the big skill tree.
Steam cards.
Side scrolling shoot em up with RPG elements like crafting and item drops.
Item drops have rating class from common to legendary.
Game difficulty goes up as you play.
Loadout- Four ability slots with two passive slots.
HUD in game shows level progression.
Tight shoot em up with a lot of bullet hell scenarios.
Online leaderboards.
Menu shortcuts.
Drag and drop UI system.
Roguelike in that you lose all collected items so far in level and must restart the level.
Can fully customise your ship and abilities and really change how the game plays.
Fun to play.
Scratches the loot drop itch along with any shmup fantasies.

Cons:

No real voice acting.
Slow starter.
Text in some menu options is very small.
A lot of tutorial pop ups.
Feel a bit overwhelmed with so many mechanics at play.
Screen can get really busy and make it hard to see where you are.
The levels early on feel very basic and its not until later on you get the proper shoot em up feels and experiences.