Entwined Reviews
It's a fun little game with some gorgeous visual and musical style, but it fails to evoke the emotional core that similar games like Journey and Flower were able to. The challenging gameplay and the musical score may be enough for some players, but those in search of more depth will need to look elsewhere.
While its skin-deep qualities suggest something artistic and maybe a little philosophical, this middling arcade game packs not enough wallop to be worth more than a bit of a shrug. While not awful, it's certainly not intriguing enough to maintain interest even in spite of a brief running time.
Entwined has a running time of an hour, yet barely sustains interest for that long. There's a good idea at the core of this wannabe indie darling and the "apart" stages can be fairly engrossing the first time around, but unfortunately the substance is just as minimalist as the style. Worth checking out in a sale or on PS Plus, but probably one to skip at £6.49.
Too simple to be satisfying, and not thematically deep enough to be interesting
Pixelopus has nailed the audio and visual aspects of poetic game making. Now they just need to work on what players do...and what it all means.
So, if you really love this type of game (tunnel/artistic), you may enjoy Entwined. But I ended up hating the mechanics, and that ruined the experience for me. The emotions didn't come through, and the colorful visuals didn't make up for it. I've played much better, simple, artistic games than this. The cinematic trailer and the actual game don't quite match each other. It feels more like a game demo meant to showcase the PS4 and Sony's support of indie developers. There are good aspects to Entwined, but being a frustrating, arcadey, tunnel game completely overshadowed any kind of art and emotion I was meant to feel, and that was the biggest let down of all.
It's a shame that poor execution lets Entwined down so badly. The themes being explored here have the potential to be touching and are, unquestionably, underrepresented in videogames. Hopefully PixelOpus can learn from its mistakes and deliver something next time that better blends its interactive elements with these themes.
At only two hours in length, Entwined could have been a short but sweet action rhythm game, but a number of small issues add up to big problems.
Entwined is just far more satisfying to look at or listen to than it is to actually play.
But a small handful of highlights is not enough to save Entwined. It's a game that strains for profundity and meaning - that's particularly evident in its Trophy titles - but finds them ever beyond its grasp. Some will be soothed by its contemplative mood, others will relish the challenge of mastering those devious patterns, but to me the two felt like an awkward mismatch. Sony might have given Entwined a gentle shove into the spotlight, but there are surely better, more deserving PS4 indies waiting in the wings for their time to shine.
Entwined spins a single passable mechanic into an overlong (but still quite short) experience with absolutely none of the emotional heft or art-game cred it feigns having.