Dread The Red Planet: A Mars 2120 Review

By Manuel

Players: 1
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, XBox, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, PC

I've looked at a lot of Metroidvanias recently, but we have quite the unique one today. Mars 2120 is developed by QUByte Interactive, a company whose I'm more familiar with as far as publishing goes. I'm not really sure what sort of games they develop on their own, but I guess I'm going to find out today. Mars 2120 is out on all major platforms, and we're going to be looking at it on the Nintendo Switch. There's going to be a lot to cover here, so I guess we'll just cut the intros a bit short. Time to dive in!

Mars 2120 has an odd story, one that I'm not quite sure I can describe at length. The details are all a bit murky even now, and it wasn't until I was writing this review that I realized I didn't even know the main character's name. It turns out that her name is Sgt. Anna "Thirteen" Charlotte, and the fact that I never once questioned that should give you a clue as to how important the plot is to this game as a whole. I guess I should give it a shot anyway. It's the year 2120, and the first settled colony on Mars is in trouble. Distress signals have been sent out, and you're the one who the United Nations have chosen to answer them. Why they didn't send a small army is beyond me, but I guess we wouldn't have a game if that were the case. You arrive to find the colony devoid of all human life, and scattered audio logs eventually reveal the grim downfall of humanity's presence on the Red Planet. It would probably be best for you to simply leave at that point, but the way back to your ship is closed off to you following your arrival. Continuing through the colony is your only option, and maybe you'll uncover more details regarding what brought it to its current state. In terms of modern Metroidvanias, story is usually an important factor. Here it's simply a means to an end. Razor thin plot aside, I really did like the way the story was told through Resident Evil-style first-hand accounts. You'll hear the last moments of several of the colony's residents, and even get warnings about some of the enemies you'll be facing within its halls. You will eventually uncover the exact reasons behind the colony's downfall, but it's not anything that's going to blow your socks off. You'll see most of the twists coming far in advance, though none of that ever bothered me in the least. The plot is what it is, but I'm of the mind that gameplay is what can make or break a Metroidvania. To that end, let's discuss that next.

Let me start by giving credit where credit is due, Mars 2120 tries out several gameplay quirks that keep it from being your standard Metroidvania. The first thing you'll notice is that there is a strong focus on action. Sgt. Anna can not only shoot from a distance (In all directions too!), but she also has strong melee attacks that work great in close quarters. Some enemies are better taken out with one or the other, so you'll be switching between them both regularly throughout the game. The next thing you'll notice is that you can double jump right from the start. Everyone who has played a Metroidvania expects the double jump to be unlocked after completing an early area, but here you're given most of your movement skills straight away. Progression in Mars 2120 doesn't rely on adding to your movement abilities with things like a slide or a better jump, instead the game gives you new attacks and abilities that work in a decidedly more Action RPG fashion. A new weapon or skill might allow you to access new areas by creating platforms out of mist, travelling through electrical currents, or simply shooting open a door that needed a specific attack to be opened. I will admit that this isn't the most unique idea in the world, but I found it to be a nice change of pace nonetheless. There's a heavy focus on mastering combat and platforming over exploration, but there is definitely a lot of that here too.

Since combat is arguably front and center in Mars 2120, let's tackle that topic first. I already mentioned the differences between melee and gun attacks, but both can be augmented by those aforementioned skills you'll be picking over the course of the game. Your gun changes the most, with you gaining the ability to shoot projectiles that align to the core elements. You'll have lightning, fire, and ice attacks, with each having their own rate of fire and reload times. I say "reload", but in this game that just means that your weapon will have a standard cool down after several attacks. Getting a grip on combat is really important as death is a constant factor in your quest. For all her skills, Sgt. Anna isn't exactly the strongest space marine in the fleet. It doesn't take too many hits for her to go down, and that means a forced trip back to the last save point. Thankfully you can change several settings to adjust the difficulty at any time, though I would've preferred better balance instead. It takes less than ten hits for Sgt. Anna to be taken out, and levelling up isn't exactly easy in this game. Defeating most enemies gives you life recovery items, but these can sometimes only stave off the inevitable. Besides healing items, enemies will also drop experience. Experience is used to level up, but not in the way you're probably expecting. You're able to level up most everything about Sgt. Anna in three increments, from her life, to her weapons, and so on. The problem is that you can't simply dump experience into each skill and expect it to go up. Instead you have to find a (usually hidden) item that opens up that particular level up in the first place. You then use the experience at a save point to actually acquire it. It's an odd system, and the only quirk of the gameplay that I don't like in the least.

