Oh, my first purposely purchased PS4 game! The first ever was Guilty Gear Xrd, thinking I clicked on the PS3 version, but I digress.
Prismatic Solid is nothing new, it has been available for the X360 since 2010, and in all regions. I never played it, and its PS4 port would have flown over my head if it wasn't for a retweet. Anyway, I can't really comment on the differences between X360 and PS4, probably because I'm still trying to figure out what happened in the hour or so I've played the game.
In fact, I'm trying to figure out if Prismatic Solid was born as a game, or as a tech demo for animated bump maps and particle generator, or as something meant to induce epileptic seizures for medical purposes.
As a game, Prismatic Solid is a vertical scrolling shoot'em'up; the player's ship has six different shoot types and three coloured bars (blue, pink, red) that act as bomb counters and to increase the effectiveness of three barbed objects that act as barrier against enemy projectiles.
As a tech demo, everything in Prismatic Solid is represented by very simple shapes, from enemies to backgrounds; enemies erupt in cascades of multi-coloured particles when hit or destroyed, and these particles interact with the background, sometimes generated by what look like procedural displacement and bump maps; in one stage, called "water", everything creates bump patterns on the semi-transparent surface that also plays a very small role as stage mechanic.
As a medical instrument, try to envision endless numbers of particles, projectiles, dynamic backgrounds, and light sources moving around as fast the PS4 can manage: it's something you have to witness firsthand to fully understand, and after that you'll be left scratching your head trying to understand what you played. If you didn't suffer an epileptic seizure, that is.
The six weapons have all different patterns, and only some can hurt certain enemies. Some enemies drop coloured sparks, that will fill the respective bar on the upper right corner of the screen; these bars work as bomb counters, each bomb with its propagation pattern (red circular, pink square, blue rotating cross) but everyone able to absorb bullets in their path. The bars are also linked to three "things" orbiting around your ship; these objects sprout tentacles from them, their lenght dictated by the lenght of the respective bar, and can be used to block incoming projectiles or destroy enemies. The objectes change position based on the weapon selected, their pattern often forcing the weapon to use or bomb your way through screens filled with bullets.
The sparkly and overloaded graphics mean that a lot of deaths come out as cheap, and some obstacles are not entirely clear on first encounter, as some enemies that require a specific weapon to be destroyed, something that is never hinted anywhere else in the game.
The BGMs are strangely subdued for such a graphically rowdy game, with the overall presentation coming out as chaotic.
The game moves at roughly steady pace, but it probably never surpasses 30fps; it never slows down considerably, but you can feel that few frames are dropped when the situation is particularly chaotic...and I mean chaotic considering Prismatic Solid's baseline.
To my understanding there are no multipliers or peculiar scoring hooks, the final result being only influenced by how many stages you can clear in one continue. The score can be uploaded to PSN leaderboards, but apparently only once a day; restarting the game also prompts the deletion of the previously attained score, an other puzzling decision.
For now, Prismatic Solid is an unrefined shooter, with a completely overblown graphical department that looks more as a tech demo rather than a well-though stylist choice, and not fully explored mechanics.
Prismatic Solid is nothing new, it has been available for the X360 since 2010, and in all regions. I never played it, and its PS4 port would have flown over my head if it wasn't for a retweet. Anyway, I can't really comment on the differences between X360 and PS4, probably because I'm still trying to figure out what happened in the hour or so I've played the game.
In fact, I'm trying to figure out if Prismatic Solid was born as a game, or as a tech demo for animated bump maps and particle generator, or as something meant to induce epileptic seizures for medical purposes.
As a game, Prismatic Solid is a vertical scrolling shoot'em'up; the player's ship has six different shoot types and three coloured bars (blue, pink, red) that act as bomb counters and to increase the effectiveness of three barbed objects that act as barrier against enemy projectiles.
As a tech demo, everything in Prismatic Solid is represented by very simple shapes, from enemies to backgrounds; enemies erupt in cascades of multi-coloured particles when hit or destroyed, and these particles interact with the background, sometimes generated by what look like procedural displacement and bump maps; in one stage, called "water", everything creates bump patterns on the semi-transparent surface that also plays a very small role as stage mechanic.
As a medical instrument, try to envision endless numbers of particles, projectiles, dynamic backgrounds, and light sources moving around as fast the PS4 can manage: it's something you have to witness firsthand to fully understand, and after that you'll be left scratching your head trying to understand what you played. If you didn't suffer an epileptic seizure, that is.
The six weapons have all different patterns, and only some can hurt certain enemies. Some enemies drop coloured sparks, that will fill the respective bar on the upper right corner of the screen; these bars work as bomb counters, each bomb with its propagation pattern (red circular, pink square, blue rotating cross) but everyone able to absorb bullets in their path. The bars are also linked to three "things" orbiting around your ship; these objects sprout tentacles from them, their lenght dictated by the lenght of the respective bar, and can be used to block incoming projectiles or destroy enemies. The objectes change position based on the weapon selected, their pattern often forcing the weapon to use or bomb your way through screens filled with bullets.
The sparkly and overloaded graphics mean that a lot of deaths come out as cheap, and some obstacles are not entirely clear on first encounter, as some enemies that require a specific weapon to be destroyed, something that is never hinted anywhere else in the game.
The BGMs are strangely subdued for such a graphically rowdy game, with the overall presentation coming out as chaotic.
The game moves at roughly steady pace, but it probably never surpasses 30fps; it never slows down considerably, but you can feel that few frames are dropped when the situation is particularly chaotic...and I mean chaotic considering Prismatic Solid's baseline.
To my understanding there are no multipliers or peculiar scoring hooks, the final result being only influenced by how many stages you can clear in one continue. The score can be uploaded to PSN leaderboards, but apparently only once a day; restarting the game also prompts the deletion of the previously attained score, an other puzzling decision.
For now, Prismatic Solid is an unrefined shooter, with a completely overblown graphical department that looks more as a tech demo rather than a well-though stylist choice, and not fully explored mechanics.
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