Update: The review text has been amended to reflect our experience with the Switch version of Thumper. Please scroll to the bottom to find the updated content.
Despite recent efforts to revive brands like Rock Band and Amplitude, there's a general sense that we've been there and done that when it comes to rhythm games. The staleness of the genre was a concern going into Thumper. It's a game that runs on rails, where you have to time button presses to match a beat that grows increasingly fast and complex over time, with the primary gimmick being that it's layered with trippy visuals. But those details don't tell the whole story. Thumper is like most rhythm games you've played before, but it's also a powerful, moving experience--especially in VR--that stands out as something completely different from its forebears.
Imagine for a second that you're a chrome-plated beetle participating in a life-or-death luge race set in a tangled web of undulating cables, iridescent halos, and laser beams. In one ear, the menacing sound of taiko drums bang away, while the other is fed oppressive industrial riffs and beats. The tracks are dangerously slick and fast, and the only way to survive is to give yourself up to the beat--allow it to command your instincts to lean into sudden turns and hit markers at the right time. Anything short of a total bond between yourself and the track will lead to dimmed reflexes resulting in life-ending collisions. Success is surviving long enough to meet the the boss--a disembodied flaming head with piercing eyes and spiked florets emerging from all sides. He beckons, you respond, and you pray your muscles can react fast enough beat him senseless at his own game, matching every beat he sends your way.
Granted, that may sound like a creative way to interpret what amounts to a simple rhythm game, but just because it sounds fantastical and flowery doesn't mean it's purely imaginative. You aren't challenged to create music in Thumper as much as you are to keep up with the obstacles it dictates; what amounts to beats or notes in other games is treated differently here.
Most of the time, you're forced to act in other ways--at an incredible rate of speed. When taking a steep curve, you have to press a button and move the analog stick to grind the wall. Fail to hold the turn long enough or hit the correct button, and you crash. Spiked sections require you to jump, while a series of barriers can only be passed when you hold down the "beat" button. You may also find your track expand to multiple lanes while a phalanx of technopedes float into your path, forcing you to shift from side to side without hesitation.
The big difference here is that you aren't forced to fill in a song to succeed. For example, you aren't always required to hit a button when a beat icon--for lack of a better term--appears on a track. The two exceptions are during the boss battle at the end of each stage and when a ring floats around the track waiting to punish you with an unavoidable attack for missing your mark under its watch. But these moments arise infrequently.
Thumper is about survival under the guidance of music--and less about actually creating music. Beats and notes telegraph incoming obstacles, planting a seed in your subconscious only fractions of a second before you have to react. Tuning into this is critical during later levels where unavoidable obstacles fly by a mile a minute, and the process is thrilling to see in action as you frantically react, somehow survive, and ultimately inform the depth of the song at hand.
If you hesitate to take action even in the slightest, Thumper will make short work of you. It's dangerously fast. In the span of a single second, you may have to take three turns, jump over a pit, and slam down from midair on top of an incoming beat marker. There are optional opportunities to improve your score or rating--such as jumping to hit floating rings--but making unnecessary moves is like tempting fate. Fail to input the correct button combinations at the precise moments that actually matter, and you're liable to hit a barrier, lose your sense of the beat and the track, and careen into a wall. That said, when you take the chance and come out unscathed, it's thoroughly rewarding to know that you went above and beyond Thumper's already challenging demands.
Immersion is a tall claim, but it's one that Thumper realizes. As a game that's playable both on a TV and in VR, this really only holds true for the latter, but again, it's a step above most "immersive" experiences we've seen before. Thumper thumps, bangs, and pummels you with intense percussion. It's as if you're facing the front lines of an army that intimidates their enemies with massive drums, and when things are at their most intense, it lays into you with high-pitched, droning sounds that rake at your psyche.
Enveloped in corridors of light or swimming in a sea of darkness where faint, mechanical devils perform an intimidating dance, Thumper is truly captivating to behold, moving at commanding rate of speed that's difficult to shake. During a moment of solace, you may realize that you don't remember exactly what happened in the preceding moments. Yet there you are, speeding down the track to your next death-defying performance.
Thumper's only hang-up is the repeated use of musical measures or track designs. Each level, which is divided into a few dozen segments on average, occasionally bears too strong of a resemblance to past stages. This issue is softened due to the effective nature of the game at large, but when it happens, you can't help but wonder what could have been given a little more musical variety.
It sounds odd to claim that a lack of consistently original music wouldn't be a major problem for a rhythm game, but music isn't the point. Thumper thrives due to the way it marries speed, simple controls, and mesmerizing atmosphere. It's far more convincing in VR, where you're enveloped in the game's space and free of distractions from the outside world, but it shouldn't be ignored by those without the appropriate hardware. Thumper, no matter how you play it, is too good to miss.
