THRASHER

I would give Thrasher a mixed review if I could. Although it's made by Brian Gibson, the drive creative lead and sole composer behind Thumper's bizarre, fascinating style of gameplay, aesthetic, and sound design, Thrasher simply does not play as well as Thumper, for several reasons. This is an arcade game in the classic style of competing for faster times or higher scores in small, self-contained levels. You boot up the game, you click play, and you instantly get what you paid for. Expect no more, and no less. Thrasher can be seen as a sister game to Thumper in that, while Thumper (as a kind of rhythm game) tested the player's precision and timing at pressing their keyboard (or controller buttons), for which it laid out obstacles in a charted level layout that players could perfectly learn (with very good memorization), Thrasher—rather than key presses—will test the player's precision and timing at moving their mouse (or joystick). To do so, it also features [i]semi[/i]-charted levels with obstacles that confound accuracy. Because the eel following the player's cursor is delayed, there is in fact much more to it than simple mouse movement, creating a balance of both precision in actually moving the cursor, and timing in knowing [i] when [/i] to move it. Another similarity is of course the incredible soundtracks, which is equally incredible in this newer title. Gibson once more nails the sound design completely. Despite their obvious dissimilarities, Thumper and Thrasher are thus actually quite similar. As inferred, one of the areas where they do diverge is in how genuinely learnable their levels are, and this is really where Thrasher goes wrong. Being semi-random means that, although the general layout of the level is determined, [i] where [/i] each level element actually spawns cannot be predicted. You cannot actually learn the levels, and more worryingly there will always be a great deal of luck involved in the gameplay. This becomes increasingly disruptive as the game goes on, with the final levels being, frankly, a mess. I managed to snag the #2 leaderboard spot for one of them, not because I did so amazingly well, but because (I assume) no one else wants to actually play those levels enough to grab a higher spot. They're just that unfun to play. The reason for this is two-fold: the RNG constantly messing you up without any real mistakes from your side, and the later levels having gimmicks that enormously interfere with the core gameplay of going through lines/circles while circling obstacles for score. Instead they'll have you wait for randomly spawning footballs that sometimes go in the opposite direction of where you're aiming, without which the level is virtually uncompletable. These levels rely on gimmicks so hard that they utterly neglect the basics of the game. This is even further aggravated by the extreme degree of visual clutter from many of the game's "powerups"—a misnomer because I often found myself deliberately avoiding them to avoid both losing score and the ability to see anything. Thrasher would benefit [i] greatly [/i] from a revamp of the gameplay that emphasizes difficult but still chartable levels over the chaotic insanity of the final levels (final half, in some ways) that we got. Unfortunately most of these issues probably run too deep to be fixed, but some can. This would include: at least a separate game mode where all obstacles are fully deterministic, respawning obstacles having a clearer and longer telegraph before appearing, reduced visual clutter from SFX, an option to reverse the zoom function (so you're zoomed out by default rather than zoomed in), and faster restarts. Despite the basic flaws, small changes go a long way for an inherently repetitive game. Ultimately Thrasher disappoints as a successor to Thumper, but that doesn't mean it's not enjoyable for what it is. It retains the sound- and visual design, and it retains the entertaining leaderboards. Thrasher [i] is [/i] somewhere a fun game, but unfortunately the arbitrary chaos of luck, gimmicky powerups, and visual insanity also risks thrashing your mental health.

VRでプレイ。3時間くらいでエンディング。その後さまざまなやりこみモード、リーダーボード有り。 ◆THRASHERとしての魅力 ・極限までプリミティブな「破壊」の爽快さをテーマにした最高のゲーム。 ・と思いきや[spoiler]中盤からは操作の正確さも求められるギミックが登場する。サッカーボール君とショットガン君のコントロールの不安定さは、許容するまでは結構フラストレーション。[/spoiler] ・曲が良い。THUMPERよりも「音楽」になっていて、ジャーマンプログレ×インダストリアルノイズみたいな高揚感ある楽曲がゲームと良い相性。雪エリアでの定位がぶっ壊れた曲が個人的体験として満点 ◆THUMPERとの比較 ・ギラギラのサイケデリックなメタリック宇宙は本作でも健在。 ・基本的なゲームシステムはほぼ同じ。 ・難易度はかなり控えめ。ボス戦以外でリスタートになる場面がほぼ無いくらい簡単。 ・類似のシーケンスが繰り返される点は前作とも重なるけれど、前作はそれが音楽譜面だったためグルーヴ感・没入感へと繋がる意味があった[spoiler]が、本作で同じことをやっていると「使い回し」「内容の薄さ」「平坦」といったネガティブな印象のほうがよぎってしまった。ボス戦もほとんど道中と変わらないので一工夫欲しかった。[/spoiler] ◆VRゲームとしての魅力 ・操作性はVRデバイスに特化していると感じた。猫じゃらしのように”しなる”棒が、手を動かして操作するVRコントローラーにおいては非常に直感的かつストレスなく動作する。この楽しい操作感が結局このゲームにおける全てなので、可能であればマウスよりもVRでのプレイを推奨したい。 ・VR空間としての魅力は（期待していたのだが）低め。背景は前方向にしかなく、立体感も無い。 ・VR酔いしなかった。プレイヤー位置は固定で、多少周囲を見渡す程度で遊ぶことができたため。 ・主人公の宇宙ウナギ(ムカデじゃないの？)が成長するにしたがって空間上の移動範囲が拡大していき、上下左右に首を振らないと目視出来なくなるくらいプレイエリアが拡張されていくのはとても楽しい。 THUMPERを超えるゲーム内容ではないけど、一点突破してるゲームが好きな人、オーディオビジュアルが好みな人、トリッピーなシューティングゲームが好きな人は是非。

