Xbox Reviews

Spheroids Review

 Review Spheroids |
Available for Xbox Play Anywhere, always important to mention. But is the game good enough to buy? While reading this review you will see that my impression about the game is a little mixed. Let’s find out why!

 

THE GOOD

  • Spheroids has a visual art style that makes me happy. You can compare it a little with FEZ but developer Eclipse did a good job giving the game personality and style. The main character, Lucas pops out in the colorful levels and the Spheroids (enemies) look funny and remarkable with the big eye.  I also loved that the Spheroids look so out-of-place in the levels, it links tremendously well with the alien story.
  • Not every game needs to be difficult to enjoy and Spheroids has found the perfect balance so everyone can play it. You have an overkill with checkpoints and the gameplay is leaning towards casual players. I mean that in the most positive way, lately all platform games on Xbox have been frustratingly difficult so it was fun to play a chill and casual platforming game.
  • Did you happen to play The Bug Butcher from Awfully Nice Studios? Just like that game you can only fire upwards in Spheroids, this results in an interesting gameplay mechanic, you will always have to take risk when you shoot an enemy. It might be a little silly and you immediately wonder why the character can’t shoot sideways but it delivers some really fun gameplay moments.

Mixed Feelings

  • I don’t really understand the shop, I’m not saying that the shop is a bad thing but I feel that the upgrading and improving abilities is completely worthless. The reason why is that the game is lacking any challenge for requiring upgrades. I guess developer Eclipse wanted to give some progression for the players so I understand the idea and concept behind it but it wasn’t necessary.

THE BAD

  • For some odd reason all story sequences  are completely silent, breaking each and every immersion that you might have had while playing Spheroids. To make things worse, the dialogue between the characters are beyond boring and predictable, making it an awkward and boring thing to watch and experience.
  • Having no sound is a problem, having repetitive and irritating music is another. You will visit different kinds of geographic places and each new area has a brand new themed song, sadly they aren’t really good. There is an exception though, I enjoyed the Afrika level music. So yeah, not all is bad with the sound after all.
  • The fun gameplay is a little tampered with a bugs and glitches galore. Enemies spawn inside you resulting in a checkpoint restart, the camera decides to remain stuck, hit detection don’t always adds up, and you regularly have some frame rate hiccups when running into new sections.

Score: 55 % | At the core, Spheroids is a fun game that everyone can play and I really believe that developer Eclipse has the talent to make something great but Spheroids only shows fragments of that talent. Too many things break the fun part of the game, resulting in a fun experience albeit some rough mediocre parts. 

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