Twin Breaker: A Sacred Symbols Adventure

I don't care if you call it Breakout, Alleyway, Arkanoid or something else, I think that we can all agree that breaking bricks is a lot of fun. That's certainly the case with Twin Breaker: A Sacred Symbols Adventure, the new game from Canadian developer Lillymo that mixes brick-breaking with mind-bending dual-stick action. It's an arcade-style throwback that debuted earlier this year on the PlayStation 4 and PS Vita. Now it's finally coming to Switch, Xbox One and PC, giving a whole new audience a chance to discover this fun (albeit flawed) retro-themed action game.

For a game that is essentially a dual-stick Arkanoid clone, Twin Breaker sure does have a needlessly complicated story. It involves the United States profiting off of a World War, the inevitable destruction of Earth and Generation ships being sent to the far reaches of the galaxy in order to find a new planet to call home. But when it comes down to it, all you really need to know is that two brave astronauts are sent through a nearby wormhole to see what is on the other side. What they discover are 40 harrowing stages filled with bouncing balls and lots and lots of brick breaking.

You take control of both astronauts at once, which means controlling two ships at the same time. It starts out simple enough, with the left paddle-shaped ship controlled by the left analog stick and the right ship controlled by the right analog stick. However, it won't take long before we're forced to not only control the two ships at the bottom of the screen, but two more than hang out on the left and right sides. This is where the simple concept gets tricky, since we'll need to juggle collecting items and hitting the ball at the same time.

The goal is not all that different from your typical Breakout-style games -- you want to clear the board by breaking every brick. Some bricks will disappear the moment you hit them, while others will need a few smacks before they are fully destroyed. You'll find that some will rotate, hide behind rocks and be located in all kinds of hard-to-reach spots. And after you've destroyed every brick and survived the levels, you'll need to take on four different boss fights that will truly test your ball bouncing mettle.

The good news is that the game gives you some help. Similar to Arkanoid, the different bricks will throw power-up items at our ships, such as guns that shoot from the sides of the paddles, a heavy ball that rips through pretty much everything, a helpful barrier and even a multiball that doubles the amount of things you need to bounce around the screen. But beware, because there are also bad items that will slow down and shrink the ships, along with a whole bunch of other downgrades. The trick is to not just keep your eye on the ball, but also keep track of the items floating around. That's a lot harder than it sounds, especially when you only have a few minutes to complete each stage.

Despite a few challenging moments here and there, the 40-stage story mode will only take you a couple hours to complete. Twin Breaker has a funny way of ramping up the difficulty in the third batch of levels, only to ease off towards the end. For a while it looks like you're going to need to control six paddles at the same time, but the game never gets there. It's as if the developers ran out of ideas or worried that being too ambitious would over-complicate things. Either way, it made the final act of the game too easy and left me wanting more.

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Thankfully, Twin Breaker is actually good about giving us more. Sure, the story mode is a little uneven, but this game is loaded with extra modes. On top of the typical New Game+, we're also treated to Marathon and Random modes, which will keep us breaking bricks until we run out of lives. There's also a Shooter mode that plays like a vertical shoot 'em up, as well as a Catcher mode that is all about grabbing falling coins and avoiding killer scarabs. And did I mention that there's a Pong mode that will have you going up against the game's four bosses to see who can earn the most points? Also, don't forget about the Boss Rush mode, where we focus on beating the increasingly difficult alien ships. These different modes may vary in quality, but there's no denying that they add a lot of value to the simple brick-breaking theme.

As a concept, I love the idea of Twin Breaker. It's the kind of game I was ready to rave about after the first few stages. But like so many Breakout clones before it, this newest take is ultimately too repetitive for its own good. It doesn't help that the graphics are too big, something that ultimately limits the types of patterns and obstacles you can have on screen. It's so easy to have your ball slip by the paddle, since everything is so cramped together. I also found the analog stick to be too sensitive when moving the ships around, especially compared to the rotary-style controller used with Arkanoid. The ideas are there, but it doesn't quite come together like it should.

I hate to say it, but the same goes for the presentation. Normally, I would like (maybe even prefer) the throwback pixel look, but I found that the bricks and ships lacked personality. Worst of all, the backgrounds are mostly forgettable. That shouldn't be the case, since there are often moving parts and sections that slide in and out of view. But there's nothing about them that stands out or helps sell the journey through space. Just like the gameplay, the graphics are too repetitive. Thankfully, the chiptunes soundtrack does a lot of the heavy lifting and helps sell the old school vibe. The music is probably the most consistent thing about Twin Breaker.

Fans of games like Breakout and Arkanoid will find a lot to like in this newest iteration. Twin Breaker: A Sacred Symbols Adventure shakes things up by turning the brick-breaking into a dual-stick affair, and it doesn't stop there. This is a game with a surprisingly complicated story and tons of modes that will keep you shooting, bouncing and collecting for hours to come. Unfortunately, it suffers from being too repetitive and pulling back when it should have gone farther. This is another solid brick-breaker that bounces close to greatness but can't quite get there.