Beautiful and cinematic, Morphite manages to cultivate a classic Atari feel through its jagged edges and blocky textures, ultimately creating a nostalgic trip across the unknown.
After a brief explanatory introduction cut scene with some funky music and decent voice acting, Morphite chucks you in a space craft with a small bit of combat experience and many planets to explore.
As you visit planets, animals and plants can be scanned to gain money and resources, as well as then butchered using a laser gun. Who said anything about the Prime Directive?
The prime purpose of all this exploration and planetary genocide is concerned with collecting various resources. You can find mineral deposits located throughout planets that release valuable minerals, as well as attacking hostile ships along the way and collecting the minerals they drop.
The return rates for different methods of collecting resources seems somewhat askew destroying ships brings a huge amount of minerals, whereas genially collecting them from mineral deposits like a civilized person nets next to no resources. It’s almost like Morphite is trying to make you into some kind of interplanetary murderer.[sc name=”quote” text=”It’s almost like Morphite is trying to make you into some kind of interplanetary murderer.”]
The plot emerges after a routine mission turns sour, revealing key information about the main character’s past that links them to the mysterious eponymous material, Morphite. From there, the whole game is collecting, scanning and murdering as you seek out your past.
This kind of exploration and resource gathering gameplay is intended to play second fiddle to the procedurally generated planets available to be explored. As you venture across the galaxy, planets are generated randomly for you, ensuring that no two player’s experiences are alike.
The problem in procedural generation, as evidenced by the ire inspired by No Man’s Sky, is that there are frequently very few differences between different players’ experiences. A planet can only be generated using so many parameters and the low poly stylistic graphical style used means that the only differences are some of the terrain and monster generation.
Though there isn’t a lot of variety in the planets or the actual gameplay available when exploring, fighting and crafting upgrades, the game itself is astoundingly beautiful. If nothing else, Morphite demonstrates it is possible to create a visually rich universe using classic styles.[sc name=”quote” text=”If nothing else, Morphite demonstrates it is possible to create a visually rich universe using classic styles.”]
The low polygon graphical style inspires an intense feeling of nostalgia that takes the player right back to the early days of gaming, allowing some of the grievances with gameplay to be forgiven due to the sheer enjoyment with the graphical style.
Though the gameplay and indeed the procedural generation in Morphite lacks variety or the ability to keep the player truly interested, it more than makes up for it through its unique gorgeous graphical style.
With improvements to both gameplay and the balancing of resource gathering, Morphite could become a reliable game to play peacefully, enjoying the graphical style and the simple completetion of gathering materials.
[review pros=”gorgeous graphics” cons=”lack of variety” score=6]
[appbox appstore id1125093361]
