Hypergalactic Psychic Table Tennis 3000, or as I came to know it, “that game I’m totally going to copy/paste the name of because there’s no way I’m not screwing up such a mouthful at some point,” is a game that answers a question that gaming has left unaddressed for almost 50 years: what if a Pong paddle could enter into shallow Mass Effect-style romances with its opponents and experience an existential crisis? This is a game that takes Pong, throws some interesting mechanics on top like magical abilities and paddle durability, and then goes so completely bonkers with its writing that it’s impossible not to respect it. All of Hypergalactic Psychic Table Tennis 3000‘s extra features reinvigorate Pong. Just don’t obsess over “what if” questions that’ll have you playing through the game’s 200 stages more than twice—the save system makes such experimentation a nightmare.

This game was made by insane people, but I, too, am an insane person. Only a crazy person would capture 964 screenshots of basically-Pong at 4K.

Hypergalactic Psychic Table Tennis 3000‘s story is missable and bananas

When I say that parts of Hypergalactic Psychic Table Tennis 3000‘s story are missable, I don’t mean that they never show up or are otherwise locked away (though there is a resolution to a long-running plotline that’s only available to you on your second or third hypergalactic loop, which functions as a new game + mode of sorts). Your paddle’s introspection between levels serves as the connective tissue for everything else, though, and this is found on a screen that doubles as a level-up screen. Since you level up after every opponent, it’s weirdly easy to focus so much on which stat to upgrade that you forget to read the text, and that can make the thoughts that tie into earlier thoughts really confusing. If you miss the first mention of Karl, for example, you’re going to spend a lot of time trying to figure out if he was an earlier opponent you don’t remember or something else. While your paddle is voiced by Mark Meer, only the in-level barks have voice acting. The dialogue doesn’t, so it’s easily overlooked.

Early gameplay - Hypergalactic Psychic Table Tennis 3000

Watch this video on YouTube

Once you learn to pay attention to these moments of introspection, however, the story is a lot of fun. Your paddle experiences triumph, confusion, and constant hypotheticals such as wondering if a three-headed monster cutting off some of its heads technically counts as murder. Delightfully bizarre.

Weirdness can be fatiguing, however, which is why it’s such an unexpected treat that Hypergalactic Psychic Table Tennis 3000 is unafraid to wander into existential questions and miscellaneous darkness. Before long, the moments of triumph are replaced with longing, fear, and all kinds of other things that cast much of the dialogue in a “midlife crisis” light. Balancing out the writing’s near-constant edge with bizarrely human worries works surprisingly well. It’s also 110% not going to be everyone’s cup of tea, as some people like specific flavors of madness and this is a more general kind of insanity.

Romance dialogues reflect both the bravado and darkness of the introspective dialogue. The way romance works is that you can talk to bosses (and only bosses) once you unlock a certain upgrade, and during these mid-fight conversations, you can choose between 2-3 dialogue options that represent different approaches. If you choose the options that work best for that paddle, they’re romanced. I suspect that this makes it easier to win against them, but if there are any other effects, they’re lost on me. I’ve officially romanced all 40 bosses in the game (but not the Lich Queen boss who seemingly can’t be romanced regardless of your stats and the dialogue you choose) and all that you get is an achievement. They’re plenty entertaining, though, and in keeping with the craziness of the game, you can romance Cthulhu, the Grim Reaper, an egg, and a Super Nintendo RPG villain. There are more similarly crazy bosses, but I’m hesitant to bring up too many of them for fear of spoiling anyone’s first run.

The gameplay is good the first time around, but don’t obsess over unlocks

Hypergalactic Psychic Table Tennis 3000 takes the basic gameplay of Pong (two paddles hitting a ball back and forth) and adds a bunch of features. One of the first things I unlocked was the ability to move left and right instead of just up and down, giving me free rein of the entire playing space and opening up a bunch of new attack angles. Every opponent that you beat gives you a level-up and an upgrade to one of your stats, and these stats—strength, agility, height, width, intelligence, and wisdom—themselves unlock the ability to choose a magical power at certain thresholds.

Mid-game gameplay - Hypergalactic Psychic Table Tennis 3000

Watch this video on YouTube

Your options are randomized, so you can’t increase your paddle size after every match, but you’ll need to branch out to romance certain bosses anyway. The stages in Hypergalactic Psychic Table Tennis 3000 are also more elaborate than in vanilla Pong, with obstacles like mines and wormholes sometimes being strewn about to complicate matters. This isn’t a particularly hard game, especially when you max out your stats and can pretty much just move right while spamming magical attacks to win 99% of the encounters, but figuring out how to use each paddle’s limited HP pool to overcome a screen-filling opponent is always entertaining.

Hypergalactic Psychic Table Tennis 3000 is 200 stages long, with every stage consisting of 3 matches. I’ve played through the entire game 5 times now. That’s 1,000 stages and 3,000 matches, which is entirely too many. Steam doesn’t let you see unearned achievements before games release, and since I can’t check to make sure that I haven’t unlocked some super awesome hidden thing that would factor into this review, I have to get obsessive and try absolutely everything, which doesn’t mesh well with Hypergalactic Psychic Table Tennis 3000 constantly autosaving. Especially since I never managed to find where savegames are located, making it impossible to back up a save and quickly test a bunch of things. Every wrong romance choice meant replaying 200 stages all over again. I hate the autosave in this game with a fiery passion and will be having paddle nightmares for months. Hypergalactic Psychic Table Tennis 3000 is a lot of fun, but only in moderation.

Part of the reason it’s so easy to obsess is that almost nothing is explained. On my second run through the game, I kept seeing a level-up option to meditate that seemed to do nothing when selected. It wasn’t until I failed a crucial wisdom stat check and had to replay all 200 stages again that I realized that it increased my paddle’s wisdom stat, replacing an older wisdom-increasing option. Why not mention that? And what does infusing your paddle with the power of frost do? I’m still not sure. Most powers make sense, but frost doesn’t seem to have any kind of noticeable effect.

All of Hypergalactic Psychic Table Tennis 3000‘s art is analog to its core

While Hypergalactic Psychic Table Tennis 3000 might look simple visually, there’s far more going on here than the simplistic pixel art and solid-color backgrounds might suggest. The entire screen is lined with a television screen overlay, for one thing, which complements a subtle scanline effect that fades slightly after 10-11 lines for a kind of fuzzy, inconsistent retro look. And while colors may look solid, they bleed ever so slightly, which looks great up close with the noise filter. I really, deeply dislike the full-screen color flashes that accompany damage, match wins/losses, and critical hits of the ball, though. They’re headache-inducing, and those sensitive to bright flashes aren’t going to be able to play Hypergalactic Psychic Table Tennis 3000 for long because the effect can’t be turned off. Another problem is that backgrounds and paddle colors are randomized, so they can rarely end up a near-identical color, forcing you to guess your opponent’s location. Hypergalactic Psychic Table Tennis 3000‘s soundtrack, on the other hand, is great. It’s this dark hip-hop that sounds like it’s being played off of a cassette tape and has to be unlocked through a level-up. There’s not a ton of variation, but it’s less repetitive than other parts of the game, and this style of music is exceedingly rare in game soundtracks.

Story: 2/3 Gameplay: 2/3 Visuals: 1/2 Music: 2/2 ★★★★★★★☆☆☆ – 7/10

*Click here and scroll to the bottom for a detailed explanation of what these numbers mean

*A Steam key was provided for this Hypergalactic Psychic Table Tennis 3000 review. My first two playthroughs took about 5 hours, after which I used Cheat Engine’s speedhack.