Thumper has now made its way to Nintendo Switch, where it remains every bit as enjoyable to play on a monitor (at 1080p 60fps) as it is on PS4 and PC. Surprisingly little has been sacrificed in the transition to the portable console, and in some ways the fact that you can now hold it close by undocking the Switch makes it a slightly more immersive experience than sitting feet away from your TV. If VR isn't something you have access to or want to invest in, the Switch version of Thumper is arguably the second best route to experience everything this impressive and brutal rhythm game has to offer.
The "what" of Farpoint isn't as vital as the "how." Even among its virtual-reality-enabled peers, it's a fairly standard shooter about an unnamed space shuttle pilot who, along with two scientists, ends up stranded on an uncharted desert planet while investigating an anomaly near a wormhole orbiting Jupiter. When you wake up, you've got nothing but an assault rifle and your wits with which to face off against an ugly horde of arachnids. For much of the first half of the game, Farpoint is rudimentary, with linear--albeit pretty and atmospheric--desert corridors leading to open areas filled with enemies. Your weapons are shooter mainstays: an assault rifle and a shotgun, both with high-powered secondary rounds.
It's only after the first boss fight that it becomes clear Farpoint is a late bloomer. The lethargic first area acts as a proof-of-concept demo for the PSVR Aim controller--an optional accessory that can be purchased as a bundle with the game. To Farpoint's detriment, it means anyone playing the game with a DualShock 4--Farpoint doesn't support PlayStation Move controllers--will be bored to tears before being torn apart by the game's nimble, vicious little beasts.
For those who do splurge for the Aim, however, they'll find Farpoint's early hours show off all the slick ways the gun controller makes the difference between a boring game and an engaging one. Through the Aim, the otherwise lackluster desert corridors are a prime showcase for the kinetic motion and aiming that could only work in VR. One of the best tiny touches is the simulated holographic sight--modeled after real-world counterparts--that makes targeting encroaching enemies from a distance a more involved but satisfying process.
Once you move past this tutorial-like section, Farpoint starts bringing its surprises out of the bag. The generic bug hunt in haunting, sunbathed landscapes gradually transitions into a pulse-pounding, run-and-gun nightmare scenario against a slew of unforgiving murder machines. The weapons take on a delightful alien bent, with a decidedly different heft and feel from the basic assault and shotgun options of the first half. With infinite ammo for all of them--only explosive rounds and rockets need refilling--you'll walk into any firefight comfortably.
When bipedal aliens join the fight in the second half of the game, Farpoint becomes a true test of skill, and comes alive in a way the first half never hints at. Enemies suddenly know how to use cover, flank your position, and fire sniper rifles from afar. Sneaky killshots have to be carefully keyholed through minute gaps in wreckage with one eye closed and actual steady hand on the Aim controller. Alternatively, John Wick-style strolls down a corridor while blind-firing a shotgun and laying waste to a whole squad of enemies without breaking stride feels magnificent. Style and success in Farpoint are bound only by your own flexibility and guile.
And yet, the biggest surprise the game has in store has nothing to do with the gunplay but the overarching plot involving the two scientists, Dr. Grant Moon and Dr. Eva Tyson, who crashed on the planet first. Time away from gunning down aliens is spent examining holographic records of the doctors' prior escapades. While this builds toward a somewhat predictable conclusion, the particulars are breathtaking in their poignancy; a tonal clash with the rest of the game. Eventually, every cutscene is a hard emotional swerve, and the ultimate fate of Drs. Moon and Tyson feels ripped from a much different, heartbreaking experience than an arcade VR shooter.
The narrative dissonance fades away in the game's final third and feels like a long-lost memory once the chaos of combat returns. And after the credits roll, you're left with nothing but a series of challenge modes, remixing the enemy layout of each stage with a time limit and a point value for every dead bot or bug. These challenges can also be tackled as an online co-op experience, which may not make things any easier--but in VR, how two players decide to play is a much different kind of song and dance than the average cooperative Horde mode found in other games.
Despite shifting gears in surprising ways and extending the life of its gunplay by remixing levels, Farpoint is more like a proof of concept than a game designed to push the envelope on its own terms. It'll give you a taste of something new for PSVR, and give you hints of what to look forward to if the Aim controller attracts wider support. It's going to be hard to go back to two Move controllers now that Sony's new toy has made a case for itself.
When it comes to the magic and charm of newly minted old-school adventure games, few are able to successfully convey the same style and wonder that the classics of the genre once evoked. In the case of Mages of Mystralia, a modest but energetic adventure, it wears its influences on its sleeve, all while charting its own path in its uniquely whimsical, vibrant world. Of course, whether it manages to succeed in reaching the same heights as games that have stood the test of time is another matter entirely, and this new adventure might have needed some extra time training before starting its grand journey.
