Under ordinary circumstances, I have no interest whatsoever in Early Access games because I refuse on principle to financially support games which are still in development after getting burned on old Kickstarter game projects which never came to fruition, or otherwise were released in an incomplete state due to poor/irresponsible management of funds or blatant fraud. However, ATLYSS drew my attention based on the simple fact that the upfront cost of the game was minimal and the amount of available content in the existing build appeared to be more than worthy of the cost of admission, so I had decided I was going to give the game a shot once the New Year rolled around. Fortunately, a friend of mine generously gifted me a copy of the game for Christmas, so I didn't even have to pay for it. Which begs the question, is the game worth the price and would I recommend it to others? The short answer is YES, but please read on for all the details.

Aesthetically speaking, ATLYSS is reminiscent of fantasy action/adventure and role playing games from the start of the new Millennium such as The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask and World of Warcraft, giving it something of a retro-style appearance with low-texture polygonal models rendered in modern resolutions. Furthermore, the cast of characters consists mainly of anthropomorphic critters, which is likewise reminiscent of World of Warcraft's Worgen and Pandaren races, as well as other Millennial games such as Banjo-Kazooie, Starfox Adventures, Sonic Adventures, Tail Concerto, etc. The result is a game which appeals to me both with its colorful, pseudo-retro visuals, and familiar semi-nostalgic environmental/character designs.

ATLYSS features music and sound effects which are likewise reminiscent of the aforementioned genres/games from the start of the new Millennium, which matches the retro aesthetics and sets the mood well.

As you ought to expect, ATLYSS continues the trend with retro-style gameplay to match its retro-style graphics and sound, augmented with the sort of speed/precision one would expect from a modern game. ATLYSS features traditional ARPG style mechanics which are reminiscent of Diablo or Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance, but supplemented by some lite Platforming and Roguelite elements reminiscent of games like Devil May Cry, God of War, and King's Field — the precursor to FromSoftware's Darksouls series.
You start the game by creating your own custom character from a selection of 5 races with multiple physical features/characteristics, accepting quests, completing objectives, fighting monsters, earning experience points/loot along the way to increase the stats of your character, eventually unlocking the ability to specialize in a selection of traditional classes such as Fighter, Mystic, and Rogue, then you explore dungeons and defeat their bosses to progress.
Currently, there are a total of three major dungeons, but the game has been stated to feature a mere 25% of the planned content, with the possibility of even more to come, and a single playthrough as one of the races/classes lasted me a good 20 hours!

ATLYSS drops the player directly into the Santuary, a Hub world occupied by the Guardians of the Realm where it is revealed that the Guardian Angela has revived the player's spirit for the purpose of venturing out into the world to help the Guardians combat the forces of chaos and restore order by taking on various quests and fulfilling tasks.
In its current stage of development, ATLYSS doesn't offer much more in the way of a plot, story, or even background lore, and it remains unclear to what extent this may change as the game continues development, but the real draw of the game lies in the gameplay.

As much as I would prefer to ignore the subject entirely due to how ridiculous and trivial it is, I would be remiss not to mention the fact that the game is being developed by Kiseff, a former artist who specialized in erotic artwork featuring anthropomorphic animals. However, ATLYSS is NOT an Adult Game featuring sexually explicit content, merely some mild suggestive themes which couldn't possibly earn the game more than a T for Teen or 16+ Rating if the game were to be submitted by an official game ratings organization such as the ESRB of North America or PEGI of Europe.
The Suggestive Themes are as simple, harmless, and frankly inoffensive as the Custom Character options allowing the player to create a female character with exaggerated proportions/measurements, Jiggle Physics for said characters bust/buttocks, (both of which features may be optionally disabled at the player's discretion) an optional in-game taunt which makes the player character mime spanking themselves, an optional in-game Achievement which may be earned by slapping the buttocks of an NPC, (who retaliates by slapping the player character, causing them to be jettisoned away in comedic fashion) and most notably, an optional Mini Boss know as Slim Diva who has one specific attack pattern in which she launches projectiles from her bosom. (Which honestly sounds much more graphic than it appears. Please view the following Screenshot...)
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3391192674

Being an Early Access title, it is to be expected that ATLYSS would have its share of bugs/glitches, but in my own personal experience, the game has been remarkably stable and I have yet to encounter any serious issues. However, I have heard scattered reports of corrupted save files, so I would suggest that players err on the side of caution by keeping backups, just in case.
Otherwise, as one would expect from a game with such simple graphics, the game isn't the least bit demanding, and according to AMD Adrenaline Software, I'm getting an average of 1349fps!

ATLYSS offers a surprising amount of content for an Early Access Game which is more than I would expect from a game that costs a mere $10, and would honestly be more than worth the price if the game were being sold as a complete game, but represents an outstanding value considering that the game is reportedly only 25% complete as of the date of this review. I highly recommend this game to anybody who is a fan of retro-style Fantasy Action/Adventure Role-playing Games.
Full Disclosure: I received this game as a gift from a friend, but was already planning on purchasing it for myself, and even went on to purchase 2 copies as a gift for my brother and a friend afterwards to support the developer. I have received no compensation for this review and wrote it of my own volition, but nevertheless feel obligated to point out that I initially did not pay for it.

