The True is the second game from indie dev Babri Bebua on PlayStation 4, this time giving us a third-person game. Check out our The True review!
The True from indie Babri Bebua is a third-person style game on PlayStation 4. It’s a bit of a spin-off from Laws of Machine, the previous PS4 game from the same dev. In Laws of Machine you take control of robot DR12, who goes over a series of challenge rooms using its skills to solve puzzles. As you play that game, you will find notes addressed to Sarah, who helped the Professor by developing tests for the robot series he was working on. For The True, you play as Sarah, who receives a letter from the Professor, asking her to review the memory of DR12, which is now non-functional.
You can move your character with the left analog stick, running by pressing down on the L3 button, and swinging the camera around with the right one. To interact with objects, you’ll have to press the Triangle button. Any useful items you find will be added to your inventory, which you can access with the Touchpad on the DualShock 4, so that you can use them on other things you find. You will take on some a sequence on a flying vehicle, during which you’ll steer with the left analog stick and shoot with the R2 button to destroy the air mines that, if you’re not careful, can destroy you.
Once you have gained access to a special bracelet item, and use the access key card required to unlock its potential, you’ll be able to aim with the L2 button and shoot with the R2 button. You will have one of four elements at your disposal, which you can select by pressing up, right, down, or left on the D-Pad, but at the start of the game you will only have access to fire. As you explore the different areas of the underground base you uncover thanks to the memory banks of DR12, you will locate additional access key cards that will unlock water, ice, and gravitational powers.
These powers will be used for solving the puzzles you will find in this third-person game. First up, you might find some boxes that are getting in your way, so you’ll have to burn them down to be able to progress into a new room. When you have access to the ice power, you will be able to freeze a pipe that is bursting with hot water, which is important since it can kill you. But what if you had access to water and ice? Then you’d be able to shoot water into a fan, to then use your ice power to freeze the fan into place. As expected, with the gravitational powers, you can move around some large metal blocks that can be put to good use.
Unlike Laws of Machine, which had a short trophy list, The True has a full trophy list with a Platinum trophy for you to ad to your collection. Half of the trophies will unlock as you progress through the game’s story and solve puzzles at different milestones. Other trophies will unlock for completing extra miscellaneous objectives, with two tied to a cutscene you can get at the start of the game, technically making them missable. Worry not, since it would take you 5 minutes to get them.
The True is a good effort from indie Badri Bebua, who went from delivering a 2D puzzle platformer to working on a third-person game, which is a big leap. The game does suffer from some slowdown here and there, and there were a couple of times when a couple of enemies ended up clipping through a wall, but that helped instead of hindering my progress. I did run into a bug that froze the game and forced me to close and reload The True, but I didn’t end up losing more than 5 minutes of progress. It’s a short game you can probably finish in 2-3 hours at most, and it’s out on PS4 for $9.99.
Disclaimer
This The True review is based on a PlayStation 4 copy provided by Badri Bebua.