In the land of Mystralia, our central protagonist Zia discovers that she possesses the talents to become a mage, long believed to come only from the rarest of bloodlines. After accidentally using her powers and leaving her village in turmoil, she exiles herself and travels to a sanctuary for mages to learn the spellcrafting arts. She's tasked with preventing the war between a massive army of trolls and the Kingdom of Mystralia from tearing apart the land--and all who reside within it--but as she learns more of her destiny as a mage, Zia discovers that something far more sinister might be sowing the seeds of conflict for their own ends.
As expected in a high-fantasy adventure, you'll explore an interconnected land full of monsters and dungeons while collecting resources and new items for your quest to stop the oncoming threat. The plot in Mages of Mystralia is largely in the forefront. Written by Ed Greenwood, creator of Dungeons & Dragons' Forgotten Realms campaign, the author's pedigree is evident in the world's tantalizing lore depicting the strife of living a mage's life, and the persecution they face for their gifts. But while Mages of Mystralia keeps its worldbuilding steady, it isn't able to keep up with the pacing of it all throughout, resulting in an ending that leaves far too much on the table and with little payoff.
With that said, the journey itself is definitely more satisfying than the destination. Befitting the game's old-school charm, Mages has a colorful, whimsical atmosphere, and the presentation definitely shows a lot of care and creativity. As a mage, Zia is able to bend the elements to her whims, resulting in some exciting showmanship of her craft. When you start out, you'll have access to basic fireball, lightning, and wind spells. But over the course of your travels, you'll acquire special runes that act as modifiers for your basic spells. As you modify and alter various elemental properties, you'll end up creating spells such as a tri-lightning-bolt attack that leaves ice puddles in its wake, resulting in double damage from two different elements.
While many of the runes are clearly designed just for puzzle solving, you can actually take the spellcrafting surprisingly far. There's an impressive amount of customization and versatility to your spell options, particularly in how you can alter trajectory, homing accuracy, and secondary buffs--which is a testament to just how deep the system is. Powering through several mobs of trolls with your own personal spell concoctions is incredibly satisfying, and it's easily one of Mages of Mystralia's true strengths.
There's a sense that the game is constantly scratching the surface of something great--but ultimately leaves it unexplored in favor of the mundane.
Unfortunately, the complexities of spellcrafting also highlight the boilerplate nature of exploration and questing. Backtracking is a fairly large part of Mages of Mystralia--understandably, since new spells and runes can open fresh paths in past areas. But aside from dropping in stronger foes, the game doesn't do much to offer more challenges outside of the main quest. For the most part, dungeons and quests revolve around clearing out waves of monsters or solving puzzle rooms to progress, in between fetching items for townsfolk. That's not necessarily bad on its own--one amusing side quest involves helping a farmer find his pitchfork that his cousin "borrowed"--but it's disappointing there aren't more opportunities to explore the landscape and learn more about the people that inhabit it.
There's a sense that the game is constantly scratching the surface of something great--but ultimately leaves it unexplored in favor of the mundane. Even story moments that should feel important simply fall flat on the follow-through and payoff. During one section, you'll meet a necromancer who forms an alliance with Zia during a fairly important moment in the story. Yet by the end, he's relegated to a one-off side quest and doesn't return in any way to the core plot, despite the other characters making a big deal about how necromancers can't be trusted. These rising expectations and subsequent letdowns happen more often than not, which is frustrating, considering how vibrant and interesting the designs and structure of the world are.
While you'll obviously go through the standard fire temples surrounded by molten lava and the requisite ice temples on steep mountain peaks, the colorful visual style has a quasi-storybook feel, which makes the broad color palette of the many forests and dungeons pop out and feel more defined. Most of the game is presented from a pulled-back isometric angle--that's for the best, as many of the visuals look a bit rough up close, especially during some of the cutscenes. With that said, there's this pleasing feeling that comes over you while exploring as the musical score ramps and sets every scene. The orchestral themes, emphasizing the sense of whimsy and wanderlust in Zia's travels, are equally as charming and exciting as the visual style of the game.
Clocking in at a modest six hours after an average first playthrough, Mages of Mystralia still leaves much to be explored with the plethora of hidden chests, optional puzzles, and a special mage trial combat event to take part in. Though unfortunately it feels more so for the sake of clearing the way to a 100% completion rating, as opposed to needing these items for the quest. With that said, those first six hours of Mages of Mystralia stir up a lot of the same feelings as the old-school games that inspired it, offering a spirited and endearing romp with a charming mage and her impressively complex magical abilities.
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