Review: Splasher (PS4).
Splasher is a colorful platformer where paints play the main role. Sprinkle them on the walls to get to the secret rooms of the factory where you work, revealing a dark secret.
Somewhere in the world there is an INK Corporation plant where employees sweat their brow for starvation wages by producing paint. The owner, however, has other, unethical tastes that the workers fall victim to. One of them discovers an evil practice and decides to escape, trying to save as many of his friends as possible and armed only with a paint gun. As you can see, the storyline is slightly inspired by the series Oddworld and although the game’s level of performance does not match it, we are still dealing with a tasty platformer meat.
Perhaps this is where all the fun lies in the fact that it is a typical, uncomplicated platformer, bringing nothing to the genre, but still addictive for long… well, maybe not hours, but tens of minutes. We simply traverse successive rooms, defeating traps set up, such as acid pools, circular saws, laser beams, mutated or mechanical enemies and so on. By the way, we try to save our colleagues from oppression, but it is not necessary to complete a given stage, but access to some levels later in the game will require it, so it is worth making the effort.
Often, in addition to reflexes, we also have to use gray cells, so our hero has a gun that shoots water and paints to diversify the fun. Each paint has different properties – for example, one allows us to stick to the walls and immobilize enemies, and another – on the contrary – reflects us at a greater distance. Water, on the other hand, washes away our blots when we deem it necessary, and also eliminates opponents and activates mechanisms. In any case, it’s nice that we got more than just jumping, without disturbing the dynamics and simplicity of the game. The level of the challenge should be described as medium-difficult, because you die a lot and often, but after a few failures we quickly find out how to overcome the stage, moreover, many checkpoints have been implemented for balance. However, if just completing individual locations is not enough for someone, he can always start a time trial and complete the game with the best result.
Visually, the creators provided us with a two-dimensional side view typical for platformers and colorful stages with interesting pictures in the background. In general, the graphic style resembles a humorous comic book or cartoon, making a pretty eye-catching impression, although red, yellow and green colors dominate. The boards that are visited are diverse and originally designed. They also look good on the big TV screen, despite the PC pedigree of the game. Only sporadically it is difficult to see our character when the camera is too far away. The whole picture is completed by an energetic piece of music that encourages action. As an encouragement, it should be added that the creators were strongly inspired by Rayman and a few stages refer to this title not without reason.
Independent Splasher is a great platformer reminiscent of the heyday of the genre. If frequent acid baths or cutting with saws do not scare you, it is worth devoting two longer evenings to this title and having fun as before.
