We analyze the new Pixelopus exclusively for PS4, Concrete Genie. His magic brush is not able to fix a work devoid of soul and inspiration.
The Paris Games Week of last 2017 is remembered by several of the ads displayed by Sony. In addition to the opportunity to see Naughty Dog's great work again, The Last of Us: Part II, we were able to meet several of the titles that would come to PS4 in the future. Despite the fact that Ghost of Tsushima was the center of attention, a medium draft title such as Concrete Genie managed to capture the eyes for its daring artistic style.
After our impressions, we expected the final version to end, to unleash that creative prodigy pointed to in the preview. Ash's brush has failed to shine.
From the topic, his weakness
The narrative epicenter of Concrete Genie is based on bullying. Ash, the protagonist, is a constant victim of the abusers of the neighborhood, a band of mequetrefes that will push the boy to lose his only means of expression: the sketchbook. Due to a series of circumstances that we will not reveal, the torn pages return, in part, to the back, which allows you to start a kind of personal adventure to return the joy to all of Denska, your hometown.
Addressing a topic of this magnitude without falling into the cheap topic is quite difficult to achieve. At the beginning, there is no problem; The game treats with subtlety the planes where physical violence occurs, which allows the player to make his own caballas when the camera seeks a subtle allegory. It is not necessary to be explicit in this type of questions.
Concrete Genie stays on the surface of this scourge. After confirming how difficult it is to empathize with a character as bland as Ash, once the thugs' flashbacks come into play, it goes downhill and without brakes. The reasons are clear: we always go three steps ahead of what happens on the screen. With the little it shows, it reveals too much; there is hardly any depth in a game that seemed to have some ambition to denounce these facts with a much more formal tone, without, again, the bitter cliché that we can find in any entertainment medium.
The magic of art
If we find certain discrepancies in the narrative, it would be no less when we begin to study their mechanics. During the first hour we are introduced to the brush, which allows you to peel off a magic paint on any surface of the map. We do not really paint as such, but we will have to choose which predetermined figures we want to capture in our interactive canvas.
The control method is quite intuitive. Thanks to the motion sensor incorporated in the Dualshock 4, we can move the control with complete freedom; If we lose the objective, we can restore it to the center to continue. Despite the misfortunes that we find in the preview version, the final game corrects those failures completely: there is no better way to take advantage of the command's capabilities. Despite this, there is an alternative control method that facilitates the action of the most classic.
In some specific sections we will be allowed to give life to a genius, a specific creation to be able to join us for the rest of the level. The control method is exactly the same as when we paint already created drawings: we simply choose which body it should have and from that moment we can add any accessory: ears, tail, head pieces, etc.
The extreme simplicity with which the protagonist mechanics of Concrete Genie works is a bit striking. You do not draw what you want as such, everything is based on different forms already established that we will incorporate into our notebook as we find them during the exploration. It is the same with the small artistic puzzles, which base their complexity on finding the specific forms that our geniuses require. You feel a wasted idea that needs more maturation to conceive what it could really give of itself. Right now it is a kind of medium to create a strange collage.
Progress lacking inspiration
The purpose of this trip, as we said at the beginning, is to return the shine to the abandoned city of Denska. Therefore, the natural thing is to think that to complete it we must paint all its corners. The study has solved the main path in a soulless way. What we are told is that we light all the bulbs scattered around the districts by means of our brush, that is, drawing behind them any figure we want. Some will be located at points where corruption spreads strongly, so we must use the special paint, obtained through our geniuses, to activate them.
Upon completion, that area will provide the opportunity for us to do a ‘masterpiece’, which is nothing more than painting the figures, again, that our creations demand. As you can see, all the progress in Concrete Genie is a wheel of repetition of objectives that are missing any interest. Sometimes thugs will appear, whose presence we will have to evade by throwing them off the map. Do not look further; There is nothing else in your offer. Except for Virtual Reality modes, where immersion is quite important, although they are still a small anecdote where you can take advantage of the painting mode a little more.
That creative premise, even original, is diluted by a flagrant lack of inspiration in the playable ecosystem. It is true that from the second half, the perspective at the controls changes radically to move to a kind of beat 'em up aboard our skateboard, throwing elementary skills as required by the enemy forces. This part is much more linear than the previous one, which ends up going directly to the final conclusion with a bitter taste. Bitter to have the feeling of being before a want and I can not. An overwhelming premise that stays on paper.
Problems to solve
Unfortunately we have suffered many serious problems during the course of our Reviews. We understand that there are certain bugs that can be polished once it reaches the market (there are). What we cannot forgive is that the artificial intelligence of our creations is so chaotic, forcing certain failures that can cause the progression of the campaign to be blocked.
Our first game decided not to continue from a puzzle where the collaboration of two wind geniuses is required. One got stuck on the other side of the map, while the other ignored our orders. The result? The inability to complete a vital puzzle for advancement. The game has no option to load control point, nor to make several save slots; one slot for each game, nothing more. The adventure can be completed in just six hours, depending on what you explore (there are several collectibles as extra drawings).
A next patch is expected to solve the most serious problems.
CONCLUSION
Concrete Genie lives on an original premise that takes effect during the first moments of the game. Once the control method and its operation have been revealed, the few surprises at the playable level are over, even when the game becomes much more linear. A lack of flagrant inspiration when creating attractive progress ends up turning it into a fairly flat adventure, boring at times. Even at the narrative level he falls back into the same topics as always when dealing with bullying. If you enter it without any pretense, you can relax with your creations.
THE BEST
- The use of the motion sensor in the Dualshock 4.
- Small portions VR well adapted.
- Visually attractive for creations.
WORST
- Lack of inspiration during the progress of the adventure.
- Chaotic artificial intelligence in geniuses; It doesn't work as well as it should.
- Painting does not offer as much freedom as it seemed.
- At the narrative level it rages.
Right
It is not the latest or the most original, nor does it have the best execution, but it can be fun if you like the genre. Good, but improvable.
