In a time where juggernaut games like Red Dead Redemption 2, God of War, and Bloodborne exist, it can be nice to sit down and play something more dialed down. A genre that has really taken a back seat to all of the rogue-likes, first-person shooters, open worlds, and platformers is the brick breaker. You know, that old school game you play while not paying attention in school. I remember when I was a kid I was also trying to beat my previous high score. There were no loot boxes, no online store, no hidden message. Just some bricks, a ball and a moving platform and your job was to smash those bricks. Twin Breaker: A Sacred Symbols Adventure, developed by Lillymo Games, is just that with some more flair thrown in.
Twin Breaker does offer a decent narrative with its new brick breaker game. The story will not blow your socks off but it is interesting and I can tell that the writing that went into it has some passion behind it. Of course, you play as Colin and Chris — hosts of Sacred Symbols, a PlayStation-focused podcast — traveling through space discovering some unique things. I will say that while reading the text there is music in the background. A light, upbeat tune that kind of takes away from the atmosphere as you are reading through the dialogue. Sometimes I wanted the music to be more somber or dark, so it would better fit the mood just a tad more.
The main draw of Twin Breaker is the gameplay and it is smooth. I found as I played that most stages started off pretty easy then a minute or two later things would start getting wacky. The interesting thing about Twin Breaker is that you are always controlling two spacecraft (the platforms you move around). One for Colin and one for Chris. It definitely keeps you on your toes as you play. You can obtain power-ups throughout the stage and these can range from enlarging your spacecraft, making the balls go faster, or giving your spacecraft the ability to shoot the bricks. It can go from zero to a hundred real quick too. One second you are peacefully breaking bricks, the next you are trying to keep two balls in the arena, while also trying to shoot the bricks while also dodging attacks from bosses.
Yes. Bosses. In Twin Breaker every so often you will face off against bosses all while trying to break bricks. These bosses will throw additional stuff your way. So on top of trying to pad that high score, you are also trying not to die to bosses throwing stuff at you. It gets pretty fun once you get into it.
Alongside the story mode, there are actually quite a few other modes that you can try out. You have your marathon mode, boss rush mode, and random modes. Pretty standard. Next to that, you have pong mode. Where you play against a boss and basically just play pong against a bot. Pretty neat little addition to the game in my opinion. There is also a catcher mode, in which you control two platforms and catch falling coins to get a high score. You also have to dodge incoming enemies and the farther you go the crazier it gets.
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