I'll cover a few more of the negative points of Mars 2120 in just a bit, but I want to continue the mostly positive track we've been on so far first. Difficulty aside, I really liked Mars 2120's focus on action over standard RPG mechanics. I know this might be a point of contention for some, but I had a lot of fun just running and gunning. This goes doubly so for boss encounters, which always felt epic. Each boss has to be handled a different way, with some even having to be killed by the environment itself. I found the boss fights to be the most entertaining part of the game by far, and wished they weren't as spaced out as they are. I died a lot during my playthrough, but I never felt bad dying against one of the bosses. Keeping that in mind, I also appreciated the way that enemies, bosses, and even small things like the fast travel system were presented. It's all a series of small touches, but everything is thought out and relevant to the world and its mythos. The colony feels real and lived in, and that's something that I'm sure wasn't easy to pull off. The world is large and full of hidden items and areas too. You don't have to worry about getting lost for the most part either, as the in-game map does a great job of reminding you where you can't go yet, and which doors you might now be able to open. While some of these unexplored areas simply lead the next zone of the game, many of them take you to optional rooms filled with hidden items and power-ups. I was not able to fully complete the map during my time with the game, but I definitely will do so at some point.

Now with the positives out of the way, let's discuss what I think didn't work regarding Mars 2120's gameplay. Many of them will probably contradict the positives I just laid out, but that's just how these things go sometimes. Let me start with the exploration first. Even though I praise the game for moving quickly, there were still several times where I was confused as to where I was supposed to go next. This is mainly due to the game showing you the next point of interest as a single dot on the unexplored areas of the map. Not knowing the surrounding area is troublesome, as these locations often need roundabout routes to get to them. I get why the game doesn't just show you the map fully, but perhaps the layout of some areas could've been adjusted so locations weren't a confusing maze. You can sometimes walk into danger zones that are annoyingly very far away from the last save point if you're not careful, as the game likes to throw difficulty spikes at the player. That actually leads me to what may be my biggest problem with the game: its difficulty. I'm all for challenging games, but there were many times where I just had to go into the options menu and drop the enemy damage to 50%. Enemies respawn, close combat puts you in harm's way, your gun doesn't have any sort of lock on, and I died from flying enemies more times than I care to admit. Hitting an enemy isn't even enough, as they all take several hits to kill. I was not expecting the first enemies in the game to be damage sponges, but that's exactly what they are. I even died against the very first flying enemy in the game thinking that I must've stumbled into a tutorial on death. I'm not even joking. This all applies to the bosses as well, but thankfully they're often so large that they have very predictable attack patterns. Most of these issues wouldn't even exist if you could simply level up your character in the standard Metroidvania way, but what we get here is fairly ridiculous. I consider myself a thorough player, but I completed the game missing over half of the upgrades. I had tons of experience sitting unused, and I was only able to see the credits by messing with the difficulty settings. Challenging games are one thing, but Mars 2120 can sometimes feel like it's taking a page or two from Dark Souls as well.

I have a lot of mixed feeling on Mars 2120's visuals, as I definitely played it in the least optimized way. The Nintendo Switch never really struggled to run the game, but it was clear that the graphics took a hit from what can be seen in the trailers. I'm willing to bet the trailers aren't over-promising, and that the Switch is just showing its age in this case. That aside, I still can't really say that the world particularly wowed me visually. I did like the variety in the areas you visit, and their relevance to a space station did make a lot of sense. The problem is that a lot of the world feels cold and dry in a way that goes beyond the solo adventurer trope. Corridors blend into one another, and it honestly felt like some parts of the game dragged for too long. For example, I definitely wouldn't have put the ice area so early in the game, and I definitely wouldn't have made it as long as it is here. I'm also not a fan of Sgt. Anna's design. She doesn't have that "main character" vibe, and I never once felt connected to her as a character. I have similar thoughts regarding the enemies as well, but thankfully that's made up for when it comes to the aforementioned epic bosses. Each boss encounter is large, imposing, and impressive, and have far more charm than Sgt. Anna does in the few minutes you encounter them. They were always a treat, and the scope of their battles managed to impress me even on the Switch. I don't want to make this sound like a string of negatives, as I really did find Mars 2120 to be a good-looking game overall. It's just that it always felt like it was just a bit below its full potential, even if it was played on better hardware.

