Ancient Amuletor Review Defending crystals has never felt so satisfying Reviewed by A.J. Maciejewski playing a PS4 with PSVR on July 3, 2017

Although PlayStation VR is still in its infancy, there has been a surprising amount of variety so far. Ancient Amuletor is an addictive arcade-style shooter but is it worth making yourself look like a goof to play it?

Please don't make me shoot this explosive barrel

Having recently purchased PlayStation VR, I eagerly got my hands on this latest title for Sony's newfangled contraption. Ancient Amuletor has you control your character of choice in order to take on ever-encroaching enemy hordes who are trying their darnedest to destroy your precious crystals. In order to do so, you'll need two PlayStation Move controllers. Each stage is played by warping around an arena while trying to kill as many enemies as you can to ensure minimal damage is dealt to the precious crystals. It's really that simple. However, things can get unexpectedly tough so you must always stay vigilant and stop your adversaries in the most efficient way possible if you want to emerge victorious and score big. Once you get in the groove, picking off enemy after enemy quickly becomes highly entertaining and makes it a very hard game to put down.

Although no screenshot or gameplay video could do it justice, Ancient Amuletor's visuals are quite gorgeous. Specifically, the environments that you'll find yourself in (one modeled after ancient Egypt and one after Rome) are incredibly detailed and impressively large. The enemies are mostly stereotypical monsters and humans who thankfully pop off the stages nicely and the music is well done as it provides a fitting backdrop to the environments. Finally, there are a couple of memorable boss fights that make the stages come alive in interesting ways. Overall, Ancient Amuletor is one of the most immersive games for PlayStation VR so far.

The crystals will have to wait; check out my awesome boobs!

One of Ancient Amuletor's best features is its cast of characters: Lia (an archer), Katie (a gunner), Park (a puppeteer), and Harry (a mage). Each character features a distinct gameplay style which offers an incredible amount of variety to the onscreen action: Lia must draw her arrows back to shoot them, Katie needs to reload constantly, Harry can summon balls of magic then launch them, and Park throws robot killing machines that attack the air in front of them as you wave your arms around. These characters are so much fun to play as and alternate between on the fly that I'm looking forward to more being released as DLC down the road.

Unfortunately, Ancient Amuletor currently only contains the two themed worlds with two stages in each. This means that you can complete the game in one sitting and see everything it has to offer while you're at it. Of course, you can replay the stages in order to get higher scores but doing so relies on your willingness to play the stages again and again. On the plus side, there is an online multiplayer mode for two or three players which is a welcome inclusion. Anyway, another downside is that the PlayStation Move has tracking issues. Every few minutes of gameplay, the character's arms would lock up thus not allowing me to aim precisely which resulted in some frustration. Finally, seeing as this is a very tough game; it's confusing as to why they didn't include a pause button. Do they really expect gamers to replay lengthy stages whenever the phone rings? That's just silly. This isn't Dark Souls or anything...

Robots in ancient Rome? This can't be historically accurate...

Ancient Amuletor may be light on content but it's also a heck of a lot of fun. It might be worth waiting for more stages and characters to be included but this is one game that PlayStation VR owners should definitely keep on their radar.