Far Deadlier Than Microplastics: A Plastomorphosis Review

By Al

Players: 1
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, XBox, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, PC

There's been a recent rush of nostalgia for mid-90s PlayStation era graphics and games, and I'm totally here for it. This nostalgia extends not only to the rough-around-the-edges look of early 3D graphics, but also to gameplay mechanics that might seem archaic to modern gamers. Specifically there's been an influx in retro-themed survival horror titles that seek to capture the magic of the original Resident Evil and Silent Hill games. Enter Plastomorphosis, a game that recently dropped onto consoles, following an earlier release on Steam. We're going to be taking a look at it on the Nintendo Switch, and see if this game is worth playing in today's gaming landscape. There's a lot to discuss in this one, so let's ditch the intro and dive right in!

I may be jumping the gun here, but there's going to be a running theme in this review that I want to get out of the way at the very beginning. Plastomorphosis has the potential to be a great game, and there are indeed parts of it that I truly enjoyed, but it misses the mark in more ways than I can begin to outline here. The first of these fumbled elements has to be its story. Plastomorphosis takes place in a post-apocalyptic future (Or other world? The game is never clear on this.) where a mysterious blight, known as The Dark Energy of Re.Surs, threatens life as we know it. You take on the role of the New Citizen who is evacuating to the Modern-City. Let's stop for a second and appreciate those two amazing names. Modern-City is ruled by a totalitarian entity known as The Government of The Sovereign, and they harshly stamp out all Antisocial Activity. Things take a turn when the New Citizen, who can be either male or female by the way, arrives at Modern-City and finds the screening and arrival area to be totally empty. There are no signs of humanity, but there are lots of creepy mannequins scattered all about. If that weren't weird enough, progression through the city seems to now require completing a series of puzzles. The plot does expand from there in a total of four chapters, but it's a tale told largely told through notes and audio logs. This attempt at atmospheric storytelling is very reminiscent of the first Resident Evil game, but the plot isn't nearly as well-written as that classic game. Most plot points are left up to interpretation, and the entire narrative takes a nosedive after the first chapter. Normally I refrain from discussing the plot for too long in fear of giving away spoilers, but I don't think I could do that here if I wanted to. Plastomorphosis' plot is a mess, and there are plenty of bits that still haven't clicked for me. I guess that's as good a reason to move on as any, and hopefully things take a better turn as far as gameplay goes.

Plastomorphosis takes many cues from OG PlayStation survival horror games, but not always the correct ones. Let me start with the things I liked first, just so I can have a bit of positivity here for once. Exploration was fun for the most part, even if the visuals limited it a bit more than I would've liked. Puzzles weren't too crazy to figure out and had the right mix of challenge, with some of them even being randomized between playthroughs. That's something not many games try, but I have to admit that it does make looking up a guide difficult for those who would like to. Another great gameplay mechanic that Plastomorphosis got right is its saving mechanic. You're able to save at several (mostly) conveniently placed laptops, and I have to say that saving without restriction is a big plus. Seriously, even modern survival horror games still seem to fail at this point. There's nothing worse than seeing your hard work go up in flames because you didn't have a tape, a recording reel, or whatever other nonsense is needed to save in some games. There's also the heavy gore present throughout, as I have to say that Plastomorphosis really earned its M rating. I guess that last point might put off some, but I for one enjoyed how hard it went. Lastly, even though the game isn't much to look at in its default form (more on that later), there are plenty of options to change things up. Most of them are simple visual tweaks, but being able to play as a female protagonist is also a bonus. And that pretty much wraps up all the nice things I have to say about the game.

