FutureGrind

I’m racking my brain trying to put into words why I’m so let down by FutureGrind. I love the idea, and I usually enjoy this kind of game. So why was I completely unaffected by it? How can this game, which seems so appealing, fail so hard at leaving an impression? I guess it just feels too samey and unexciting, like nothing worth chewing on is introduced in the 3 hours it takes to beat. I could go into detail explaining all the mechanics but it’s really not worth it—watch the trailer, it shows you everything you need to know; the game doesn’t really evolve past it. It’s so irritating how these smaller games can be almost completely ruined by annoyances which would otherwise be tiny. Like how you master a track in order to get the platinum trophies but then need to play it two more times to beat the almost trivial challenges—which essentially boil down to “do this easy thing and reach the end”. Or how the story is nothing special, and makes you have to repeat tracks one more time, unnecessarily. Or how the strategy to get platinum trophies in the score attack stages (the main point of the game) requires no thought whatsoever to pull off: you get double points when doing a trick for the first time, and gain multiplier by transitioning between rails. So you keep transitioning and doing one type of flip, then at the end, when your multiplier is max’ed out, do the other. Or how there’s not [i]that[/i] much room for expressing yourself, even if that seems like it would be the meat and potatoes of the game. And how the tracks could really be more dynamic, with more hazards and interesting interactions. The ones that are there, jump orbs and color switchers, are a start, but nothing really interesting or challenging is done with them. And… you’re done. The story climaxes, you beat the slightly more challenging, but not really very diverse or fun, levels, and that’s it. And you never think of FutureGrind again.