Game Review #152: Octahedron: Transfixed Edition (Nintendo Switch)

Reviewer: Allan J.

Developer: Demimonde

Publisher: Square Enix Ltd.

Category: Vertical Platformer, Action, Puzzle

Release Date: 01.17.2019

Price (at time of review): $12.99

Buy Octahedron: Transfixed Edition from the Nintendo eShop here.

Heed the Warnings

I remember, as a kid, reading epilepsy warnings about my favorite video games and wondering why they had to put that in there. After all, most games didn’t have the graphical capabilities required to trigger any seizures—at least that was my reasoning, based on my vast eight-year-old knowledge of medical conditions. Over the years, these messages became fewer and further between with new game releases, though I’m sure it was in the fine print somewhere. Well, the first screen you encounter with Octahedron: Transfixed Edition is warning you of the potential again, and this time, there is good reason!

Thankfully, I am not prone to epileptic seizures, which is a good thing for many reasons, but for my purposes today, it means I get to play and enjoy this awesome, neon-lit, psychedelic 2-D action-platformer in all its strobing glory!

This game is trippy! Let’s talk about it…

No Thanks, I Brought My Own Platforms…

First off, Octahedron is a platformer unlike any I have experienced before. Unlike most platformers, where you have to navigate tricky jumps and gaps already set before you, with Octahedron, you have to make your own platforms! Sure, there are already some platforms on the stage to navigate, but if you want to properly traverse them, then you will need to lay down a few of your own to get to the ones that are already there.

You have a set number of platforms that you can create in a single jump, which starts out as 2 platforms, but changes depending on which stage you are playing, with some stages allowing more like 4 or 5 a pop. It takes a little getting used to, but the controls are pretty easy overall. Once airborne, you hit ZR or Y to create a platform underneath your character. This can be a bit tricky at first, but after a while it becomes almost second nature—I even kept trying to make platforms under my character in other games after playing this one for a while.

The hardest part for me was remembering to hold the ZR button before walking forward. If you hold the button and then walk, the platform will move with you across the stage until it disappears. If you forget to hold the button, you just walk off the platform, usually resulting in you falling quite a way down and having to repeat a good chunk of the level again. Thankfully, there are checkpoints in the levels, though they are usually pretty far into the level.

Audio/Visuals

The visuals of Octahedron are awesome! If you’ve ever dabbled in psychedelics before, this may look very familiar to you—so I hear anyway, because I’ve never done such a thing... anyway… so, basically, everything in this game is neon-lit, bright, colorful, and bursting with light and trails. Your character is a cross between the guy on the sign for the men’s bathroom and Pyramid Head on acid.

The enemies you encounter throughout the game bear a striking resemblance to viruses under electron microscopes; in fact, when you kill one, before they regenerate, it looks like some RNA strands are re-forming beneath them. At any rate, I wouldn’t recommend playing this game if you are under the influence of any hallucinogens, unless you want to freak yourself out, in which case have at it!

In keeping with the theme we’ve discussed, the soundtrack is EDM. I’m not a huge fan of EDM, but there’s really nothing else that would work hand-in-hand with the visuals quite as well as this. The music has a nice groove to it and keeps the energy and the mood in the right place. Overall, the whole audio/visual package is well-executed.

Coming Down…

After all is said and done, Octahedron: Transfixed Edition is a fun game that takes you on an almost-literal trip through a neon playground. I had a lot of fun with this one, and it becomes very addictive after a while. It is challenging, but not overly frustrating, and even when you have to keep replaying the stages over and over after you keep dying, it’s still got a lot of good replay value to it. If you are into crazy platforming action, maybe dabble in the party favors a bit, and are NOT epileptic, then I would definitely recommend this game to you! Go take you a trip!