Every so often I'm reminded of that line from Jurassic Park that goes something like: "(They) were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn't stop to think if they should." It's not simply because I love the movie mind you, but it's because that quote often comes to mind when playing retro-themed games. There's a line between being an homage, or honoring the classics, and blindly adding in archaic gameplay design for the sake of being archaic. Plastomorphosis makes many of these type of gameplay choices, and I'm not even sure where I should begin. Tank controls are used by default, and they're just the worst thing ever. I've played the OG Resident Evil, and most people forget that it was a game designed with that control scheme in mind. Plastomorphosis clearly was not, and that's a huge problem. My advice is to switch to the normal control scheme if you want to retain any semblance of sanity. Going along that same line of though, the game also uses fixed camera angles. Most of these will simply ruin any fun you could potentially have with the game, and the game even weirdly tries to incorporate them into the game's universe. Rather than including them for the sake of cinematic flair, they're used in a way that implies you're looking at the game via security footage. This means that random objects and gore will constantly block your view, and it's not really any better when the view is unobstructed. There were plenty of times where enemies got a cheap hit on me from off-screen, or where I repeatedly missed items and doors because they were placed in an angle where the camera just didn't want to go. Lastly, there's the fact that your character is extremely fragile. Our Citizen may look tough, but it only takes about four hits before they're dead. Ammo is limited, and the first area is littered with enemies once you hit a certain point. Don't worry about dealing with enemies and damage throughout the entire game though, as the second half is full of one-hit kills. It honestly feels like the developer wanted players to have a horrible time, or maybe this is just the biggest troll game ever. It honestly is borderline unplayable at times.

I know that it's no surprise that I found the gameplay of Plastomorphosis to be lacking, but I think I should give a few more examples before moving on. Let's cover combat first. Fighting in Plastomorphosis takes place in real-time, and is similar to what you'd find in the original Resident Evil. Unfortunately it isn't the later Resident Evil games that had aim assist, so expect for your shots and attacks to go astray quite often. There's also the fact that ammo is very limited, so melee fighting will be used more than I would normally like. None of these issues would really matter if you were able to safely get away from enemies, but the game doesn't seem to want to let you do that. Most enemies move just a bit too fast for you to run past them, and there never seems to be enough room to do so anyway. I'm not exaggerating when I say that there were times I wish there was no combat at all. This could've made a good survival horror adventure game, since that was one of the few places where the gameplay worked. The opening section of Plastomorphosis where you move around a creepy abandoned building, was far better than the mannequin-killing fest that followed. Then there's the surprisingly small areas you explore in each chapter. I was amazed with how many times I was stuck and had a "Where do I go?" moment, since the world is never very big. Part of me wants to chalk it up to poor game design, but I feel like I've done that far too much already. I'm aware that this is an indie game, probably made by a very small team, but games should really be fun at the end of the day, and Plastomorphosis is anything but that. The worst part of all of this, is that I haven't even got to the single worst aspect of the game yet. I guess I'm done discussing gameplay, it's time to talk about visuals.

There's no other way to put it, Plastomorphosis is an extremely ugly game. Its dark, pixelated, and full of noise by default, and I can't begin to understand what the developers were going for when they created its aesthetic. All of my screenshots found in this review have the default options reduced to the lowest in the hopes of making the game look like something one can stomach without ripping their eyes out, but it still doesn't look very good in my opinion. Everything is dark and dreary in the worst of ways, and the static camera angles are obscured by random gore, bugs, or other nonsense that sometimes brings the visibility to nil. There were several areas of the game where I didn't know what I was supposed to do simply because I couldn't see anything on screen. I stand by the fact that this game is totally unplayable in its default state, and that's just a weird place to be in. Also, it runs like total garbage on the Nintendo Switch. I'm not sure if it's due to all the noise filters the game has, but Plastomorphosis struggled for life most of the time I played it. The frame rate often went into the single digits, and it even crashed on me a couple times. Most important to this review, the performance was so bad that it even affected the Switch's ability to take screenshots and record video. This meant that capturing the footage and screenshots I needed was a complete and total nightmare. I actually gave up on it once the combat started as I could only take so much nonsense at once. I have to of course assume that it runs better on other hardware, but then we go back to the generally ugly visuals. This isn't a love letter to the graphical style of the original PlayStation at all, it's simply a bad looking game that exists simply for the sake of looking bad. Saying it hurts the eyes isn't giving it any justice, as I have to say that the visuals are easily the single worst aspect of the game.

