Atlas Fallen Cheats and Tips
Atlas Fallen combat basics
Atlas Fallen has a very unique and cool combat system, but it might feel a bit impenetrable the first few times you engage with it. There’s a lot of menu-driven set-up involved to keep the wheels of battle cranking along nicely, and it’s easy to get lost at first.
Your default attacks are on the Square and Triangle button (I was playing on PlayStation, so just sub in the X and Y Xbox buttons). You start the game with two weapons (a third is added in the first five hours or so). These weapons can be mapped to the two buttons, which you can then button-mash for the game’s spectacular basic combos. Though these weapon slots are labelled “primary” and “secondary” in the UI, from what I can tell, there is no difference in how they act, regardless of where you map them.
Your weapon mapping selection basically comes down to preference. Play around and see what weapon you enjoy most, and map that to the primary position, then take your second favorite and map it to the secondary. In my case, I got rid of the hammer completely and played the game happily without it. There is no wrong choice here.
Your bumper buttons are critically important to combat. The R1 button is your dash/dodge button, so get used to using that button to get out of danger. Before long, you will gain the ability to air-dash, and with the correct timing, you’ll be able to use that R1 button to fight entire battles in mid-air, which can be spectacular. But even before that, the R1 will get you out of plenty of scrapes, and give you enough breathing room to adjust the camera to keep an eye on baddies that might have maneuvered behind you.
The L1 button is your “Sandskin” button, which throws a temporary protective layer of skin on your character. This has the bonus effect of freezing any wraith that hits you while you are in Sandskin form, which opens them up for devastating attacks.
The timing on the Sandskin effect can be tricky at first – a little reticle glows red right before you get hit, but the window is very brief (think Batman enemies’ squiggly “I’m about to attack” lines, minus about 90% of the time to notice them). The Sandskin effect only lasts a split second, though there are ways a little later in the game to expand Sandskin’s effectiveness. But at first, just keep messing with it (and keep that dodge handy!), and you’ll get the timing down.
Your character is equipped with an Idol, which is essentially your mid-battle heal. This is activated by holding down L2 and clicking the Cross button. The idol works on a charge system, meaning that the more you whale on wraiths, the more charges your idol has. It’s usually a good rule of thumb that if you are down to about 1/3 of your total health, you should fire off your idol.
The important thing to remember about Idols is this: they all work, but some work better than others, depending on your build. They all heal, but they all heal in slightly different ways (over time, area of effect, etc.) Hunt around in the game, do some side quests, and you’ll soon have a little selection of idols to choose from.
