Introduction
Deliver Us Mars is an atmospheric sci-fi adventure taking you on a suspense-fuelled, high-stakes mission to recover the ARK colony ships stolen by the mysterious Outward.
Review
The sequel to the award-winning Deliver Us The Moon starts with a young Kathy Johanson, daughter of Outward’s Lead Scientist, Isaac Johanson. Kathy dreams of jetting off to space and can’t wait for her dad to show her the moon. After some dramatic scenes, the Prologue ends and Chapter One begins some years later, with Kathy now an adult, and the youngest astronaut in the WSA.
Not far into the story, flashbacks of Kathy’s youth play. Memories of what she had, and what she lost. Usually flashbacks have an affect on the experience for me as it can take me out of the current moment. In this game however, it adds to the intense/emotional moment, like an extension of the experience, rather than a break.
The story was beautifully done, and the mystery of what happened to the Outward crew on the ARKs was fun to uncover. What I enjoyed the most was probably the high emotional stakes at almost every scene; most of the time, these were just as intense as the dangers of traversing across the planet.
Humankind have destroyed the Earth to the point of no return, so its scientists have begun searching for a new, sustainable home for us to settle. With the Earth crisis in reality, this really hit hard. Is it predicting our future?
At its core, the story is about the complexity, and personal connections of family. It’s a beautiful mix of impactful emotional moments and intense, highly dangerous tasks.
Just like in Deliver Us The Moon, you find holograms throughout each chapter which plays a glimpse into key moments on the ARKS and basically shows that no matter which planet humans are on, they will ultimately prove to be the same independent beings, each thinking they are doing their best, sometimes with big consequences. Each hologram had a raw emotional feel which stayed with me throughout the game.
There are new intense and urgent moments that weren’t in Deliver Us The Moon where Kathy will need to search for oxygen, or climb a falling wall etc. Almost quick time events, without the button smashing. I thought these were a welcomed addition.
In traversing the big red planet, Kathy will unclip her climbing axes and will climb rock faces, icy covered rocky surfaces and padded spaceship walls. Climbing is fun, however Kathy must be careful as one wrong move and she will fall to her death – again, this just adds to the already intense and urgent nature of the mission.
There are multiple puzzles involving beams of energy that must be placed in certain ways to open doors. I found these puzzles a little too intricate most of the time. There were too many different parts to the puzzles that I just didn’t find enjoyable.
Ayla, Kathy’s robot which follows her everywhere felt a little lacking in importance most of the game. Ayla was given to Kathy by Isaac in an intense and dangerous moment – so it made you think that Ayla was going to protect Kathy and be of great use… however, from Chapter One I felt that Ayla was just there because we had Ace in its predecessor.
An easy platinum with only a couple of slightly challenging timed trophies. The story is only about 6-7 hours, so platinum will be around 7-9 hours; as it will depend on how long the timed trophies take to achieve.
Rating
Pros:
- Story
- Characters
- Captivating scenery
- Space!
Cons:
- Little buggy; plus, had to restart my game twice due to big character glitches
- The climbing mechanics could have been explained better in the initial tutorial
Summary
Overall a great experience with fun mechanics and intense emotional storytelling. I highly recommend as I was a big fan of Deliver Us The Moon, and if you were too, its sequel will not disappointed, not one bit.
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Game & Developer Information
Developer Website: KeokeN Interactive
Developer Socials: Twitter
Publisher Website: Frontier Foundry
Publisher Socials: Twitter
Images – https://www.igdb.com/
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