Lunar Lander Beyond Review (Switch eShop)

Atari has had a very interesting few years, publishing a critically acclaimed 50th-anniversary collection in the form of a playable documentary, the ‘Recharged’ series of neo-retro revivals, and a handful of unique reinventions of its classic IPs. Lunar Lander Beyond from Cris Tales developer Dreams Uncorporated is the gaming pioneer’s latest and most polished retro overhaul to date.

Lunar Lander Beyond casts itself as a reboot of Atari’s iconic 1979 arcade game in which players navigate a spacecraft toward the surface of the Moon rendered in glorious monochrome vector graphics, using thrusters to slow the ship's descent and ultimately land safely (easier said than done) to score points. It’s a dawn-of-the-arcade-era classic that demands patience and precision.

Atari and Dreams Uncorporated have taken that inspiration and run with it, reinterpreting and modernizing the original’s core premise against a vividly coloured backdrop of distinct galactic locales across its roughly eight-hour campaign. But its formula arguably fumbles with a story-first focus, rather than an arcade-style gameplay focus or additional mode, which feels like a missed opportunity.

Unlike the original, which is playable in Atari 50, Lunar Lander Beyond leans heavily on its plot – perhaps too heavily for some. While all dialogue sequences are skippable, each of the generally short missions is padded with exposition. Though there is not really a narrative connection to the events of the arcade original as some of the game’s trailers had implied, its movement mechanics feel true to its retro inspirations.

While the game’s physics and controls hit the mark, its missions encourage speedy completion and too often ended just as we were getting into the zone, so to speak. Navigating your spacecraft through obstacles to avoid enemy fire or nab supplies is quite meditative, but pacing issues become apparent when you’re repeatedly thrust out of the action into yet another dialogue sequence.

For what it’s worth, the game’s fully voice-acted narrative is serviceable enough to establish the purpose of your landings and keep you guessing with plot intrigue. As a captain with the Pegasus Aerospace Corporation, players manage a fleet of landers and a crew of pilots who are all too aware that the company they serve does not have humanity’s best interests at heart.

Pegasus’ attempt to monopolize teleportation travel leads to an electromagnetic event rippling through the universe and a mass broadcasting of distress calls as the galaxy is thrown into disarray. Lander pilots will need to rescue civilians, or “civvies”, and pick up additional personnel who unlock story beats and access to new spacecraft.

The storyline is anchored by interesting characters: a ship medic high on his own supply; a loosely neo-Leninist revolutionary; and a blue-blooded Pegasus executive concealing a covert agenda to name a few. While there are occasionally brief but stylish animated cutscenes, the story itself is mostly told – not shown – through visually samey voice-acted discussions in the carrier cockpit.

Player performance is graded based on the integrity of your ship, crystals collected, and completion time. There is a roster of pilots to choose from who learn passive ability traits as they level up. There are four difficulty levels, with the hardest adding permadeath and a game over if you run out of pilots that come aboard your carrier if you manage to locate and rescue them in earlier missions.

The most interesting addition to the gameplay formula is stress management mechanics, which see your pilots’ stress levels build up if you collide with walls and obstacles. If you fumble enough, your pilots will go insane, warping the levels with trippy “hallucinations" that include nefarious eyes, mouths, organs, and eventually cartoonish pink elephants that try to collide with you.

Pilots can relieve stress by taking medication and being sent to psychotherapy following a mission, which forces you to use other pilots in your roster. While some levels task you with charting a methodical flight path, others involve outrunning obstacles. Gameplay goes from nimbly avoiding collisions to launching your ship directly into incoming comets to defend a civilian enclosure.

There are four ships to choose from, each having unique controls along with three module slots that add a layer of customization. The starter lander, the Beetle, replicates classic Lunar Lander controls and tank-like steering with the addition of a stabilizer. Other crafts offer more challenging increased acceleration or can be simply manoeuvred using the directional pad without the need for thrusters.

That said, it's odd that a reboot of an iconic arcade game doesn’t contain an arcade mode. Lunar Lander Beyond has excellent mechanics, but it pads out the gameplay with dialogue, loading screens, and menus that hinder its pick-up-and-play potential. Its story-driven campaign establishes a strong foundation but would be far better complemented with a separate score-chasing competitive mode.

Another recent Atari reboot, Caverns of Mars: Recharged, provides a perfect template: traverse increasingly difficult levels; acquire a unique build with selectable roguelike power-ups; push as far as you can to move up the global leaderboards. Lunar Lander Beyond is perfectly positioned for a snappier arcade mode that hones the gameplay loop toward a 'just one more run' formula.