There’s an enemy in ChronoBreach Ultra – the latest action-platformer from Ratalaika Games – which I will never forget. Not in a good way – oh no. It will hover in the periphery of my nightmares, waiting for its moment before – WAH! – jump-scaring me awake.
I hate you with a passion, electro-bot. It’s the way you are pitch-black and camouflage in the corners of levels. It’s the way you move faster than any of the other enemies in ChronoBreach Ultra, going from 0 to Bloody Hell in a few seconds. And then you hug me, pulsing electricity into your embrace, which stuns me so that I get hit by the next jolt, the one after that, and whatever the other enemies can throw at me. I might survive with a third of my life left, but that just means I’m a dead robot walking.
If there’s one memory that’s going to abide after ChronoBreach Ultra, it’s that electro-bot. Because the rest of ChronoBreach Ultra tries hard to make an impression, but mostly it just skims off the surface. It’s a game with ideas, but those ideas tend to fizzle and leave us with a reasonably by-the-book action-platformer.
ChronoBreach Ultra certainly gives it some welly in the arsenal department. Your little robot can do a lot. There’s the expected jump and double-jump, as well as a choice of two guns that can be cycled through depending on your situation. We rocked the plasma sword, since it could shoot through platforms (a constant requirement in later levels), with a grenade launcher ‘for the lolz’. Once we got fed up of the sheer randomness of the grenade launcher (explosives send enemies pinballing around the level, but they tended to do the same to us too), then we would return back to laser or assault rifles.
Even if it was left at that, ChronoBreach Ultra would have an impressive bevy of attacks and moves. Although it should be said that we would have liked more in the way of upgrades: it’s possible to buy and use these weapons, but not improve them, and the same can be said about your wee robot. Progression isn’t one of ChronoBreach Ultra fortes, when it could so easily have been.
ChronoBreach Ultra is eager to hand you even more counter-measures for the game’s levels, so it chucks in some time-manipulation too. It’s possible to slow down time for a period, or even stop it if you have enough energy. You can also rush in a single direction, taking you out of, or into, the action at speed. It’s enough of a move-set to give Johnny Cage some sleepless nights.
Full disclosure, though, we completely forgot about the time manipulation mechanics until the second-half of the game. Blame ‘returning after a break’ syndrome. We just forgot it was there. It shows how lightly integrated they are: you don’t need to use these moves, as the dash isn’t needed for distant platforms, and there are few sections where a time-stop is essential.
They are also a little on the fiddly side; disempowering when they should have been empowering. When time slows, you don’t stay at the same speed: you and your projectiles are also slowed. That makes for an unsatisfying experience, particularly if you’re using a weapon with a length rate of fire. You can easily be waiting seconds for your grenade launcher to fire, for example, when you would rather be Neo in the Matrix. It’s just a bit of a missed opportunity.
It’s a common theme for a lot of the combat in ChronoBreach Ultra – a sense that you are being held back from feeling powerful. Enemies are on the spongy side, needing several hits from even the most explosive weapons. It can mean dodging from side to side as you try to hit tiny helicopters, or leaping between missile volleys as you pump a robot full of lead. It’s a war of attrition when several enemies are on screen at once, as you dodge the bullet-hell – sometimes with time-stops – and continuously fire at enemies in the hope that you will trim down their numbers.
You also have to be supremely accurate, especially when playing with rocket launchers and the like. Tiny rats and hovering helicopters are a bugger to hit with a looping projectile, so you have to adapt. Skimming grenades across the floor becomes a common tactic, as does hiding behind platforms and letting the plasma sword do its work. But we felt like we were putting in too much effort to accommodate the uneasiness of the combat in ChronoBreach Ultra. We hoped that it would meet us halfway.
There are so many little niggles that diminished the experience. The initial controls are awful, and need an immediate visit to the Options menu (at least we can change them, we suppose). Then there’s the checkpoints, which were slightly more infrequent than we would have liked (especially as we were playing it at the same time as its vastly superior stable-mate, Garlic, which absolutely nails its checkpoints). And an Arena Mode does little more than chuck wave after wave of near-identical enemies into the same level layout.
But for all its flaws, there is a lot to like about ChronoBreach Ultra. The currency of the game – little green circuit boards – can be spent on guns, but they also heal up your little robot, which is a neat touch. Levels may be somewhat samey, devoid of landmarks or memorable moments, but they keep the difficulty at a consistently high but always-achievable level. And the sheer number of weapons and moves – none of which are mandatory to use – mean you’re given so much choice over how to bypass the level.
There’s a lot listed in both the pro and con column for ChronoBreach Ultra, but they end up largely negating each other. The result is a mediocre little action-platformer, speckled with ideas but none of them burning brightly enough to really make a difference. It leaves an experience that we found hard to build up the enthusiasm to play – not because it was bad, but because it failed to enthuse us (except for electro-bot, who generated rather different feelings). It all ends up as a meh-out-of-five.
