echochrome • Review

by: ~Samuel w.

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echochrome is, perceptually speaking, an impossible group of concepts and premises that collaborate into a mind bending puzzle game that will make the player rethink how he approaches problems. Its idea is simple, make perception reality, but it’s execution and personality is what eventually makes it one of the most original puzzlers since Portal.

While best and most appropriately seen in person, echochrome can be summed up easily with the phrase “defying reality”. As the player, you are tasked with connecting a series of floating, disconnected pathways using perspective to guide your mannequin. Perspective plays an enormous role in the game, as there are multiple ways to use it, such as connecting two seemingly disconnected platforms by simply rotating the camera and connecting the two edges. Or placing a separate pathway underneath one of the many black holes your character will fall through, to make him fall onto the “lower” path.

This is both highly original and unfortunately buggy sometimes. At random points throughout the game, clearly connected pathways will remain blocked off for your mannequin, other times, seemingly connected paths will result in your character falling through them into the white nothingness of the level. But all of these issues pale in comparison to the unpredictability and frustrating nature of another perspective gimmick, jumping. Jump pads in the form of white circles are speckled throughout the level and letting your character walk over them will result in him  being launched up some good twenty feet. The trick is to match up a structure “above” the jump pad so that he lands on it, unfortunately this works much better in theory then it does in execution, as there is no true way to gage when your character will and won’t land. This adds an unfortunate trial and error aspect to the game that probably could have been avoided with a few more months of polish.

But echochrome overcomes its issues with a very polished progression, starting with simple levels that take no more than two tries, to advanced stages that take upwards of 10+ minutes to figure out, let alone accomplish. While these later levels are mind numbingly difficult at time, it makes achieving them all the more better. But achievement within echochrome is elusive, as not only are the latter levels fiendishly difficult, but the entire game has you on stage specific timers, causing you to think out your actions while also managing an invisible clock. This can both be exciting and frustrating, as this is a thinking game, and putting a time limit on it makes thinking take a back seat to frantically trying different combinations until you figure out which works. Not that the decision was without warrant, the game’s staying value is in its ability to puzzle and without a time limit, many levels would be figured out much faster than intended.

echochrome is not just an interesting concept, it is a charming game with an aesthetic design that redefines the word clean. The game is very nice to look at, as levels gracefully float within a surrounding sea of white, bringing the puzzle to the forefront and putting the emphasis on the changing of perspective. The game sounds as tranquil as it looks however, with a classical score that plays while your brain sweats it out. It’s a different tone than with most games and if anything, it’s refreshing to see such an approachable game both for gamers and non gamers alike, and if anything.

In summary, echochrome asks the question “can a game with only one gameplay innovation stand on its own”, a question I can answer with a resounding yes. echochrome doesn’t break any barriers and it won’t win any innovation awards but it doesn’t need to, it brings some new ideas to the table and executes them to make one of the more enjoyable games on PSN.

~ by progn0sticator on May 10, 2008.