Thankfully things do get a bit better when we turn our attention to sound design, but that's mainly due to game finally taking a more standard approach to things. Let me first state that the voice acting is pretty bad all around, but I guess they could be going for that "It's bad on purpose!" aesthetic that I love so much. (In case you can't tell, that last bit was sarcasm.) Thankfully there isn't a whole lot of character interaction, so the voice acting is mostly limited to the audio logs that you can even ignore if you so desire. Voice acting aside, music and sound effects are pretty much the only part of the game that I think is executed to near perfection. They're actually so well done that it's almost disappointing to see them attached to such a horrible game. Each track sounds like it could've been lifted from a Western-developed Silent Hill or Resident Evil game, and I mean that as a compliment. I'll even go so far as to admit that the music managed to creep me out more than once. Those vibes were instantly snuffed out once I had to go back to actually playing the game, but there was a brief second or two where I was able to get a glimpse of the horrific atmosphere that Plastomorphosis might actually have achieved if more effort was put into every other aspect of its existence. Sound effects are a bit harder to describe, but they're great too. Creepy noises hint at things that are around every corner, and they set up a spooky atmosphere that was able to go above and beyond the visual style. I'm not sure if all the sounds were created for this game, but I found myself wishing that the rest of the game had the same level of greatness.

This is the part of the review where I admit that I couldn't bring myself to finish Plastomorphosis. It got to be too much for me, and I'd be very surprised if anyone other than the most hardcore bothered to play this one to its end. That said I did get very far into the game, and decided to look up video for the stuff I knew I was never going to complete. Considering that there is all sorts of nonsense to deal with here, including some one-hit kills towards the end of the game, it makes sense that the runtime is a bit all over the place. Completing Plastomorphosis can take anywhere from 3-6 hours, and I guess there's some options you can mess with if you want to give it another go. Why anyone would replay this is beyond me, but the options are there I guess. Despite the wonky gameplay, and absolute moon logic of most of the puzzles, I do have to admit that its current price of $8.99 isn't all that bad. It's still a price attached to a game I'd have to call "bad", but it won't break the bank if you want to pick it up out of sheer curiosity. You know what they say about that though...

While I have to admit that there is definitely an audience for retro-styled horror games like this, I still don't think that I can give Plastomorphosis any sort of recommendation. It's an ugly, unplayable mess, and there are several other games that pull off the retro survival horror thing successfully. Right off the bat I can suggest the games like Murder House and Tormented Souls, but there really are many others out there. Even if you're a fan of the genre, and need to play every single one that comes out, I can't imagine you finding anything but frustration here. I'd pick up one of the other games mentioned, or simply play anything but this. You'll be doing yourself a big favor, trust me. With that, I'm out. See you in the next one.

Check Out Plastomorphosis on Nintendo Switch:
https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/plastomorphosis-switch/

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Story: B-
Gameplay: C-
Graphics: D
Music/Sound: B
Value: B

Overall: C-

Pros:
+ Has a decent premise, and a great opening section.
+ Does emulate several classic survival horror tropes, for better or worse.
+ There are times when the creepy atmosphere really worked, and that's thanks in part to the decent sound design.
+ Being able to save without restriction is something that should exist in every survival horror game.
+ It's $8.99 price tag means that it won't break the bank if you decide to pick up it out of sheer curiosity.

Cons:
- This is easily the ugliest game I've ever played. It is virtually unplayable in its default state, and doesn't look much better with all the options reduced.
- Combat is a messy chore, as is just about everything that isn't simple puzzle solving.
- Tank controls can be changed when you start the game, but including them is wild since the game clearly wasn't designed with them in mind.
- The fixed camera angles are the worst I've seen in the genre. Not only do they often block your view, but sometimes make simply exploring an area more difficult than it needs to be.
- The game completely falls apart after the first chapter, and the last section of the game is just too ridiculous to discuss at length.
- Runs rather poorly on the Nintendo Switch, which is surprising considered its visual style. I think it's due to all the filters constantly in use.
- There are far better retro-inspired survival horror games, this one is best left forgotten.

A copy of this game was provided to us free-of-charge by the publisher for the purpose of this review. This did not affect our review in any way.

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I wish this game had fembots.