Scintillatron 4096

Chances are that even if you've never played a dual-stick shooter before, you probably still know that they are all about avoiding fast-moving enemies that can strike from any side. Scintillatron 4096 is a slightly different take on the genre. While you're still trying to avoid running into enemies in a tiny arena, this recently released shoot 'em up is slightly more strategic than I expected. It has a unique scoring system that changes the way you tackle each firefight, but is that enough of a difference to make Scintillatron 4096 a must-own game? I'm not so sure about that.

Some shooters like to world build and create a cool backstory that sets everything up. Scintillatron 4096 is not one of those games. If you're hoping to know more about the hero or the futuristic world, then you're going to need to write your own fanfic, because none of that is in this barebones shoot 'em up. And that's fine, because the fast-paced action should be enough to keep fans of the genre coming back for more.

Scintillatron 4096 seems a little easy at first, maybe even too easy. But as you fight through wave after wave of increasingly difficult enemies, you'll quickly realize there's more going on than initially meets the eye. The big change here is how you go about earning high scores. Instead of just surviving a bunch of aggressive bad guys, the trick is to shoot down only enemies of a like color before moving on to the next group. For example, you'll want to want to kill all the pink bad guys before moving onto the yellow enemies, otherwise you'll break the combo and lose out on those much-needed bonus points.

What makes this so tricky is that you only have a few seconds to do all this. If you let the timer tick down all the way, then a nasty red enemy will spawn and chase you around until you either kill all the bad guys or die trying. This is the kind of hurry-up monster you used to see in a lot of old school arcade games, like Bubble Bobble, and it definitely went a long way to add tension to what seems at first like a leisurely take on the dual-stick shooter.

It also feels like a throwback, especially when compared to something like Geometry Wars. Forget 360 degree aiming, because Scintillatron 4096 only lets you shoot in eight directions. The bullets are also slow, which forces the player to be a little more attentive when lining up shots. All this leads to a slightly slower and more methodical shooter that feels a bit different from the rest of the dual-stick shooters clogging up the PlayStation 4 and PS Vita.

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While I usually like the simplistic approach, Scintillatron 4096 feels a bit too barebones at times. The problem is that the various waves play out the same way every time, so there isn't a whole lot of surprise from one stage to the next. To its credit, the game tries to combat some of the inherent repetition by including a whole bunch of power-ups and items. But beware, because not everything you find on the field will help you. In fact, some of the items will actually hinder your progress by slowing you down and reducing the effectiveness of each shot. And while that spread shot may help kill a bunch of baddies all at once, it's almost guaranteed to murder that perfect combo you were going for.

Beyond the repetition, I found myself endlessly frustrated by the enemy designs. For one thing, they aren't very memorable. They are mostly random blobs and spike balls; certainly nothing interesting from a design perspective. Probably the most exciting enemy is a guy that looks like it was transplanted directly from Centipede, and even he is a little bland. And it's worse than that, because a lot of the obstacles and enemy shots are so small that you'll have a hard time seeing them. There's a speedy little bad guy who shoots these tiny pixel-sized bullets that are nearly impossible to see. And it's not because my eyes are suddenly failing, because I don't think I've ever seen a bullet that small in a dual-stick shooter before. This and similar microscopic obstacles lead to a lot of unfair and cheap deaths, which ultimately left a bad taste in my mouth.

While I liked the slower and more methodical approach to the dual-stick shoot 'em up genre, I found myself frustrated by the tiny bullets and repetitive progression. I also wish the enemy designs were more distinctive and the stages offered more variety. The action is solid and the combo system is unique, but I'm not sure that is enough to recommend Scintillatron 4096 over the glut of shooters currently available on both the PlayStation 4 and PS Vita.