Futuridium EP Deluxe Review

Fancy entering an alternate dimension to blast away a multitude of big blue polygons? Well thanks to developer Mixedbag you can with spaceship shooter Futuridium EP Deluxe for PS4.

Futuridium EP Deluxe is the PS4 and Vita version of Futuridium EP that was released for mobile devices last year. The basic plot of Futuridium EP Deluxe is that you were once part of a proud battle fleet that were heading towards V sector to fight with vicious foes the Nemesian Armada. However, en route to battle, “something happened” and you became trapped in a dimensional loop. Your only hope is to follow the flow of the capital ships while destroying numerous power cubes to expose the core. Once you have destroyed the core you are granted access to the next ship, and with that, hopefully ending the loop and returning home.

The actual plot to Futuridium EP Deluxe is pretty irrelevant, and considering the developers couldn’t think of a better reason for being stuck in the dimensional loop than to say “something happened” then the story may as well have been not included at all. Essentially you take control of a fast moving spaceship, blast away at blue blocks until there are no more blue blocks, shoot at a big white block, then move on to the next stage. The campaign, known as Deluxe mode, consists of 50 levels split into stages of ten, all of which you must complete in order to unlock the other game modes.

The controls are pretty basic as you’d expect, X is shoot, square turns your ship around 180 degrees and R1 or R2 give you an extra boost of speed. Increasing your speed results in draining your energy bar, which will already be depleting anyway as you must complete each stage before the bar runs out. If it runs out you will explode. This will happen quite often, as will crashing the ship into the environment of each stage you play. In order to destroy all the power cubes throughout each stage you’ll have to fly pretty damn close to obstacles and navigate through potential hazards. Obviously the game needs to be challenging, but as the controls and movement of the ship isn’t particularly fluid or dynamic, you can get frustrated pretty quickly.

Throughout Futuridium EP Deluxe you can unlock medals depending on how well you have managed to clear a particular stage, and you can access your statistics including how many chains you completed or how many times you crashed. The score system is comprised of points accumulated by the amount of power cubes you destroy and multipliers are acquired by how quickly you manage to destroy them. Destroying a set amount of power cubes grants you access to other game modes such as Single level and Classic modes.

Graphically, Futuridium EP Deluxe is solid enough. With rich, lavish colours which give the game a slick feel. As for the music, Le-Dugout (Luca Gasperoni) and Qubit All Degrees (Omar Ferrero) have created an excellent soundtrack that consists of funk, techno, electro beats that are by far the best thing about the game. They are so good in fact I think it’s what kept me playing for so long, with each track changeable via the D-Pad. There is even a jukebox on the main menu, so if you eventually get fed up of crashing, you can sit back, turn the volume up and enjoy the tunes.

Futuridium EP Deluxe is a decent arcade game, but it just didn’t hold my attention for long. The soundtrack is great though, and one of the best I’ve had the pleasure of listening to from an arcade game in a long time. It’s worth a few plays, but I don’t think it is a game that will keep you coming back for more.

REVIEW CODE: A complimentary Sony Playstation 4 code was provided to Brash Games for this review. Please send all review code enquiries to editor@brashgames.co.uk.