Review: Eufloria HD Vita

Posted by Ben on December 12th, 2013 | 0 Comments | Tags: Eufloria HD

Of course touch controls were going to add something wonderfully tactile to Eufloria. The feeling of being able to reach into a pre-existing world and mold the inhabitants to your will certainly adds something to Eufloria. I understand how ill defined that sentence feels, but it’s not quite something that can be put in to words. Suffice to say, playing Eufloria on the Vita feels like a natural evolution of the game’s mechanics. Dragging lines from one asteroid to the next allows you to order units around with ease, and the game’s visuals are of course perfectly suited to that luscious screen.

The elegant simplicity of the PS3 version is still here, with the gathering and shuttling of units between asteroids playing a large part in your strategy. Setting the game to 3X speed and watching my forces amass was fulfilling every time it happened, if a little bit of an easy strategy. When an opponent has 20 units and I swarm in with 300, that’s hardly a fair fight. Either way, the game doesn’t feel any different from how it was on PS3. Everything from that version is still here, from Dark Matter mode… to the ability to unlock everything in the game from a simple menu press. Gosh, why haven’t more developers included something like that, I love being able to try out everything in one fell swoop.

The visuals and sound haven’t taken a hit in the portable transition either, in fact I’m fairly sure the game runs a damn sight smoother than the PS3 version did. Omni Labs have touted a supposed 6o frames per second on the Vita, and I almost certainly believe them. Everything moves along at such a ferocious pace that you really need to focus a little more now, lest ye be overwhelmed. The terror of uncovering an inhabited asteroid is still present, and you’re going to have to react quickly in order to avoid losing one of your own bases. Fast? Yes. But also extremely rewarding when you get it right.

If Eufloria HD was a moment where I realized that Strategy games could work flawlessly on a console, then the Vita version is a similar moment in my eyes. The touch controls do a great job of keeping up even in the more hectic moments, and a quick zoom in allows you to handle some of the more precise instructions that frustrated me from time to time. It’s a beautiful version of an already stellar game, and I think I’m finally ready for Adventures to see the light of day. I want to see this world fleshed out more, the brief glimpses of narrative you get in this game have started to become less interesting as time goes on.

A copy of this game was provided by the publisher for review purposes. For more info on our review policy click here.