On the surface, Atomicrops is a retro-inspired, top-down 16-bit shooter. However, even early stages start to reveal a much deeper experience, filled with love interests, guns, and unrelenting enemies. Perks can become permanent down the road, but the path to getting there is fulfilling and enough to keep you returning after each defeat for more crop production and bullet fire.

Despite a few nitpicks, Atomicrops is, in many ways, is a superb experience. It’s a harmonious blend between completely unique ideas and straightforward, simple mechanics. It’s tough as nails, but not discouragingly punishing. It doesn’t overwhelm the player with a surfeit of nuances to learn, yet it offers enough perks and gameplay modifiers to keep you always stumbling upon something new. For an indie title that seeks to present physical challenge and old-school, arcade thrill in place of a meaningful narrative, it accomplishes its mission beautifully. If this were a true arcade game, I’d have spent all my quarters long, long ago.

Atomicrops is an exciting and challenging rogue-lite farming simulator that somehow manages to maintain its fun factor with high replayability no matter how many times you die. It can be extremely difficult for those not used to playing rogue-lite games, but its fun art style and RNG elements manage to keep it fresh and engaging. Atomicrops is strangely addictive, and for $14.99 on the Epic Games store, it's an absolute steal.

Atomicrops is frenetic, challenging and addicting in the way that all the best roguelike/lites are, with a silly streak that helps give the title its own identity. A lack of content does harm the game’s longevity.

I’m a person who likes having the resources of tutorials and hints; if you are like me, I’m sorry to say you won't find that here. Other than a sweet old man who meets his untimely death in the very beginning of this game, you have no help or direction on how to play. The art, bosses, and wacky soundtrack are big pluses, as they give those good retro vibes and never feel outdated. Overall, Atomicrops isn’t for everyone, but for people who are fans of the genre they’ll definitely find a lot to enjoy.

Although it appears to be one more farming simulator, Atomicrops is actually a bullet hell with much more in common with Nuclear Throne than with Stardew Valley. This roguelite without permanent upgrades forces you to try different weapon combinations in each game, so it always feels fresh and funny. Solid as a twin stick shooter, loose as a farming simulator.

Atomicrops is a frantic mix of roguelite and tower defense gameplays. It has a wonderful pixel-art and a nice, fitting soundtrack. It is a solid game, but the farming-sim gameplay fragments the exploration and jam its potential.