Futuridium EP Deluxe Review (PS4)

No matter how much technology progresses, there will always be a hunger for retro-themed games, and Italian developer Mixed Bag wants to satisfy it with a brand new product called Futuridium EP Deluxe, which is basically an overhauled and more feature-filled version of its regular Futuridium title on PC, Mac, or iOS.

Commodore 64 owners will no doubt recognize the game as being a spiritual successor to the iconic Uridium, the side-scrolling shoot-em up title that impressed plenty of gamers many decades ago.

The new space-based shooter title has just appeared on PS4 and PS Vita and promises to deliver a tough yet rewarding experience in which players pilot a ship around various stages, destroying targets and progressing to the next one as fast as possible.

Does the new title manage to deliver on its retro-themed promises or should this deluxe edition be skipped altogether? Let's find out.

Gameplay

Seeing as how Futuridium EP Deluxe doesn't have a story, tasking you just with surviving in pure retro style, its gameplay certainly needs to be interesting in order to draw the attention of potential players.

Fortunately, the game works quite well, with its actual flight controls being pretty balanced. Your ship handles relatively well flying forwards, or just by pressing a button, pulling a 180-degree turn and going in the opposite direction. You can also, with the press of a trigger, boost your speed, although the regular velocity is still quite good.

Your goal in each level is to destroy all the turquoise cubes and then go after a bigger white one that spawns only upon destroying the other targets. This can be easier said than done, as in some cases the turquoise cubes can be scattered across the map, and in other situations, the white one might spawn right at the other end of the level, forcing you to waste precious energy in order to reach it.

While putting your hunting skills to the test is already pretty tough, considering some of the big environments you fly in, the game also has a depleting energy bar. You can replenish it by destroying turquoise cubes, but this does very little to keep it at decent levels. Dying by crashing the ship into the level or into a cube also takes a heavy toll on the energy bar, often meaning that you have just a few more seconds to try to complete the level and move on.

Once the aforementioned energy bar reaches 0, you die, and death comes with a heavy penalty. Futuridium's campaign, called Deluxe, is split into multiple zones, each comprised of 10 levels. Once you complete all of them, you can unlock the next area. Dying in any of the levels resets the progression to the beginning of that zone. It doesn't matter if you die on stage 1 or stage 10, as you're still being sent to the beginning.

In order to make things just a bit easier, Futuridium EP Deluxe also uses a credit system, where you can spend one credit and respawn in that current stage. Credits, however, are given out when reaching a certain destroyed cube threshold, and they are few and far between.

As such, most of the times you'll end up restarting the whole zone, trying not to make the same mistakes while avoiding making all-new ones before reaching the point where you had to restart.

Futuridium EP Deluxe requires perfection, and in some cases this can be rather difficult due to the mechanics. In some of the levels you have to avoid plenty of moving objects, while in others there are rocket or laser turrets that try to shoot you down. Avoiding them can be quite tricky, especially if you're running out of energy and trying to destroy the last few cubes.

The game's collision detection is also a bit iffy, especially when interacting with the floor or ceiling, so expect a few deaths even if you thought you had enough space for the maneuver.

Level design is quite imaginative, alternating regular lengthy environments with smaller, more constrained ones in order to test agility and reflexes. Once you destroy enough cubes, you also get to unlock bonus play modes, such as the Single Level one, where you go back to previously completed stages and attempt them once more.

Fly through tight environments

Visuals and sound

Futuridium EP Deluxe goes for retro-themed visuals with a pixelated theme and manages to pull it off rather well, with sharp edges, even sharper colors, and plenty of things to make the stage and the ship stand out from the blackness of space. The framerate is smooth and the actual effects are quite good.

The soundtrack, however, is what makes the game truly stand out. The techno tunes complement the action on the screen almost flawlessly, making the intense moments feel even more dramatic.

The Good

The Bad

Conclusion