THE LONELIEST GLOBE IN THE UNIVERSE
Also for: iPad, iPhone, Macintosh, Nintendo Switch, PS Vita, tvOS, Wii
U, Windows, Xbox One
Judging by the quality of the "free" PS Plus-additions I've acquired over the
years, I'm starting to think that the PS Vita might have been quite the
machine. The puzzle games have generally been of the highest order, with some
innovative flourishes to them. Games like Hue and TorqueL are
great, with The Bridge, Azkend 2: The World Beneath and
10 Second Ninja X not far behind. I've yet to find a clear miss, and
the only major setback for the now defunct handheld is, of course, the lack of
exclusives. Why would I buy a Vita when I could play the games on a platform I
already own?
And now forma.8 joins their ranks. A creation of Italian indie developer MixedBag, this game is an atmospheric 2D-metroidvania of melancholic
allure, where you float around an unknown, low-gravity planet for unclear reasons. With minimalistic visuals, clever physics-based
puzzles and a big world to explore, you work your way towards a beacon
on your automap. The story is completely wordless, which works hand-in-hand with
the ambient soundtrack and slow-paced gameplay to pique your interest.
You are forma.8, a stylized black ball of metal with a hypnotic stare. In the
opening cinematic, a mothership arrives in orbit around the strange planet and shoots
you towards the surface, alongside a swarm of other identical formas. After crashing
through the wall of an ancient building, you lose all unique powers. Until you reclaim them, progress is impossible. Since the game uses no
written language, the only way to get some guidance is to learn the iconography of the HUD, and the
world.
The first two powers you find soon upon landing - a quick burst of
electricity, and a bomb floating in mid-air right wherever dropped - and they
become your major means of protection. The electric discharge can be used for
close combat, as a shield, or for launching the bomb towards a distant target.
With the floaty, delayed movement, aiming that thing takes divine skill - you
basically need to go the polar opposite way you want the bomb to go. The enemy
consists of machines and insectoid creatures spawning from burrows or plants.
You explore mostly maze-like interiors filled with enemies, secrets and deadly
environmental hazards. Progression is often halted by a devious puzzle segment, often involving switches and physics. A few brief segments show you the outdoors, where the
background layers of 2D parallax-scrolling art convey an oppressive sense of
depth. As if that wasn't enough, the game occasionally decides to zoom the perspective out to a panorama, reducing your forma to a mere speck against the horizon.
Apart from making you feel lonely and insignificant, it makes you fear that some of the distant shapes could come alive. With such a low gravitational pull, this
planet could theoretically house some colossal beasts. And as I dove into the
waters around the black cliffs I explored, I could sense no bottom. I kept on
diving for about a minute until I could bear it no longer - the dread I felt made me turn back.
At regular intervals, the game intercepts the way forward with an ingenious boss encounter.
They are basically stressful puzzles, where you need to detect their weak
spots or look around for other ways to harm them. One unforgettable boss
chased me through a narrow maze, forcing me to open hatches and escape by a
hair, all the while bouncing off the walls at every turn. Another made me feel
guilt for defeating it, as its corpse revealed its true form.
The game requires you to progress in a certain order, but rarely prevents
you from going back to look for secrets and power-ups. A few collectible bolts seem
inconsequential at first, but collecting them determines what ending you
unlock. Some of them are only obtainable by quickly navigating fun mazes, igniting all of its faded lights before a timer runs out.
I never bothered finding them all,
mainly because of the sluggish movement, labyrinthian game world and unrefined automapping.
Besides, when using some later powers to speed through an area, the screen had problems keeping up.
These flaws - along with the unsatisfactory ending and a couple of tedious
puzzle sections in the second half - prevent me from awarding a higher score
than I'd like to.
Back in the days of the Amiga, I never thought a game like Another World
(1991) would be the one to influence future developers, but that is the game
that comes to mind here. When compared to pixel art of the time, I always thought the old classic looked too plain and primitive. I understood that it was minimalistic because
the technical limitations didn't allow for more polygons. But little did I
realize that such limitations gave rise to an art style that appealed to your imagination.
Less is more, simply put. Forma.8:s simple color scheme points out important
clues on how to solve puzzles, as well as highlight boss vulnerabilities. The
murals of faces adorning the hallways of the structure give rise to a lot of
questions, because their primitive design make them look... only possibly
human? That colossal globe in the night sky - it could be a celestial body, or could it suddenly awaken and fixate its hypnotic gaze on you? In a world where
you float around freely, such feelings of uncertainty and loneliness is all
the gravity you need.
Maybe forma.8 carries its old school inspirations a little too fondly on its
sleeve, but who cares. It is a splendid outcome of two worlds uniting. We get
the enigma of limited visual storytelling and the limitlessness of technically advanced
controls. It celebrates the past and the present, and is equally scary and
beautiful, primitive and advanced, traditional and inventive. And it keeps us
pondering the reason why we're so damned determined to solve the next puzzle
or defeat that boss. Why are we even here, on this planet?
Comments
Post a Comment