Drifting Lands

Drifting Lands is one of the most beautiful sidescrolling shooters you’ll ever come across. It’s simply excellent in all aspects that make a game great. It features classic gameplay with high-quality graphics and effects, and it also takes things one step further by adding an RPG component.

For the shoot’em up genre, Drifting Lands is gorgeous in almost every little design element. It can’t be perfect, and it isn’t, but it comes pretty close and keep in mind that this is a demo for an unfinished product.

It runs impeccably smooth and playing it with a controller is the only way to get the best out of it. The gameplay is precisely engineered to get a hold of you and keep you there throughout each second of every mission. Everything from visual and audio effects to enemy ship designs fits wonderfully together to create a remarkable game.

Drifting Lands features fast-paced gameplay that’s just the right kind of balance between frustrating bullet hell titles and those that hold your hand throughout the entire experience. It provides the thrill and intensity of a shoot’em up game while also giving you the chance to enjoy the fine details of the design.

In games of this type, you can’t not have attack modifiers or ‘bombs’ that clear out the entire screen. Drifting Lands understands the awesomeness of having the ability to blast through a squadron of enemy ships in one go, and it enables you to do so with style.

In Drifting Lands, you can visit the hanger to upgrade your ship with various upgradable passive and active abilities. These come grouped in families and offer the player a wide range of combinations. Not only does this ensure that you don’t get bored with how gameplay unfolds, but it also provides the means to prepare for a particular level in the same way you would swap items in an RPG before facing a certain boss.

To wrap it up, there is a good deal to discover about Drifting Lands. The stories, the battle environments, ability combinations and so on. It offers a lot, and the great part of it is that everything stacks and adds up to a memorable game.

Demos are not always worth the trouble, but this one definitely is.