Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Entwined is a unique abstract exploration and evolutionary game available for download from the PlayStation Store for the PS Vita, PS3 and PS4. The development team at Pixel Opus is a merging of graduate talents from Carnegie Mellon’s Entertainment Technology Centre and the San Jose State University Animation and Illustration program, therefore considering this is Pixel Opus’ first ever game; it is an interesting evaluation of the team’s collective talents.

Entwined possesses two game modes including story mode and challenge mode in which the player has to take control of two creatures called Fish and Bird. The story mode is comprised of a journey lasting nine lifetimes of exploration in which players will need to make as few mistakes as possible as they are guided through their relevant courses of blue and orange gates, whilst there will be occasions that they have to fly close together in centre through a green gate. Fish and Bird both have lifelines that are fuelled by collecting orbs of the appropriate colours of blue and orange in order to merge the lifelines together and from there be able to enter the final stage of the exploration within the lifetime before successfully progressing onto the next lifetime.

The challenge mode consists of five tasks covering various elements and materials including: water, wood, fire, earth and metal with each challenge being unlocked by meeting the target score you are set for the previous challenge, such as reaching a score of 180 or more on the first challenge will unlock the second challenge with each point representing a second you have survived the challenge, therefore you have to survive for three minutes or longer in the first challenge to unlock the second one, which is made substantially harder by having a limit of three lifelines between succeeding and falling miserably short of the target score.

The game supports cross-buy and cross-save between the PS4, PS3 and Vita. Cross-buy presents a superb amount of value as it means that players will be purchasing the PS4, PS3 and Vita versions of the game with just a single purchase. The cross-save functionality allows players to sync the progression of the save file from their Vita, to the PS3 or PS4 and vice versa, so they can start playing the game on the way to and from work, sync the save game when returned home and then resume were they left off by loading the save game and continuing via the PS3 or PS4 version. The cross-save feature is made possible by uploading the save file to the cloud on one console and downloading it from the other console.

Entwined supports the share feature that allows upload of a video clip or screen shot to Facebook or Twitter and broadcast live gameplay footage via Twitch or Ustream as the experience takes you during the game with a simple tap of the share button and selecting the option of choice. The PS4’s hard-drive continuously stores the most recent fifteen minutes of gameplay footage, so there will be the chance to decide if sharing something amazing a few minutes after it has taken place is the right choice. The share feature is a next-gen revolution that has only improved with the further customisation provided by the Share Factory app that allows commentary, music, themes, stickers, effects, text, picture-in-picture video between the game footage and the player’s reaction from the PlayStation Camera and much more besides, which will only continue to prosper and flourish as it matures with additional features and further experimentation in the future.

The controls are the unique premise of the game as the player has to guide Fish and Bird simultaneously on separate sides of the environments being explored by using the dual analogue sticks, while holding L1 and R1 when prompted to increase the speed for the final few gates in the process of merging Fish and Bird together for their combined evolution into a Dragon. There is no touch pad implementation, which is surprising as the potential is certainly there for the left and right of the touch pad to be used as an alternative to the dual analogue sticks when moving Fish and Bird. There is no light bar implementation which is again surprising as the light bar could have flashed red when a gate is missed and it could have produced a range of relaxing tones of blue, orange and green when the appropriately coloured gates had been navigated successfully, although the DualShock 4 controller vibrates whenever the player misses any of the blue, orange or green zones that are needed to guide Fish and Bird through.

The graphics are colourful and vibrant with tones of blue, orange and green presented in an abstract art style, which collectively creates a visual feast for the eyes through a range of scenery and a mesmerisingly tranquil light show that successfully encapsulates the beautiful message of Entwined as the two creatures symbolically love each other, but despite their best efforts are always kept apart and destined to never be together, which provides the game with a level of beautifully choreographed emotional depth.

The presentation of the game is solid with a great user interface across various menus such as the main menu, story menu, challenge menu, online leaderboards, options menu and gameplay menus with support for navigation via the left analogue stick, directional pad and face buttons, although it does not include support for navigation via the right analogue stick and touch pad, although that is not an issue considering the other methods of navigation that are available. The background of the menu screens revolves around abstract art with changing colours and trails from behind the creatures between separate areas or selections of the menus.

