Invincible Presents: Atom Eve was announced by Skybound Entertainment during their San Diego Comic-Con panel back in July. Developed by Terrible Posture Games, Atom Eve is a visual novel RPG and the first original video game that takes place within Robert Kirkman’s blood-soaked superhero universe.
This past week, I got the chance to spend some hands-on time with a preview build of the game and walked away impressed. If you’re a fan of Atom Eve or just curious how an Invincible game concept could turn out, then this might be worth keeping an eye out on. Here are more of my first impressions and details of what you can expect from next month’s final release.
The Concept Behind Atom Eve
The game takes place during Atom Eve’s first year as a member of the Superhero Teen Team. As she enters her senior year of high school, she is faced with many questions about her future while also balancing her powers and personal relationships. As a visual novel, the game is largely presented in a stylized comic format with cutscenes during key moments. As she interacts with other characters, you have dialogue options to choose from that ultimately dictate your path moving forward. You also will gain access to a map with key places marked for further exploration some of which are both optional and required.
The demo that I played included both the second and third episodes of the game. The very first episode focuses on Eve encountering a mysterious green woman and deciding whether or not to start a friendship or relationship with Rex Splode. Since the first chapter wasn’t available, the boyfriend choice was made ahead of time which led to plenty of tension between Eve and Rex if she chose not to spend enough time with him. The playable chapters that followed centered around Eve still thinking about the mysterious woman, dealing with her classes, doing investigative work with her teammates, and taking on enemies. Each section of the episode completed results in you earning XP which I’ll get into more details on shortly.
Ready, Set, Action
When it comes to action and enemy showdowns, this is actually where the game got more fun and strategic. During episode 2, Eve faces off against The Mauler who at this point is more powerful than her. The encounter was presented the exact same way as the screen embedded above. There were five different actions to choose from at the bottom of the screen which included the following:
- Stunflower – Release a perfume cloud that reduces ranged attack accuracy
- Glue – Temporary immobilize an enemy
- Shield – Create a temporary shield
- Punch – Punch an enemy effortlessly
- Ray – Unleash remaining energy burst attack
From there, I took turns back and forth with The Mauler to see who could deal the most damage to each other and effectively win the fight. You do see animations as attacks are performed but the characters revert back to their original standoff pose afterward. Both you and your opponent can still randomly miss and dodge attacks as well. This is where the XP that I mentioned earlier comes into play as you can level up your character and unlock abilities as you progress through the adventure. The screenshot below is an example of how the skill trees look.
The third and final episode in this demo presented Eve with an option of teaching Invincible a few things after meeting him briefly during the previous fight with The Mauler. There are more battle encounters that you participate in before the chapter ends on a cliffhanger. While I did make a few choices, it was hard to see the results of those decisions since the demo ended there.
While my time with Invincible Presents: Atom Eve was very short, I did see more than enough to make me want to go back for more. I absolutely love the idea of seeing more Invincible games and characters showing up in other games (shout out to Omni-Man in Mortal Kombat 1) and hopefully, this is the first of many more to come.
Invincible Presents: Atom Eve launches on November 14th on Steam. Are any of you planning on checking this out along with Invincible Season 2? Please feel free to let us know in the comments section below.
