The twinstick shooter genre is one of the few genres in gaming that need to exponentially exceed, in order to retain the retro atmosphere, mechanics, and overall gameplay. Many games have come and gone to try to take this throne, but none have come quite as close as the fine-tuned gameplay of Geometry Wars. However, I don’t feel as much distaste towards something trying to replicate that formula, as long as they do it well and with a couple new features. Unfortunately, the Playstation 4’s latest twinstick shooter Tachyon Project, doesn’t go this extra mile, and forgets to implement off of it’s inspirations, resulting in a poor experience.

Gameplay:

If I had only two words to describe Tachyon Project, I would say repetitive and overused, two things that most finely represent it’s gameplay. While the game is nothing special in the first place, there was a basis for something that could have been improved on with the right care or effort. Unfortunately, no presence of this feeling is existent, resulting in a less than half-baked game. In other words, Tachyon Project did not only come out of the oven too early, it just wasn’t a good meal to begin with.

Design:

The design of Tachyon Project is carried on by it’s extremely flawed gameplay. The production is slightly there, but no aspect really sticks like it should. In many ways, it’s almost like a chain reaction. As explained before, twin-stick shooters have to be done right in all necessities in order to stay fun. Tachyon Project feels like it forgot one, without realizing how much it would impact the rest of the game too.

Flow:

The one minuscule thing Tachyon Project has going for it it’s flow, something that is always essential to master in a twin-stick shooter. This may be the place where Tachyon Project most valiantly tries it’s best, but it’s best wasn’t good enough to begin with. Add this to the monotony of repetition and unoriginal, and you have a heap of badly placed ideas and structure, in a game that shouldn’t have existed without them executed properly.

Conclusion:

Tachyon Project isn’t very redeemable, and for a majority of reasons. Not only does the game not do much to separate itself from the pack, but it wasn’t well-designed from the get-go. This allows for many new and promising ideas to simply fall away through the cracks, impossible to get back. Much like those ideas, I’ll never get my time from Tachyon Project back either.

Tachyon Project gets a 3/10. (Painful)

We’d like to thank Eclipse Games for sending us a code for this one!

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