Earth Saver

Genre: Arcade

Players: 1-2 Co-Op (Local)

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Review:

Earth Saver is an Arcade-style game with light Puzzle elements released in 2025 on PC and Nintendo Switch. In this game, players take the role of an astronaut setting explosives on asteroids hurtling toward Earth, aiming to break them up into pieces small enough to disintegrate harmlessly in the atmosphere, all while avoiding the explosions and evading hostile aliens.

The gameplay here is an odd blend of elements that seems like a mix of Qix, Bomberman, and Dig Dug 2. Players can only walk on the seams between asteroid chunks, and drop bombs that detonate a few seconds later. You’re aiming to break off chunks that are only 20 blocks big or smaller, which you do by ensuring that every edge connecting the chunk to the main asteroid turns black with explosions, with explosions moving along cracks vertically and horizontally. Meanwhile, you have to contend with white cracks that must be detonated twice and cannot be walked on, and hostile aliens patrolling the cracks. Your explosions will slow you down if you run into them, but the only fatal mistakes are running into an alien, running out of time, dropping too many overly-large asteroid chunks, or being on an asteroid chunk that breaks off.

It’s an interesting concept with a lot of elements to juggle, but I think it suffers from poorly-conveyed information. The white cracks don’t stand out enough in my opinion, nor does the game do a good enough job indicating when a chunk is safe enough to break off or when it’s too large. This becomes particularly frustrating when you’re juggling chain-reaction explosions while dodging aliens.

The presentation here is decent but nothing special, with 2D visuals that get the job done but pretty soon start to look pretty samey, backed by a boisterous soundtrack that gives the game a heroic feel. It’s fine, but don’t expect anything extraordinary.

Overall, I think Earth Saver is a decent Arcade-style game that could have used a bit more work to iron out its issues and make it more accessible. As-is, it’s an original enough blend of elements to still be worth a look for players craving a game in the genre that’s relatively unique, but even for players who enjoy this game, I doubt many will outright love it.

tl;dr – Earth Saver is an Arcade-style game with light Puzzle elements that has players taking the role of an astronaut setting explosives to break apart asteroids hurtling toward Earth. This is a unique blend of elements from games like Qix, Bomberman, and Dig Dug 2, and while that makes it fairly unique, this game also has issues with multiple elements to juggle and a lack of clarity. Ultimately, this is a decent and original entry in the genre, but it’s far from a great one.

Grade: C

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