The audio is layered with patterns of music and incidental sound effects that work in perfect harmony as the calming collective soundtrack of the audio reflects the vibrant and artistic nature of the graphics. There is no DualShock 4 speaker implementation, which is as astonishing as the lack of implementation regarding the touch pad and light bar as the speaker could have been used to produce a layer of audio, such as the music or incidental sound effects.

The trophy list includes fourteen trophies with eleven bronze trophies, two silver trophies and one gold trophy. Players will naturally earn the majority of the trophies; providing that they can complete the story mode which represents a bronze trophy for completing each of the first eight lifetimes with a silver trophy rewarded for completing the ninth and final lifetime, while the Love bronze trophy will be earned quite simply by merging Fish and Bird together in the centre 200 times, which you could earn as soon as the end of the third lifetime. However, there are harder trophies too, such as the Courage bronze trophy for unlocking all five elements in the challenge mode by achieving the target scores set for each challenge; the Persistence bronze trophy for earning a score of 300 in any of the five elements in the challenge mode by lasting a total of five minutes before losing all three of Bird’s and Fish’s lives; and the hardest trophy of all having to be the Resolution silver trophy for enabling Bird and Fish to reach their ultimate evolution in the form of a Dragon across all of the nine lifetimes by perfecting each sector within every lifecycle. It  should be estimated that depending upon skill and a good trophy guide to provide some helpful tips that it would take between ten to twenty hours to 100% the trophy list.

There are no difficulty levels, but the core gameplay of controlling both creatures with each assigned to a separate analogue stick will be easier or much harder depending upon your level of hand to eye coordination. As players progress through the story mode they will encounter moving gates instead of stationary gates, gates spiralling in opposite directions for Bird and Fish and a faster pace as the lifelines increase, whilst the challenge mode is rather hard to achieve the set target scores in order to unlock and progress onto the next element.

The challenge mode is the only mode that submits scores to the online leaderboards, which focuses on friend rankings and world rankings with each leaderboard containing each player’s rank; name (PSN ID); and score with the positioning of each player based upon the score that has been accumulated on that particular element of the five challenges in challenge mode.

There is no local co-operative multiplayer and despite it removing a major part of the difficulty level; it would have broadened the appeal of the game as not everyone is necessarily dexterous enough to control two characters simultaneously via any control scheme let alone the dual analogue sticks. Meanwhile, a competitive element could have been implemented to see who could score the most points in local co-operative multiplayer, so whilst a player would be helping each other out to achieve a common goal to reach the end of the lifetime or challenge; they would also be competing for the highest amount of points from navigating through the most gates, retaining more lives and achieving the full quota of lifelines before the other player.

The replayability of Entwined stems from two major areas including the competitive online leaderboards with scores only submitted from the challenge mode, while the key element of replay value is attempting to achieve the ultimate evolution for Bird and Fish to evolve into a Dragon throughout each lifetime, which will most likely require multiple efforts as you need to perfect each sector of every lifetime.

Overall, Entwined is an artistic journey through a series of abstract environments with a real world message that possesses a quality of sincerity and beauty that sets itself apart from the majority of games, while firmly providing competition for well known and well loved games, such as flOw, Flower, Journey and The Unfinished Swan, so if you are a fan of any of those games then Entwined is certainly worth a purchase, especially with such exceptional value as a triple cross-buy purchase of £6.49! It must be said that Pixel Opus have done an amazing job of creating such a masterpiece for their debut game that is worthy of being held in the same high regard as such company as the aforementioned games and long may they have a future of developing imaginative titles exclusively for PlayStation platforms!

Jason Bonnar

Analysis

• Title: Entwined
• Developer: Pixel Opus
• Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE)
• System: PS4
• Format: PSN Download
• Cross-Buy: Yes (PS4, PS3 and PS Vita)
• Cross-Play: Yes (Cross-Save)
• Multiplayer: Yes (Online Leaderboards)
• Hard Drive Space Required: 2GB (Version 1.01)