I got this on sale and I played this in VR. As many have said before, this is an OSU-like where you basically have to guide your cursor through gates/circles while avoiding red gates/circles. There are combo mechanics to get higher scores and the entire premise of the game seems to be for speedrunning levels. Your score is the remaining time on the clock. Combos increase your clock by maybe a few seconds. In VR it seems most segments can be completed in mere seconds. I assume later levels get challenging to a point where you have to take a moment to navigate through the chaos. At least when it comes to VR, the visuals are fun to be immersed in. it is a little artsy/trippy at times and the environments are definitely unique. The gameplay is just point and the dragon chases your cursor; It is really intuitive and easy to understand when you play it. TLDR: I could see some people really enjoying this type of gameplay. For me, I don't typically chase scores or try the same levels over and over trying to streamline things. This wound up being a decent experience, but I doubt I'll play it through or very much more. Visuals - 7.5 Gameplay - 7.5 Audio - 7.5 Story - N/A Overall - 7.5/10

Kind of dissapointed that we went from a genuinely innovative rhythm game with cool trippy visuals, to an osu look a like with the same cool visuals.

criminally underdiscussed. doesn't feel as violent as Thumper, but absolutely has a compelling hook to it. it's like.. bear with me here, Atari's classic arcade game Quantum but if it controlled with a wii remote. i cannot stress enough that VR controls are *the* way to play this game. it was a vision pro exclusive at launch and only made it to steam later, so the controls are completely designed around using your physical hand. you absolutely need the quick flicks of your wrist combined with the more precise movements from your shoulder to get the most out of this game. it's spiritually a wii game and i mean that in the best way drawing circles around things has never felt so good. big recommend. play it in VR.

Olha eu tento mesmo fazer REVIEW só após terminar o jogo mas no caso desse eu desisti Não pq é difícil mas é pq mesmo jogando com intervalos eu não aguento a repetição e a falta de variedade do jogo A ideia inicial é legal você ir usando poderes parar dar dash e quebrar bolas pelos cenários, tentando conseguir o melhor tempo ele é composto de 9 pequenas fases + um chefão aí você tem que passar 3 cenários para mudar de mundo Eu cheguei no sétimo mundo e são 9 então foram 180 estágios até aqui (nossa muito conteúdo neh) então o problema é QUE É TUDO IGUAL O jogo muda muito pouco a variedade do que você faz a grande maioria parece que você já fez aquele mesmo desafio antes Tudo isso poderia ser perdoado se o jogo tivesse um trilha sonora foda ou chefões legais de enfrentar mas aqui da a mesma coisa, toda música parece só um pequeno amontoado de som não uma música própria com um tema único Tipo era bem melhor separar o jogo por fases e cada uma ser distinta mas no final tudo parece igual, as lutas com os chefes são sempre iguais o ritmo que você tá ouvindo é sempre igual, como você faz os combos e passa os desafios é sempre igual, essa sensação de mesmice destrói o que poderia ser um ótimo jogo Eu preferia que o jogo tivesse só 1 hora e essas 1 hora fossem memoráveis do que eu ter quase 3 horas e parece que joguei 30 de tão repetitivo NOTA 5/10 só pegue em promoção Não vou dar negativo pq o jogo é bonito, roda super bem e tenho certeza que um público especifico vai curtir mas vou falar que o Thumper o jogo anterior desse dev é BEM melhor

[h1]TRANSCEND SPACETIME BY EEL[/h1] It's hard for me not to compare this game to Thumper (which I love), with the same devs and similar overall trippy art-style. If you are familiar with Thumper you can expect a similar atmosphere while playing. Thrasher is an arcade game, a smaller game than Thumper, as the latter one is a rhythm game. This is a straightforward game made for VR in mind, which is kind of disappointing in my opinion, but let's try to judge it as it is. The point of the game is to collect the shiny things while breaking the hard things and avoiding the red things (you know the ones), while controlling some eel-snake type of creature. Don't think of it too much. Simple gameplay, and not very challenging at least for me, but quite satisfying when you get in the groove. Being priced quite cheaply also helps. It lets you know to expect a smaller game. It also has a lot of ways to play, being VR, or traditionally with a controller or even just the mouse, and it works great with all of them (I'm guessing VR works well, I'm poor I can't try it). So give it a go and experience LSD without having to leave your home to meet that shady dealer 10km downtown in a cheap apartment with questionable smells.

Interesting game play, fantastic visual style.

Spiffy arcade swiper game by an awesome musician. Controls well, great sound design, and makes you feel like you are playing an Atari game on a PC so powerful its changed it into a PC game…. If that makes sense. It’s a sick experience and a nice score chaser. Think the only issue I have is the visuals aren’t idea for the primary target. It didn’t give me too much issue, and kinda contributed to the frantic feeling, so maybe its kind of a choice, but a questionable one. Also, if someone calls this a rhythm game, you can just ignore them. Like, maybe not forever. But man, it clearly isn’t Thumper. Its something else, and that’s cool. Its also probably why its not called Thumper 2.

Surrealist nightmare arcade game using a mouse (or trackball!) to zip around the screen destroying blue targets & avoiding red hazards set to an OST by Brian Gibson (Lightning Bolt). Hell yeah!