Element Space (PS4) Review
Release Date: March 24, 2020
Publisher/Developer: Sixth Vowel/Inca Games
Platform: PlayStation 4 (Reviewed), Steam, Xbox One
Price: $24.99
While XCOM has written the book on this particular genre of squad based tactical RPG/cover shooter, many others have tried to make their own unique niche. Personally, my family got hooked on Mario+Rabbids: Kingdom Battle. Element Space attempts to carve it’s own niche with some tweaks to the traditional formula, adding the depth and choice with weighted decisions of a Mass Effect game.
As Captain Pietham, players are investigating a terrorist cell out to destroy the delicate balance of peace in the galaxy. Pietham himself is framed for these terrorist acts, and the nonlinear story plays out as you navigate seven different factions to recruit eight different companions, each with their own unique stories and skill trees. Combine 32 different weapons across 24 different levels with a dynamic story with several different endings based on your moral choices and who you choose to befriend, and each playthrough can lead to a different experience and ending.
After you prepare your crew and choose your mission, you are dropped into battle. There is a mild bit of exploring between confrontations as you cruise around the environment looking for the next set of baddies to kill. Once engaged, it’s a cover-based strategy shooter where you take your carefully crafted team into an environment with fully destructible cover that hampers camping and several benefits to melee attacks that ramps up the desire to get face-to-face with the enemy, with certain characters easily tailored to melee attacks.
Most tactical games like this suffer in the control department, and unfortunately Element Space has yet to crack that shell. You aren’t controlling a person so much as a cursor, clicking your way through the exploration bits and dealing with a clunky camera rotation that would occasionally cause my angles to not work right. Careful alignment helps, but in the heat of battle I would occasionally set my sights sideways because I dropped the analog stick a second too early or such. In particular, all the “landing points” around an obstacle for cover look like little Google Maps dots, and at times I couldn’t select the precise one I wanted without fiddling the camera around, something a mouse pointer would have a lot less difficulty with. There were even places where a cutscene happened and my cursor sat on screen.
The gameplay shines through the difficulty though, with satisfying bits like setting an Overwatch to catch an enemy that likes to dash back and forth across the map to get away from you, sniping them on the passthrough. There are some corners cut on presentation, with simple character models that don’t move their lips during conversations and have repetitive animations. It’s more forgiving than a traditional XCOM game though, as teammates can be revived after a battle (though they remain wounded until properly healed).
Element Space offers a nice variety to fans of turn based tactical games. The story branches mean several playthroughs before you see all the game has to offer. If you can get past the serviceable gamepad control scheme, Element Space can be a lot of fun, but you might find more satisfaction picking this one up over on Steam.
Pros:
-Mass Effect morality choices crossed with XCOM gameplay
-Satisfying strategy during battles
-Branching story that allows multiple playthroughs
-Excellent voice acting
-Ranged weapons plus efficient melee attacks make for a very dynamic battlefield
Cons:
-Controller can slip in ways that a mouse wouldn’t
-Corners cut in visual presentation with simpler characters with static faces
Special thanks to Sixth Vowel and Inca Games for providing a code for review!