Starlink: Battle for Atlas (Switch) review "Sticks the landing."

Last year, Nintendo took firm hold of my attention when they announced their partnership with Ubisoft to create Starlink: Battle for Atlas and one other title for their brand-spanking new console, the Switch. I knew I wanted to play it; I mean, this was probably going to be the Starfox experience the Super Nintendo couldn’t manage and what I missed out on the Nintendo 64. Having had the experience of Skylanders and then missing out on Amiibo - by and large - I decided that I didn't want to spend hundreds of dollars collecting “smart” toys. So, when the Deluxe edition dropped down to 50% of its retail price, well...here we are.

Starlink follows in the tradition - or genre - of toy-dependent games with which you may already be well acquainted. For those who have yet to experience the gimmick, here's a rundown of what the toys can do. By scanning the toy on a platform and/or controller, these toys can augment gameplay, introduce new mechanics and levels, give bonuses or gifts, or even become AI fighting allies or opponents. My introduction to toy-oriented gameplay came strictly in the form of player-controllable characters who could be levelled up and upgraded after the tradition of action RPGs. All of your time and effort was stored in the toy, and you could play alongside friends and family or show off your character to your friends.



Unfortunately, apart from snazzy designs, the toys have no more personality than your average car. It was a big kick to see your toy “come to life” on the screen as a fully realized individual, and not even the swankiest of these ships were comparable. I wonder if this game landed on Switch and was intended for another platform? Had they planned to have it land smack dab in the middle of the toy+game craze only to miss the boat? This could explain why Starfox needed brand recognition in its production.

Back to the game. There was only ever one selection I was going to make as my pilot, and of course, I was going to give the restyled Arwing a chance to shine. Purists should be forewarned that it emulates how the Arwing would behave in the Snow Drop engine, so don’t go expecting to pull off any “barrel rolls” with regularity. It’s not a hard move to pull off; it’s just largely useless due to the three-dimensional nature of combat. Either you’re tracking enemies in six-axis space combat or rooted to the ground using just four-axis. That’s not a complaint, just an observation.



An introduction does some world-building, then some comfortably paced cutscenes introduce you to the Equinox crew and some characters, and then things go bad. Really bad. It’s time to hop into your fighter and wrestle with the controls. Technically, they’re as tight as can be and can be reconfigured with easy-to-understand menus and options galore. There’s also a library that includes write-ups for most everything you’re going to meet in Atlas if that’s your bag.

Meanwhile, in the cockpit, I discovered that being thrown neck-deep into space combat wasn’t comfortable, but fumbling around with new controls in a zero-gravity dogfight did set the tone. I was nonetheless relieved to be sent planetside to do some questing afterward. When you’re not flying, your ship hovers along the ground, controlling with both analog sticks quite naturally once you have grown accustomed to their functionality. The left analog stick will tilt the ship to move either right or left, while the right analog turns it about. This enables you to strafe to avoid enemy fire, scan local fauna or “pluck” objects that you’ll store for future use.



The Snow Drop engine does an admirable job of maintaining a stable framerate on the Switch. On the very rarest occasion, I had the pluck indicator not show up, but I saw no indication of any other flaws or bugs. The Quality Assurance teams did a splendid job, and it is a distinct pleasure to play a game that is so dependable. In spite of how quickly your ship can boost along the ground, I didn’t see a single instance of pop-in. The counterbalance to this is occasionally distracting amounts of Level of Detail graphical adjustments. Unfortunately, this implementation of LOD can overcompensate at times by noticeably downgrading the geometry of your ship while it is very close to the camera, for example. The tradeoff is minor for the consistent framerate and responsive gameplay necessary to keep the gamefeel smooth.

Early on, you are introduced to the Legion, which is trying to control precious resources that are in limited supply. Their pursuit and cultivation of these resources damage the planets they assault, and it becomes your duty to protect Atlas and undo their damage. If you allocate your time wisely, you can swiftly eliminate smaller threats before they gain strength to become far more dangerous. The difficulty curve itself isn’t jarring, and you don’t even have to tackle every challenge the game throws at you, but it can and will improve your confidence and skill.

The quest system is broken down into categories that extend laterally from the main storyline, consisting of location-associated objectives that have you performing a range of actions that ultimately guide you toward game completion. Reclaiming a town, recovering precious technology, hacking a crashed ship, and destroying valuable enemy towers for valuable resources can be repeated forever if you allow the Legion to move unchecked. On that note, at the start of the game, you can choose how quickly the enemy faction will spread. Being unsure of the circumstances but confident about my reflexes, I chose the “normal” speed, and that worked out just fine for me.



