A Slick, Modern, Challenging Take on Atari’s Breakout - Hyperforma Review
I wasn’t lucky enough to have been born before the twenty-first century when Atari and Sega consoles were still fairly popular. I don’t feel displeased about growing up on Xbox, but some part of me wishes I got the chance to try out older games like Sonic the Hedgehog or Space Invaders back when they were first released. I was able to at least somewhat fulfill that desire this week through Hyperforma, a game reminiscent of the Atari classic Breakout.
Hyperforma is a casual sci-fi puzzle game about a lone explorer who travels into the depths of an ancient civilization to unravel the mysteries that lie beneath. On this journey, the traveler encounters titans of a forgotten age and must communicate, infiltrate, and hack into their data cores to understand the truth. The game’s first few chapters are free-to-play, but the complete experience costs $7.99.
There isn’t much to Hyperforma’s storyline beyond this brief summary. You’re sort of thrown into its narrative and just have to move with it. I didn’t know where I was going, and I had no idea what I was doing at the beginning. All I could do was complete levels using the game’s mechanics until things started making more sense.
Thankfully, there are tutorials along the way explaining all the mechanics, which makes understanding how the game works a smoother process than understanding the plot. I would have been screwed without those tutorials, since Hyperforma is quite complicated.
As previously mentioned, the game is a riff off Breakout’s brick-smashing formula but taken to new extremes. Instead of sliding a platform from left to right like Breakout, you shoot balls directly at bricks that are protecting a core. The core needs to be destroyed for you to complete the level. The ball ricochets across the screen without losing momentum, and you can even tap a skill that propels it to the center of your screen where the core always lies. Although the mechanics are perplexing , I found the destructive gameplay in Hyperforma to be invigorating. I mean, who doesn’t like smashing things? I know I do.
It’s not all simple smashing fun, though. Actually getting to the core in Hyperforma’s levels can be quite the challenge. In addition to sending balls zooming around the screen, you must also rotate the brick structure surrounding the core and use empowering abilities to pull off a handful of functions like shrinking blocks or duplicating your balls. These mechanics were the most enjoyable and the most important for success, but in the heat of intense levels, it regularly became frustrating trying to keep track of it all, especially when I needed to focus on multiple mechanics simultaneously to win.
Hyperforma’s destructive gameplay started off relatively straightforward. But as I ventured down the game’s labyrinth of levels, the brick-breaking framework evolved and things got more difficult. I adore puzzle games, but the intricacy of some of Hyperforma’s scenarios left me perplexed and at my wit’s end.
Depending on your own propensity for overcoming these mind-bending challenges, Hyperforma will last between two and four hours. If you’re looking for an added level of challenge, the hard difficulty mode makes replaying previously conquered levels a little more refreshing. For my part, I already struggled to complete the game in normal mode, so I didn’t dare try hard.
Although it regularly left my mind rattled, I appreciated Hyperforma for its inventive puzzles and dynamic mechanics. It’s hard not to be impressed at this game’s capability to build such ingenious challenges crafted with simple, easy-to-grasp fundamentals.
SCORE: 4 STARS OUT OF 5
PLAY IF YOU LIKE:
• Puzzle games. If you enjoy puzzling scenarios and games that make you scratch your head, you may enjoy Hyperforma.
• Breakout. As a game heavily inspired by Breakout, if you enjoy this classic, you might love Hyperforma.
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