Pulse Grid

Treat this as a neutral review. But since those don't exist, I went with positive. Not because I'd personally recommend the game or because I got a review key, but because the game does exactly what it sets out to do, and while there is plenty to nitpick the concept is more than operational, so it feels wrong to give it a negative rating. But given lack of other reviews I wanted to be semi-thorough, so strap on in for a wall of text. [h3]How's the gameplay?[/h3] At its core, the game is split into the Match and Edge modes you can see in the trailer. Match mode has you fill the grid as you play, so the worse you do the less space you have to worry about and it becomes easier to focus on clearing the grid and get back to the mayhem. Meanwhile Edge mode has the arrows leave the arena along its edges, so you don't block entrance paths and constantly end up with a lot more things on screen than you can pay attention to. Especially on higher difficulties. Both modes have a 2x2 square that lets you change the direction of the arrows inside of it on the beat. This leads to a lot of complications where you accidentally send arrows in ways you didn't intend to and have to correct where they're going, all while new ones are coming in. This is good mayhem! The arrow move timings are actually slightly off-set from one another based on their colors, so there is room to get good at planning your moves down to quarterbeats. So we got some skill expression going, even if the basic premise is trivial and almost automatic Both modes also have a combo mechanic that feels... weird? It double the combo on success and divides by four for failure. That would be fine, but "failure state" happens so often that it feels unavoidable? Might just be a skill issue, and technically I did get to max combo on easy Match mode, but it still doesn't feel right by me, but it does do its job at rewarding good play. [h3]Is this a rhythm game?[/h3] This is less of a "rhythm" game and more of a rhytmic game. Everything happens to the beat, but there are no charts for the songs available (of which there are quite a few) as far as I can tell. I do think the songs are on average a wee bit fast for the mayhem the gameplay, but easy mode exists for a reason I guess. As with any game where it's about the beat more than the music, the tracks quickly become background noise as you focus on the gameplay. This is neither good or bad, but due to the general chaos of the game you won't really feel the music in the levels. Though there might be some relation between intensity of the track at a given moment and how many things spawn. [h3]On to the nitpicks[/h3] Using the above, it should paint you a picture of an okay game. But what really brings it into the neutral category is a plethora of small oddities and bugs. Bug-wise the levels seem to finish before songs end? Might just be me being used to there being a short quiet at the end of a rhythm level, but without any downramp in arrow intensity the endings always felt very abrupt. As for more defined bugs the endless mode ends after a single song, and some achievements don't seem to work (combo ones in particular) or are improperly described. And probably worst of all, Match mode says you need to match 3+ blocks, but it will clear things when you match 2 blocks, which is much bigger of a deal than it might appear in text. As to some oddities, the most obvious is the lack of custom songs. Since it's all beat-driven I'm surprised to not see a way to play your own songs, even if you'd need to manually input the BPM. The UI is also a bit annoying, requiring a lot of clicks to get into a level, with no way to remember settings (e.g. whether you're playing edge or match mode is the last thing you select, even though it's likely the one you'd change the least often). And one of the music credits links doesn't actually work, not to mention none of the links are actually clickable. A small handful of tiny things that show less gamedev experience, but not necessarily lower the quality of the product. [h2]TL;DR[/h2] It's one of the games of all time. It's not revolutionary, but neither is it broken. It is quite chaotic so you neither get the rhythm nor the puzzle elements all that much, but it has skill expression in that chaos, and systems that work to both help and cross you. If the trailer doesn't make you interested, neither will the gameplay. If it does, then consider trying it and forming your own opinions

有成就 没中文 脉冲方阵 《脉冲方阵》是一款节奏益智游戏，各色方块会跟随节拍在方格阵中滑动。你需要在中央的 2×2 区域内调整箭头方向，以此改变方块的移动路径，匹配同色方块并完成连击消除，全程都要注意避免方块占满整个方格阵。 方块会从方格阵的边缘生成，且会按照不同的节拍间隔（四分之一拍、二分之一拍、一拍、两拍或四拍）移动。你能够操控的是位于正中央的固定 2×2 箭头区域—— 调整这里的箭头方向，就能改变所有途经该区域的方块的走向。当方块无法继续向前移动时便会停下，将同色方块匹配在一起即可完成消除并得分。 两种游戏模式 匹配模式：匹配消除至少 3 个同色方块即可得分，连击机制还能带来额外加分。 边缘模式：方格阵的每条边缘都对应一种目标颜色，当方块触碰匹配自身颜色的边缘时，就能通过相同的连击机制获得分数。 每首曲目都对应着独特的方块生成规律与难度。摸清节奏韵律，找到属于自己的游戏节奏，见证分数不断飙升吧。 游戏特色 纯粹的节奏玩法 —— 所有游戏操作与事件都严格踩点节拍 策略性箭头操控 —— 调整中央区域的箭头方向，掌控整个方格阵的方块走向 全球排行榜 —— 参与所有曲目的排名角逐，还能观看高分玩家的游戏回放 如果你喜欢融合了节奏元素的益智游戏，那么这款游戏一定会让你玩得得心应手。