[H1]Introduction:[/H1] Under ordinary circumstances, I have no interest whatsoever in Early Access games because I refuse on principle to financially support games which are still in development after getting burned on old Kickstarter game projects which never came to fruition, or otherwise were released in an incomplete state due to poor/irresponsible management of funds or blatant fraud. However, ATLYSS drew my attention based on the simple fact that the upfront cost of the game was minimal and the amount of available content in the existing build appeared to be more than worthy of the cost of admission, so I had decided I was going to give the game a shot once the New Year rolled around. Fortunately, a friend of mine generously gifted me a copy of the game for Christmas, so I didn't even have to pay for it. Which begs the question, is the game worth the price and would I recommend it to others? The short answer is YES, but please read on for all the details. [H1]Visual Presentation:[/H1] Aesthetically speaking, ATLYSS is reminiscent of fantasy action/adventure and role playing games from the start of the new Millennium such as The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask and World of Warcraft, giving it something of a retro-style appearance with low-texture polygonal models rendered in modern resolutions. Furthermore, the cast of characters consists mainly of anthropomorphic critters, which is likewise reminiscent of World of Warcraft's Worgen and Pandaren races, as well as other Millennial games such as Banjo-Kazooie, Starfox Adventures, Sonic Adventures, Tail Concerto, etc. The result is a game which appeals to me both with its colorful, pseudo-retro visuals, and familiar semi-nostalgic environmental/character designs. [H1]Audio Presentation:[/H1] ATLYSS features music and sound effects which are likewise reminiscent of the aforementioned genres/games from the start of the new Millennium, which matches the retro aesthetics and sets the mood well. [H1]Gameplay Mechanics:[/H1] As you ought to expect, ATLYSS continues the trend with retro-style gameplay to match its retro-style graphics and sound, augmented with the sort of speed/precision one would expect from a modern game. ATLYSS features traditional ARPG style mechanics which are reminiscent of Diablo or Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance, but supplemented by some lite Platforming and Roguelite elements reminiscent of games like Devil May Cry, God of War, and King's Field — the precursor to FromSoftware's Darksouls series. You start the game by creating your own custom character from a selection of 5 races with multiple physical features/characteristics, accepting quests, completing objectives, fighting monsters, earning experience points/loot along the way to increase the stats of your character, eventually unlocking the ability to specialize in a selection of traditional classes such as Fighter, Mystic, and Rogue, then you explore dungeons and defeat their bosses to progress. Currently, there are a total of three major dungeons, but the game has been stated to feature a mere 25% of the planned content, with the possibility of even more to come, and a single playthrough as one of the races/classes lasted me a good 20 hours! [H1]Storytelling:[/H1] ATLYSS drops the player directly into the Santuary, a Hub world occupied by the Guardians of the Realm where it is revealed that the Guardian Angela has revived the player's spirit for the purpose of venturing out into the world to help the Guardians combat the forces of chaos and restore order by taking on various quests and fulfilling tasks. In its current stage of development, ATLYSS doesn't offer much more in the way of a plot, story, or even background lore, and it remains unclear to what extent this may change as the game continues development, but the real draw of the game lies in the gameplay. [H1]Controversy:[/H1] As much as I would prefer to ignore the subject entirely due to how ridiculous and trivial it is, I would be remiss not to mention the fact that the game is being developed by Kiseff, a former artist who specialized in erotic artwork featuring anthropomorphic animals. However, ATLYSS is NOT an Adult Game featuring sexually explicit content, merely some mild suggestive themes which couldn't possibly earn the game more than a T for Teen or 16+ Rating if the game were to be submitted by an official game ratings organization such as the ESRB of North America or PEGI of Europe. The Suggestive Themes are as simple, harmless, and frankly inoffensive as the Custom Character options allowing the player to create a female character with exaggerated proportions/measurements, Jiggle Physics for said characters bust/buttocks, (both of which features may be optionally disabled at the player's discretion) an optional in-game taunt which makes the player character mime spanking themselves, an optional in-game Achievement which may be earned by slapping the buttocks of an NPC, (who retaliates by slapping the player character, causing them to be jettisoned away in comedic fashion) and most notably, an optional Mini Boss know as Slim Diva who has one specific attack pattern in which she launches projectiles from her bosom. (Which honestly sounds much more graphic than it appears. Please view the following Screenshot...) https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3391192674 [H1]Performance:[/H1] Being an Early Access title, it is to be expected that ATLYSS would have its share of bugs/glitches, but in my own personal experience, the game has been remarkably stable and I have yet to encounter any serious issues. However, I have heard scattered reports of corrupted save files, so I would suggest that players err on the side of caution by keeping backups, just in case. Otherwise, as one would expect from a game with such simple graphics, the game isn't the least bit demanding, and according to AMD Adrenaline Software, I'm getting an average of 1349fps! [H1]Final Verdict:[/H1] ATLYSS offers a surprising amount of content for an Early Access Game which is more than I would expect from a game that costs a mere $10, and would honestly be more than worth the price if the game were being sold as a complete game, but represents an outstanding value considering that the game is reportedly only 25% complete as of the date of this review. I highly recommend this game to anybody who is a fan of retro-style Fantasy Action/Adventure Role-playing Games. [I][B]Full Disclosure: I received this game as a gift from a friend, but was already planning on purchasing it for myself, and even went on to purchase 2 copies as a gift for my brother and a friend afterwards to support the developer. I have received no compensation for this review and wrote it of my own volition, but nevertheless feel obligated to point out that I initially did not pay for it.[/B][/I]