![drifting lands enemies drifting lands enemies](http://www.entdepot.com/site/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Drifting-Lands-PC-New-Trailer-Announcement-Screenshot-1.jpg)
So, you’re set, right? You’re a seasoned veteran when it comes to shoot ’em-ups so you’ve taken to it like a duck to water. That being said if you aren’t into grinding in games then chances are you may not enjoy this one. Thankfully I love to punish myself with a grind so it wasn’t personally an issue. This sort of system does have a ‘flaw’ in that it often requires a bit of a grind, sometimes having to sit and kill the same enemies over and over hoping for that specific item you’ve been needing. It’s a satisfying system that has worked for years, great stuff.
#DRIFTING LANDS ENEMIES UPGRADE#
It comes with the usual difficulty curve we associate with games like Diablo 3, everything is going great guns, difficulty slowly increases, new parts appear, you get that weapon upgrade you’ve been desperately needing and you suddenly feel super powerful, then eventually the difficulty catches up again and so on and so forth. Anything you don’t need can be sold to the shop giving you currency, this currency can be used to purchase new items and abilities (which I will go into later) that will also improve your ship, it’s great.
![drifting lands enemies drifting lands enemies](https://afstewart.files.wordpress.com/2018/04/sotdscover4.jpg)
If you’ve played 2D shoot ’em-ups in the past, then you should be able to jump straight in, the gameplay is going to be very similar to the classics, it does what it set out to do in that aspect very well, the controls feel fantastic, it’s a very pretty looking game and the soundtrack fits perfectly, what more can be said? However, the loot system is where it gets ‘interesting’, as you play through levels you’ll acquire parts which you can use to improve your ship, such as new weapons, shields and engines etc. This game takes what we all loved about classic shoot ’em-ups and adds enough depth to make it different, in a good way. Moving into the present day, I got the opportunity to play Drifting Lands, by Alkemi and, when I saw it merged an RPG style loot system into the Shootem-up genre, I had a feeling we would be onto a winner here and let me tell you, I was right. Knowing the limitations of the technology, there wasn’t a whole lot of depth, the idea was just to move and shoot, right? However, I spent a lot of time playing them and had a heap of fun. But with time, when we add equipment, everyone will be able to beat these levels quite easily.As a kid, I played games like Gradius 3 and Darius Twin for the Super Nintendo, those games were fantastic and although they were from a different time, they achieved a lot in my eyes, especially looking back now. Right now, levels above 20 or 25 will probably be too tricky for most.
![drifting lands enemies drifting lands enemies](https://cdn.staticneo.com/ew/a/a1/CTTT-2-6-Gem1a.jpg)
In the current alpha version, we made only the first 50 levels available because there's still no stuff to drop to handle properly the second half. With higher levels come more enemies, enemies with more hit points, more damages, more and more suicide bullets and special behaviours for opponents. From now on, every stage of Drifting Lands can be played with one out of a 100 levels of difficulty. We need a far bigger scale for players to climb. It was clear from the start that we wouldn't only have to create 2 or 3 difficulty levels. On top of that, we want to offer an experience spanning over dozens of hours of gameplay like any typical hack'n'slash. We sure want to offer really good players an interesting challenge, but we also want to create a fair challenge for people defining themselves as "not very good at this kind of game". We don't want to make a shoot'em'up for an elite of superplayers.