PlayStation Vita has seen a surge of indie titles and ports once available only on PCs and mobile devices. Frozen Synapse Prime is one such game, but more of a remake than a standard port, from Double Eleven of LittleBigPlanet Vita renown. The game was originally developed by Mode 7 as Frozen Synapse, a turn-based tactical title taking place in a virtual reality world called Markov Geist.
Markov Geist is a virtual world created from a communication system called Shape. Markov Geist is where people can escape their regular lives and live in a virtual one. Enyo:Nomad, a company that exists in Markov Geist, controls everything within the virtual city, from its media to its economy and government. Players take on the role of Tactics, who joins Petrov’s Shard, a resistance group aiming to loosen Enyo:Nomad’s control of Markov Geist.
Most of the story involves moving from region to region in the city fighting Enyo:Nomad-controlled Vatforms, organisms created from cloned human tissue, with your own Vatforms. The story itself delves deep into the politics of the world and can be hard to follow at times. The good news is that the story mostly takes place before and after players start missions. Most of the information about the world and other characters through personal conversations and notes players receive after every mission, which makes it easier to wrangle with the game’s plot twists and details at one’s own pace.
The turn-based tactical combat is where most of the fun is found. Players will take control of Vatforms and issue commands, but while there are a variety of classes to enjoy, you can’t select which to take on a mission. These units share commands, but attack in different ways, and available commands include movement, aiming, sweeping, and ducking behind cover.
Each unit has a unique attack. Assault Vatforms can move fast and aim across an entire map but have a chance to miss from a long distance, while the Shotgunners don’t have much range but are quick on the draw and will always shoot first. Snipers will take longer to fire but they will always hit their target from anywhere on the map. Grenadiers are able to bounce grenades off walls, allowing them to take out enemies from around corners and from a distance. Finally, the Rocket Launcher units are able to destroy walls and cause blast radius damage as they do. Each attack is displayed in a cone similar to Metal Gear Solid’s radar system, effectively communicating attack ranges and areas of effect, and a preview feature shows you how the first four seconds of your turn will play out if enacted. I found this quite useful for seeing if my characters would fall into a line of fire or successfully stay covered.
The types of missions that players go on are similarly well-rounded. Mission variety includes just wiping out the opposing forces to holding down a location for a set number of turns. But not every game mode is equally attractive. The escort missions can be quite frustrating as the enemies seem to only go after the target, ignoring your units almost entirely. But the most frustrating mission is collecting data keys. Players must recover a number of keys and leave the map with them. Frustrations result from the large number of opposing forces but the worst part is if one of your units, having collected any number of data keys, is killed, those keys are lost for good, forcing you a mission failure. It can also be hard to predict if your character will fire at the time you expect or take a certain path to their destination. This leads to many trial-and-error situations and a lot of mission restarts.
Meanwhile, the current multiplayer experience is a mixed bag with neat ideas. It’s great that Double Eleven included all the game modes from the campaign. I enjoyed my time in matches with others, but it was sometimes a chore to find a game to play. The leaderboards would tell of an active community, but I could find only one match to join, even so far as playing four consecutive games against the same person. But online games with other players are still quite fun and encourage faster, more strategic thinking. Furthermore, asynchronous play can make online play convenient and interesting with friends. Players don’t have to stay in a game to play it against their friends; like some mobile games, players can make their move and return to the game a few hours or a few days later. With some matches taking up to an hour, being able to play at your convenience is crucial. But not having time limits imposed on live games with strangers can be problematic. At one point, I just assumed my opponent had checked out completely, waiting for me to quit for a cheap win.
Let’s touch on graphics and sound. Unfortunately, the game’s environments aren’t dressed up with much visual intrigue. Every location not only looks the same, but the art direction is quite bland, with nothing but walls and empty rooms to occupy environmental space. Likewise, the game’s main characters are only displayed in static dialog images–a disappointment next to the visually striking red and blue Vatforms. The animations, while also simple, fit the action and prevent mechanics from being clouded in visual obscurity. But the music score takes the cake, standing as perhaps the game’s best aspect. Stirring electronic rhythms evoke a sci-fi future in the same vein as classic soundtracks like Deus Ex.
Frozen Synapse Prime is not a game for everybody. Its tactical combat takes a while to open up to newcomers, but there’s a fun and addictive game within. Its lengthy campaign tells a mature and well-developed story, but execution is off in a number of ways. There’s enough reason to give Frozen Synapse a look if you’re jonesing for the genre, but bring a friend for consistent multiplayer thrills.