Polychromatic Review

"Twin Stick Colored Explosions"

Campaign

Despite it being only a short amount of time in this generation I've already been able to check out a vast number of twin stick shooter games and now we have a game with a lovely title called Polychromatic. This game takes the style of twin stick and turns it into a simplistic style with really straight forward gameplay. This isn't a negative thing, it's more of less the presentation of the title which I do like. The menus themselves are again simple, yet have a great modern look to them.

This carries forth in the game, every match you play takes place within a massive circle. What's neat about this circle is that you need to create strategies around it and that your hud of stats is placed at the center. While this makes it difficult to see what abilities you have at your disposal, I found it rather neat to include this on the playing space. Polychromatic is split into three game types which are all fairly well known at this point if you've played the other twin stick shooters available already.

First off we have endless mode which grants so many lives, bombs and swirls at the start. I'll talk more about these power-ups in the gameplay section below. While playing in endless mode you will continue to earn more power-ups over time as long as you keep surviving and taking on the ever ending swarms of enemies. The second mode is timed where there's a counter present on the level and a goal of enemies to kill. This mode requires quick destruction of the enemies or eventually that timer will just end your run. The final mode is one-life where you have a single life to do as much carnage to the enemy shapes as you can before dying.

Gameplay

Like I stated previously, you move about this massive circle and play as this neat little square. When moving or shooting your square has some cool shakes to it which makes the icon feel less static. The levels are also quite colorful and filled with a variety of enemy shapes. Most of these are rather harmless and just there to pad the score count, with that I found the game relied on the green shapes a tad too much to kill you.

These shapes had a lock mixed with a bit of a quick swipe movement which seemed to be my downfall most of the time. The game also features a number of power-ups with the first being being a bomb which detonates and destroys vast number of enemies in the vicinity.

The next and last power-up is the swirls ability which shoots you out almost randomly with a stream of cloud bubbles from which you take out enemies though the end result could land you right into death. As far as playing goes you really just get the three modes which might feel too familiar after playing other games of the genre, wish they would have went out to create something more unique in regards to the gametypes.

The Conclusion

I honestly don't like comparing games when writing reviews though I've played a handful of twin stick shooter games like this so I have to draw some lines. There's certainly nothing that truly makes Polychromatic stand out from the others that I've played though I wouldn't count this one out.

It's straight forward to play with a beautifully simplistic style to it. It's got some nice colors and can get rather hectic out there in the circle. While it won't blow your mind with a brand new style of twin stick shooter play, it doesn't do anything bad. It's a solid example of the genre and a definite twin stick game to check out if you like the genre.

Polychromatic Review on Xbox One
Review Code Provided by Brushfire Games

Rating Overall: 6.8