Game Review: Echocrome - PSP

(This review pertains to the PSP version only)

Forced Perspective, the ability to make things look closer/farther away or larger/smaller than they appear, has been utilized in art and movies for years. If you’ve seen the any of the ‘Lord of the Rings’ films, then you’ve seen the premise at work. But SCEA’s Echochrome is the next step in that equation: manipulate the entire world and use forced perspective at your will to break all known laws of space. And, you know what? It works…kind of.

While it would be easy to call this a stripped down or alternate version of ‘Crush’, a fellow PSP title released in May 2007, to do so would be selling the game very short. First, this game is far less disorienting than Crush. Second, the aesthetic is far more pleasing than ‘Crush’. And third, by going with such a streamlined look to the puzzles, your mind is bended, to be sure, but you’re never caught feeling like the developers are pulling one over on you. Every puzzle can be solved. Best of all, there’s more than one way to solve every puzzle.

Echochrome’s premise is puzzle building 101. You play as the man behind the curtain: a large force above the gaming world who rotates the floating platforms below so that a little faceless mannequin can freely roam from platform to platform and reach ‘echos’ of himself. These echos are strategically placed and show up in the same spot each time you play the level. Direct “Manny” to all of the echos and you beat the stage, thus moving on to the next, crazy, M. C. Escher inspired level.

Keeping with the “bite-sized” gameplay theory of portable game system, Echochrome has three different game modes in which all of the puzzles are unlocked from the start. In ‘Freeform’ the game randomly selects a puzzle according to the difficulty level you wish to play. If the last puzzle was too easy or hard, you can raise/lower the difficulty between puzzles without going back to the main screen (a very handy feature). ‘Atelier’ mode let’s you play buffet-style, allowing you to play any of the 56 puzzles in any order you want. And ‘Canvas’ mode not only lets you build new levels but copy levels from the game and edit them, which seriously increases its replay value. Sadly, you can’t post your PSP creations to the Playstation Network. Just another example of how Sony keeps taking two steps back when dealing with the Playstation 3’s little brother.

What makes this game so fun and, essentially, more mind-numbing that most puzzle games is that you have to reverse-engineer your way through each puzzle. Because the game world has its own set of rules (five rules based on the principles of forced perspective) you have to look at each level and consider not what’s missing, but how the platforms in the level can fit together to become a unbroken path that ‘Manny’ can walk on. And since you can’t actually move him, aside from stopping him while you “think” or making him walk faster, you need to constantly be on the lookout for black holes he might walk over or jump circles that will throw his flailing, wooden little body into the great white oblivion.

Another thing that adds to the aesthetic of the game is the plucky classical score that plays throughout. Consisting primarily of string instruments, it remains very true to the minimalist concept of the game and, despite being only a few tracks long, never gets annoying or repetitive.

Although I’m all smiles about what Echochrome does swimmingly, it’s extremely well-polished exterior can’t hid a couple of annoying quirks in the system. On some levels you’ll see a platform that, although it looks like it’s touching another platform, just won’t line up. Other times, say if you wanted to make a gap between two platforms disappear, you’ll think you have it lined up just right and “Manny” won’t, causing him to fall into the white abyss. This has a tendency to create the “Wait, what?” reaction as the charming yet disembodied female voice in the game gives you a complementary “oops” for your trouble.

Also, the level creator, while powerful, seems a little unwieldy on the PSP. I feel like the biggest issue in regard to building anything in three dimensions on the PSP stems from the controls just not being up to the task. At times I found myself either flying around or zooming in and out of the canvas whilst trying to position the cursor accordingly. Or I’d lose track of where I was building altogether because, thanks to forced perspective again, everything looks like it’s in the right place but there’s no spatial frame of reference to clue you in to that.

Despite these minor gripes, Echochrome is certainly a game that puzzle fans should not miss. While it may not be a graphic-du-jour, big budget title, it certainly stands out for being a fresh take on a genre filled with mediocre games. If you own a PSP and want to try a game that breaks all the rules -- in favor of its own -- grab a copy of Echochrome and prepare to experience the most unique puzzle game of the year.