Escape from Terror City from eastasiasoft and Renegade Sector Games is a third-person shooter in which you have to save the world from invading forces. Check our Escape from Terror City review!
Escape from Terror City is a third-person shooter inspired by run-and-gun classics but flipping the perspective behind the hero, all presented in retro low-poly graphics! Blast through enemy soldiers, mechs and tanks in arcade-style action mixed with 3D bullet hell elements! Move your target reticle around the screen like a light shooter as you dodge projectiles and shockwaves! Can you survive and help save the city?
This one comes from eastasiasoft and Renegade Sector Games. As the game begins, you’ll see a small story segment explaining what is going on. In the far future, a battleship emerged from sub-space and went into an all-out assault on your home world. Your mission will be to save Terroir from the invading forces by defeating all of them before it’s too late.
As soon as you get control of your character, you’ll be drawn into a tutorial conversation explaining the current situation. I would have liked to be able to explore a little before being stopped after a single step and drawn into a tutorial – which you will have to see again if your character dies before reaching the first checkpoint.
The game is a third-person arcade-style shooter in which you control the character with the left analog stick, but only on the horizontal plane. As you advance through each of the levels, the direction automatically changes when you read specific points, which is confusing. This will lead to some deaths, as when the camera angle changes, you’ll need to change the control direction at the same time. One thing I liked is that the level design isn’t totally linear, and you sometimes have more than one path to follow.
I already mentioned confusion with the direction change, but for me, the worst issue was the aiming controls. Like in many dual-stick shooters, the right analog stick controls the aiming. But, unlike in most shooters, the aiming is not the general direction in which you’ll shoot but the exact position at which you’ll shoot. This means you can’t strafe to hit most enemies like we’ve been used to for two decades with twin-stick shooters, so you’ll constantly have to adjust where you’re firing.
Another minor issue I had was that the standard cancel button on PlayStation is the Circle button, but in this game, this button isn’t implemented, so you’ll have to manually select the option to back out of any menus, which was annoying. As for the game’s presentation, it uses a pixelated art style with a distinctive light blue and pink palette. The levels are low-poly style, giving them a PS1-era nostalgic flair. However, when a character speaks, his avatar is displayed in the upper left section and was honestly pretty horrible. The DualSense on the PlayStation 5 version displays this color on the controller LED, which was a nice touch. The soundtrack was repetitive and not very memorable.
On the trophies side, this game features a very short list, with 11 Gold trophies and a Platinum. Since the game is Cross-Buy, you can download the PS4 and PS5 versions of the game and work on each separate trophy list. The trophies are awarded for completing the game in Normal Mode, then once again in Hard Mode, which unlocks after completing the main campaign. If you need help, here’s a Escape from Terror City Trophy Guide that can help you.
Escape from Terror City is a third-person arcade-style shooter set in a world where extra-terrestrial invaders have taken over. I liked the low-poly retro pixelated look but didn’t like how the controls were ported from the PC to the PlayStation controller. The gameplay is also nothing to write home about. At least for trophy hunters, this $9.99 release is a Cross-Buy title with two separate trophy lists.
Disclaimer
This Escape from Terror City review is based on a PlayStation copy provided by eastasiasoft.
