Loading up Twin Breaker: A Sacred Symbol Adventure for the first time was a surreal experience. I have been an avid podcast listener for over a decade now and throughout that time Colin Moriarty, the writer and co-lead of the game has been omnipresent. First it was via IGN, then Kinda Funny and now under his own CLS banner. Colin’s partner in crime for this adventure is none other than his Sacred Symbols podcast co-host, Chris Ray Gun. Being familiar with both Chris and Colin’s work is certainly not required, but it definitely did enhance my overall enjoyment of the game.
Twin Breaker is essentially a brick breaker in the spirit of Arkanoid. However not only does it expand on the formula in terms of gameplay, it also comes with a well written story that plays out through on-screen dialogue. I do not claim to be a brick breaker aficionado, but I don’t recall any games of a similar ilk with such a fleshed out story. It is these added extras, of which there are many, that had me hooked.
The year is 2311 and unsurprisingly certain countries have not been minding their own business and behaving themselves. Nuclear wars have came and gone, fracturing the relationships between nations and earth is now only one of the planets inhabited by humans. NASA has launched, and subsequently lost, many ‘Generation Ships’ after propelling them into a different system in search of greener pastures.
However, when the very first ship to launch back in 2191 briefly surfaces near Mars and disappears leaving a massive amount of encrypted data behind; NASA spring into action. Unpacking the data reveals a wormhole which Colin and Chris, piloting two small ships aptly named Greetings and Salutations enter in search of answers. You can tell a lot of work went in to the story and it plays out through not only written dialogue between levels, but the collectibles which are unlocked by scoring at least an A rank on each mission.
Gameplay is fast paced, challenging and rewarding. I generally suck at arcade games so I had my concerns going in how far I would be able to get. But I am happy to report that I not only rolled credits… I mean completed the game, but finished New Game + as well. Lillymo Games have done a fabulous job of pulling you through the game in different ways if you are struggling.
Pickups and both frequent and random. So if you find yourself failing at a level multiple times, keep the faith! One of those times you will get lucky with a few of the more powerful modifications that will make all the difference. The bricks themselves are labelled with roman numerals signifying how many hits it will take to break. These numbers alter in real time to show what is still required.
Some of my favourite pickups were the heavy ball, which smashes through bricks no matter how many hits are still needed. The shield wall is also invaluable when things get hectic as it temporarily builds a wall behind you stopping the bouncer from escaping. Not all pickups are good though. Pick up a shrink and the size of your paddle (ship) will reduce drastically.
There are fourteen pickups in total, so to say you are kept on your toes is an understatement. A chunk of the forty levels also ups the ante even more by giving you control of a paddle along the right and left of the screen as well as the two across the bottom. This is all controlled with either the two analog sticks, or the d-pad for the two left most paddles and the face buttons for the two furthest to the right.
I can imagine some reading this will nail the controls within a matter of minutes but for me at times it felt like rubbing my belly and tapping my head at the same time. Almost as if my brain was malfunctioning. This isn’t a knock on the game, but more my skill as a gamer. Thankfully if you lose your initial three lives you can cash in a hundred points from your total, should you have enough, to get an added life. This allows you to potentially finish the level, but will impact your rank at the end. You also have the ability to play two player and I hope to train my better half up enough to help chase down that platinum.
Another welcome surprise was the sheer number of game modes. Marathon, Pong, Random, Shooter, Catcher and Boss Rush mode are all available from the main menu and provide their own unique challenge. My personal favourite was pong as it was a unique take on the age old concept, pitting you against a stream of bosses in best of three encounters.
As you would expect with Colin Moriarty at the forefront, there has been a lot of work put in to the trophies. For starters, all the trophy names are song titles which is a really nice touch. The list is both varied, fair and just the right level of difficulty in my mind. The two hardest trophies require you to S Rank twenty of the forty levels and unlock all collectibles which appear when you achieve an A Rank or greater on a level.
Overall Twin Breaker: A Sacred Symbols Adventure is a great arcade brick breaker that goes over and above in terms of storytelling and varied gameplay. Lillymo Games has proved to be an excellent choice of developer to bring Colin’s vision to fruition and when you consider that this is cross-buy with the PlayStation Vita it represents great value for money too. It has already stated on the podcast that the plan is to follow this up with more games and on the evidence of this, I’m all in!
-Craig ✌️
A review code for this product was kindly provided by the publisher. Reviewed on PS4 Pro.
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