#Funtime, from Brandon Robinson and The Quantum Astrophysicists Guild is a PS4 twin-stick arcade shooter with a colorful twist. Learn more in our #Funtime review!
#Funtime, from Brandon Robinson and The Quantum Astrophysicists Guild is a twin-stick shooter in which players must change color to adapt to their environment or risk being overwhelmed. The game features a challenge mode, with 50+ levels waiting for you to 3-star them, and a variety of arcade modes. The arcade modes, in particular, feature a range of persistent upgrades for your ship. All of this is done to encourage players to chase that high score in hopes of unlocking that next health or weapon upgrade. The sheer amount of content was enough to make me continue to come back for just one more round before bed…which regularly turned into roughly a dozen extra runs.
Drawing inspiration from games like Geometry Wars, #Funtime differentiates itself through its use of color. Each of the face buttons corresponds to a different color that you can apply to your ship. In most modes, changing your color causes your ship to leave a train in its wake. Think Tron’s light cycles, but in a bullet-hell twin-stick shooter. An enemy of the same color crossing your trail is worth triple points. This color mechanic adds an interesting gameplay loop that can be used to rack up some ridiculous scores.
The game’s challenge mode does a good job presenting unique criteria that must be met to attain three stars for a level. Each of #Funtime’s arcade modes is featured here, and each level presents its own unique ship composition to keep things interesting. The levels in challenge mode have individual leaderboards for all you score junkies out there. Advance far enough, and you may encounter a boss or two. These boss fights can be a real challenge, but players with enough dexterity will be satisfied when overcoming these obstacles.
#Funtime’s arcade modes are a blast. You’ve got standard arcade modes you may find in other twin-stick shooters such as Survival and Waves. What really stood out to me playing #Funtime were the Zones and Funtime modes. Zones will populate the playing field with safe zones at regular intervals that you can enter by matching your ship to the color of the zone. I appreciated having a moment to think while in these safe zones, and at the same time, prepare a mad dash to the next point of safety. Funtime mode sees the player’s ship affixed with a freaking wrecking ball. With enough practice and patience, you can get a good spin going on that wrecking ball. Just be sure your color-match the ball, or you will damage your own ship.
This arcade-style experience has a Platinum trophy for you to aim for, with a varied list that will be a fun one to take on for players as they play the arcade mode, complete the challenges, unlock all levels, and beat bosses. The game is a very fun experience, and getting more and more trophies to pop as you play is definitely a big part of the gameplay loop on PlayStation 4.
#Funtime is a game best enjoyed in small bursts, but boy are those bursts a fun time. While it doesn’t do anything to reinvent the wheel, there is enough variety to the gameplay to help it stand out in a genre that suffers from oversaturation at times.
Disclaimer
This #Funtimes review is based on a PlayStation 4 copy provided by The Quantum Astrophysicists Guild.