I'm a bit less mixed when it comes to Mars 2120's sound, as I found that it mostly fell towards the generic side of things. First of all there is only limited voice acting to be found here, but that's mainly due to the fact that the game doesn't exactly place a strong focus on the narrative in general. I normally wouldn't discuss voice acting too much in a situation like this, but I think it's worth a mention here since it's quite bad. Indie games and weak voice acting aren't exactly strangers to each other, but it hits harder here since there's so little of it scattered throughout the game. I cringed more than once at some of the line delivery, and eventually wondered if it would've been better if the audio logs were just text. Things take a slightly better turn when it comes to music, but it too falls short of being anything that draws strong opinions from me. The soundtrack is far from bad, but there were many times where I had to focus hard to even notice it. The only reason I was even doing that was because of this review, otherwise the music would've faded into the background throughout my entire playthrough. Part of me wishes the game had gone for a more retro-inspired soundtrack, as what we get here is far too atmospheric to be at all interesting. I get what the game is going for, but I'm just of the mind that there has to be something in this package to draw in players. I guess I can say that the sound effects deliver, with most attacks having some satisfying thunks and clangs to them, but I'm probably the only one who would notice such things. Once again, nothing particularly bad here, and it does dodge the mediocre label, it just doesn't stand out in the least.

My thoughts on Mars 2120 are a bit mixed, but I do think it delivers a decent Metroidvania experience at the end of the day. It gives potential players about 5-8 hours of gameplay, with there being variables for skill levels and completionist runs. There's even a bit of replayability as well. There are lots of hidden objectives and items to discover, and I think most fans of the genre will walk away from this one feeling like it was a good use of their time. It would also be a good use of their money, as the game currently has a very reasonable $19.99 price tag. It may not offer a lot in the way of replayability, but the core experience is more than enough to offset that. Then again, my experience with Metroidvanias is that they'll eventually become havens for speedrunners, and I really want to see that kind of community develop for this game. Feel free to hit me up if you eventually become a Mars 2120 speedrunner.

It may not be the strongest of recommendations I've ever given, but I do think Mars 2120 is worth picking up. It offers a unique Metroidvania experience that is challenging, surprisingly deep despite its weak story, and even has some horror elements for those looking for a that sort of thing. It's a nice counterpart to games like Metroid Dread in particular, but will also be appeal to those looking simply looking for a fun game to take over their weekend. I guess I'd recommend getting it on anything other than the Switch if you can, but it wasn't too bad there all things considered. While Sgt. Anna and the world of Mars 2120 didn't really gel with me the way I had hoped they would, I still look forward to any follow-up that may come from this one. I guess we'll just have to wait and see if that ever happens. See you in the next one!

Check Out Mars 2120 on Nintendo Switch:
https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/mars-2120-switch/

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Story: C
Gameplay: B-
Graphics: B
Music/Sound: B-
Value: B

Overall: B-

Pros:
+ A fun Metroidvania experience that features a strong focus on combat.
+ The combat-heavy gameplay means that this is a quicker-paced, action-packed experience when compared to other genre staples.
+ Boss encounters are always epic and require special attention to defeat.
+ The Mars colony setting feels like it was a real functioning place at one point. That type of level design is quite impressive.
+ Offers a lengthy and challenging experience that's still accessible to casual players.

Cons:
- The game's plot is razor thin. It wasn't until writing this review that I realized I didn't even know the main character's name.
- Voice acting, music, and designs leave a bit to be desire. None of those elements are particular bad, but they do mean that the game has rather weak presentation overall.
- Difficulty can be all over the place. Enemies are damage sponges, and Sgt. Anna is one of the weakest Metroidvania protagonists I've seen in a while.
- Certain gameplay elements, like the wonky leveling system, feel like they need a lot of work.
- Doesn't look very good on the Nintendo Switch.

A copy of this game was provided to us free-of-charge by the publisher for the purpose of this review. This did not affect our review in any way.

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See you later!