Review: Orgarhythm

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The new king of strangely named portable rhythm games?

Orgarhythm is an interesting Vita game to review. It combines rhythm and RTS gameplay to create a unique game that, while not perfect, is different enough to make it worth a look.

Story

The player takes control of the God of Light, who is fighting the God of Darkness for control of the world. The story is not an important part of the game, with it only being told in the manual and small cut scene at the beginning of the game, but it does help to give some explanation as to what you are doing.

Gameplay

You take control of the God of Light during the game as he marches along with his army of followers. With the God of Light moving on rails, you only have to worry about commanding these followers. This is done by a process called ‘tri-tapping’, which involves you selecting the type of troop you want in time with the music. Doing so will earn you ratings for each selection. Higher rating will power up your troops, so keeping in time is a must. This feature helps to keep gameplay interesting, since you always have to pay attention while making selections.

The enemies you face and your followers are split into three colours: blue, red and yellow, which represent water, fire and earth respectively. These colours introduce a rock paper scissors style mechanic to the game, with extra damage being awarded if you attack with an element that the enemy is weak against. There are also four different troop types: melee, archer, catapult and sacrifice. Each unit has their own strength and must be used smartly if you want to beat each stage.

For example, enemies high up on a ledge can only be hit by catapult units. Everything you need to know about the unit types, among other things, can be found in the tutorial section of the game. These ten small tutorial levels will help any newcomers get up to speed with how the game works.

Each stage will make use of the different unit types, with a mixture of enemies being thrown at you to keep you on your toes. However, the main challenge comes from the end of level bosses. These are the best part of each stage, since they require you to put everything you have learned to the test. They even get different music which in turn changes the rhythm that you need to follow.

Whether you finish a stage or not, you always get experience which is used to gain new abilities for your God. Only one can be equipped during each stage and they range from increasing your health to reducing the accuracy needed to get high rating when selecting troops. At higher levels you can collect better abilities which are invaluable when taking on the harder difficulty settings.

Negatives

As much as we enjoyed playing through Orgarhythm, there were few gripes we had while playing. To start with, the game isn’t exactly pretty. Character models are basic and most of the environments look bland and samey. The AI for your followers can also be a bit stupid at times. Sometimes they don’t home in on enemies, and they often run into walls while enemies continue to attack them from safety. You can make them return by tapping the back touch panel on the Vita, but this weakens your troops which can cause you to die. Another annoyance is that the game is too easy most of the time unless you set it to the hardest difficulty setting, with some bosses being pushovers.

The main problem however is Orgarhythm’s length. With only 12 stages that don’t take long to beat, the game can be completed in a few hours, with extra time being added if you replay any of the previous stages. While you can play through again on harder difficulties, there isn’t much incentive to do so, other than to beat you previous scores or unlock new abilities.

Conclusion

At 30 US-Dollar, Orgarhythm is pretty expensive for the amount of content that you get which may put people off. Those that chose to buy this game however will find a unique rhythm RTS hybrid with an amazing soundtrack. With the promise of new DLC levels to come, we definitely recommend that anyone with a Vita who loves rhythm games should check this out.

This review is the work of our new Vita expert Isaac. You got questions or suggestions and don’t like our comments area? Hit him up on Twitter or write him an e-mail (click on his name above).

The screenshots were taken by us personally.

it/olp

Orgarhythm
Genre: Rhythm RTS
System: PSVita
Price: 29,99 US-Dollar (PSN)
Developer: Acquire (Way of the Samurai 4)
Publisher: XSEED Games