Strewth, PSP Game Features Trophies
Echoes shows what's possible with Minis. Article written by nofi in Blog, PS3 News, on Tuesday, November 24, 2009 at 6:47.Halfbrick Studios, the Australian developers behind PSP Minis title Echoes, certainly know how to push the envelope of what’s expected from a Minis game. Echoes is a top-down 2D puzzler, but one with shades of Braid and Qix blended together with some gorgeous hand drawn backdrops and a quirkly touchy-feely menu system. From the off, with the title screen showing you all you need to know, Echoes is a great game and one, for just £2.49, is absolutely deserved of your attention if you’re looking for something a bit different on your PSP.
How does it play? Well, you’re Charlie, a girl on the lookout for crystals in a number of increasingly difficult levels. To pick up a crystal, simply move the analog stick and she’ll walk in that direction, your on-screen avatar little more than a large hat and two protruding feet. Touch one, and another crystal will appear, but so too will your echo, a slow but exacting trace from your last position to the current crystal, and collision with an echo is fatal, resulting in a lost life. It’s such a brilliantly simply idea that it’s one that you can’t help but wish you’d thought of first.
There’s several levels in this format, each reached by traversing the menus just as you would the actual game, which is a nice touch, but Echoes offers so much more, including multiple game modes unlocked after you’ve beaten the tutorial section in the main Arcade mode. What impresses me the most though about Echoes are the in-game Trophies, which whilst not your XMB-standard silverware are actually a step beyond in terms of their implementation. An example is the Bronze “Dare Devil” Trophy which to earn you need to narrowly avoid an echo.
However, all Trophies start as Bronze, and you must work your way up through the ranks to get Silver and Gold. In the above case, the Silver Dare Devil Trophy is unlocked when you narrowly avoid two Echoes at once. See? Likewise, “Cool Cat”’s Bronze is awarded for completing a level with three lives remaining – the starting amount – but to get Silver you need to finish with four, so you’ll need to pick up an extra live and not lose it during the level to get that particular Trophy. It’s a really cool feature and one that will surely ramp up the replayability.
So, with a stack of challenging levels, leaderboards to beat, five distinct game modes (with one allowing you to control time with the triggers) Echoes is one hell of a game for the price of a pre-manufactured burger. The visuals are quirky, the music rich and the gameplay absolutely solid. The game isn’t for everyone, of course, but anyone looking for something a little bit different with masses of things to do at a great price will be happy with Echoes, which is probably the most complete PSP Mini I’ve currently played.
Hats off to Halfbrick then, have a hard earned Gold Trophy.
Comments
Please note that all comments are the opinion of the individual author and not TheSixthAxis.
kassatsu | 24/11/2009 06:50
Member
251 TSA Points | Member since: Jul 2009
Pinball Heroes has in-game trophies as well, but that is out across the pond yet ;p
nofi | 24/11/2009 06:53
Wants a custom tag.
3870 TSA Points | Member since: Forever
Good to know. Minis are really impressing me just now.
kassatsu | 24/11/2009 07:00
Member
251 TSA Points | Member since: Jul 2009
Yea each of the 4 tables has its own trophies you can get. There is even an online leaderboard for # of trophies you have. Sony San Diego did a bang up job with those pinball titles.
TctclMvPhase | 24/11/2009 22:01
Member
818 TSA Points | Member since: Nov 2008
Unfortunately they left out decent camera options, but other than that it was a decent title. Though I still wonder why it was not part of the mini program.
Joe | 24/11/2009 07:32
Member
187 TSA Points | Member since: Aug 2009
haha, hey! we havent said strewth since the 90’s!
australian developers ftw!
toutski | 24/11/2009 08:05
Legend
4007 TSA Points | Member since: Oct 2008
‘Throw another shrimp on the barby…’
Sorry.
cc_star | 24/11/2009 08:30
Team TSA: Writer
5866 TSA Points | Member since: Forever
Nofi spends most of his working day wishing he lived in Ramsay Street or Summer Bay, and you should see the pile of old Flying Doctors episodes he has on VHS
nofi | 24/11/2009 08:39
Wants a custom tag.
3870 TSA Points | Member since: Forever
I haven’t heard the word for ages, but it’s the first level in the game, so…
Joe | 24/11/2009 09:33
Member
187 TSA Points | Member since: Aug 2009
haha, you guys in the UK like Neighbours more than us aussies!
Damigos | 24/11/2009 07:40
* Banned *
-828 TSA Points | Member since: Nov 2009
That’s a pretty good idea. Wanna see on other systems too…
Dafro1989 | 24/11/2009 08:44
Member
629 TSA Points | Member since: Sep 2008
Buying this. Sounds like SO much fun.
smokeybeef | 24/11/2009 08:53
Member
249 TSA Points | Member since: Feb 2009
Alot of PS3/PSN titles do work their Trophies in the same way, it just isn’t as obvious. For instance, you get bronze for say 10 kills, silver for 100 and gold for 1,000.
I can’t think of any off the top of my head, but pretty much all titles have a tiered trophy system, but only on certain Trophies not all of them. Plus, like I said, they don’t make it obvious you are ‘upgrading’ from bronze to silver.
X201 | 24/11/2009 09:15
Member
260 TSA Points | Member since: May 2009
All of the Buzz! PSP games have had in game trophy systems as well.
mynameisblair | 24/11/2009 10:11
Member
3666 TSA Points | Member since: May 2009
Mistake in the first line “behing”
But sounds good… Minis are really good for the price, although some are just ported flash games.
BadBoyBoogie | 24/11/2009 10:32
Let There Be Rock
2516 TSA Points | Member since: Mar 2009
Nice to see, and hopefully more and more games for the PSP will begin to incorporate them.
shields_t | 24/11/2009 10:34
Member
1156 TSA Points | Member since: Oct 2008
It does appear that the deva are implementing their own trophy code on the off chance that Sony introduce pap xmb trophies at a later date.
carlosfilippsen | 24/11/2009 11:48
Member
1313 TSA Points | Member since: Mar 2009
PSP should add a trophy system and patch trophies to major games that came out a while ago. And make all future games have trophies, like they did on the PS3.
flatfour | 24/11/2009 23:28
Member
116 TSA Points | Member since: Jul 2009
I believe that PSP games have no trophies, and probably never will have (until PSP2 perhaps) because of the custom firmware issue.
If the OS the game runs on is not under the control of Sony, there’s no way to make sure that the trophy system isn’t subject to cheating.
I’m fairly sure this was a Sony man that said this, I’ll see if I can find the article.
flatfour | 24/11/2009 23:31
Member
116 TSA Points | Member since: Jul 2009
Here it is: http://www.joystiq.com/2009/06/08/sonys-lempel-you-re-not-going-to-see-trophies-on-the-psp/
carlosfilippsen | 25/11/2009 00:22
Member
1313 TSA Points | Member since: Mar 2009
I guess we’ll have to wait for PSP2 then.
skibadee | 24/11/2009 12:06
Member
1970 TSA Points | Member since: Oct 2009
nice xtra
davidjmclare | 24/11/2009 15:36
always on easy
894 TSA Points | Member since: May 2009
looks really good… does it have save points?
alien havoc would be awesome if it had that feature and not sure if id get echoes without it..
anyone know?