There’s absolutely no shortage of quests, collectibles, and randomly spawning optional instances of combat and friendly interactables to keep you hooked. It is a fact that you’ll hear the same voices at your Outposts, but if and when boredom sets in, you can lock onto another point on the map and pursue that instead. Everything not directly assigned by the main storyline quests is optional, which is nice if you’re impatient or don’t have much time to spare. Fortunately, what is here is of exceptional quality, and even though it does come across as trying a little too hard at times, it is good fun.

Ubisoft has worked hard to balance its space defence simulator with the well-acted story that motivates all of it, though they fall short of a full cinematic experience. There's a lot of cultural variety happening in the story, but somehow, it's difficult to become personally involved. Having the Star Fox crew along for the ride may seem like a discredit to the story, but it does give the youngest players and inexperienced parents a comfortable means of taking part.

In aid of this, each pilot has a unique special ability tailored to your playstyle. Having played Star Fox and Shaid, I was able to employ their abilities in “Rock and Roll” and “Vanish,” respectively. The former has one of Fox’s teammates fight alongside you for a brief duration, while the latter has your ship become undetectable for a fixed period. The duration, effect and potency of these abilities can be upgraded, but Fox’s ability has the marked advantage of giving less grizzled players - like me - much-needed assistance when things get tense.



Destroying things is easy enough once you learn the rock-paper-scissors elemental mechanics, but you can be overwhelmed by sheer numbers or, worse, a poorly configured ship. With the intended purpose of having kids collect toys to play with, there are some things you need to be aware of. If you have just one ship and it is defeated, your only resort is to respawn at the nearest Outpost, giving up all your progress in the quest you may be pursuing. More ships will enable you to continue exactly where you are and hopefully win, but it does give me an edge when all my ships are digital, and I have six at my disposal to heap on my target.

Levelling up your pilots, ships, and weapons will make things much easier, and to that end, there are a number of “low hanging fruit” quests that will give you valuable experience, but you need to learn more than how to fly and when to dodge in order to complete the game. The element system itself is simple: Fire and ice are natural enemies, just as gravity and stasis are. Mixing one of the former with either of the latter creates a very effective combo that will drastically increase your damage output. If it sounds like a lot to deal with, don’t worry...I used just four weapons altogether and only switched when things weren’t easy enough, or the quest required something else.

In fact, to take it easy on my hands, I used auto-locking missile launchers for the majority of my playthrough. This was extremely useful as space combat was pretty headache-inducing initially, and I wasn’t into the idea of having to lead my targets if I didn’t have to. Exploiting the game’s “any weapon type can win” mechanic made it convenient for my intended mode of play: Strictly casual. If you want to play harder, you can, but it’s nice to have options. There are plenty of weapon types to choose from to suit your style, so chalk up a point for Ubisoft.



Without a doubt, the most useful mechanic of Starlink is modding. Your ship and weapons have mod slots that will improve the performance of the said system when a badge is applied. There are boosters for every attribute and performance modifiers for every preference. The Arwing is considered a Performance Class ship, but with the right mods, it can be transformed into a lumbering Landmas—er, well armoured vehicle that can tank a lot of damage. Your weapons, meanwhile, can be similarly adjusted, and upgrading the Equinox will grant you the ability to apply more mods. There are, all told, five grades of mods, each with more bonuses than the prior, in addition to higher bonuses overall.

For those who love to manage inventories, Starlink has you covered but also makes it simple enough for logistics purposes. I was impressed by how little time it took me to configure a new ship I had never used before to replace the one I’d just gotten smashed up in combat. UbiSoft deserves all the kudos for how streamlined this game is, especially considering the variety of systems involved and gameplay styles it's accounting for.

The greatest achievement of Starlink: Battle for Atlas is that you can choose to play the game the way you want, acquiring necessary resources in a way that’s fun for you instead of ticking off a list of rote objectives. Some things cannot be avoided; that much is true, but for a game that can run in excess of sixty hours, it did a fine job of communicating its value to me. I have hope that future third-party partnerships like this one will bear fruit as meaty and sweet as this one. As a well-balanced example of entry-level gaming, this one not only launches without a hitch into the stratosphere, but it also sticks the landing.

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Community review by hastypixels (June 07, 2019) Wisdom comes from effort and mistakes.