Sometimes there are games that have elements in them that simply leave you feeling conflicted. Whether it’s a title with stellar gameplay that is somehow let down by some technical flaw, or something story-driven that tragically gets undermined by poor voice work, the collective experience is ultimately always going to be a sum of its parts, for better or worse. 

In the case of The Atomic Sulfate, there’s no question that its art style is going to be the draw. For me, it actually reminds me of art I used to see in MAD Magazine back in the day, so with nothing more to go on than its appearance, I was at least mildly excited about the project. The fact that it plays out as a pretty classic point-and-click adventure also isn’t a surprise, and I’ve seen a number of titles with great artwork pair well with this genre before.

The problem is that pretty well anywhere gameplay is concerned, this is not remotely an ideal (or even fair) experience. You’ll use a cross-hair pointer to highlight what you want to act on, but the first problem you’ll encounter out of the gate is that the controls are simply not explained at all. Considering that this adheres to a much older-school adventure style, needing to choose an icon representing the action you’d like to take before then clicking on what you want to try that with, no explanation gets everything off to a miserable start. 

The thing is, even if you’re on top of that your means of progression in a number of situations is simply unintuitive and awful, feeling more driven by you stumbling onto the right answer through blind luck or simply trying everything rather than any sort of logic. The result is something far from being satisfying, especially given the fact that there are so many games out there in the eShop that do it all so much better.