[PSP]echochrome Review

echochrome Review
Change your perception and make your own reality.

May 2, 2008 - Typically when you play a puzzle game, you are given an objective and perhaps a few different ways that you can accomplish this task. However, you're not frequently asked to readjust the reality of the world simply by manipulating the camera to close gaps between platforms. The same could be said about erasing pitfalls by changing a camera angle so a column appears to cover a hole. These optical illusions form the basis behind Sony's latest PSN title, echochrome, which asks players to constantly tweak, bend and change their perceptions to solve deceptive puzzles. While the choice to use optical illusions is a unique one, the decision to focus upon a simple wireframe presentation adds a surprising amount of depth to this spatial puzzle title.

echochrome hosts an extremely basic presentation: a series of platforms are suspended in "mid-air" against a backdrop of pure white. Among those platforms is a wire frame figure which continually walks along the platform its on, as well as up to four shadowy "echoes" of that figure scattered across the rest of the stage. The goal of the puzzle is to start at one point with the wire frame figure, collect all of the echoes in any order that the player chooses, and return to the starting point before time runs out. That might sound relatively basic, until you realize that most of these platforms are separated by large gaps in space, riddled with holes that can make the figure fall, and jump pads that can propel the figure away from its intended path and in a new direction.