Many years have passed since Atari dominated the video game market, it was a character benchmark, being one of the pioneers in 1980. Today, after-sales, bankruptcies, paradigm shifts and many years off stage, Atari returns with a new title faithful to its style, an arcade game.
Kombinera reaches the hands of Graphite Lab, a development studio with very little experience in the industry and which will carry the great stone of the beginning of the rebirth of a giant. Everything seems to indicate that the path has already been traced, since Atari announced some time ago that it would try to release games more frequentlyKombinera being the first games to come in the coming months.
Well, Combiner You can now play it from virtually any platformso there is no excuse to try this interesting job that will make you think and rage like a circle never did in your life.
Kombinera is a basic game in absolutely all its technical section, graphically, it does not represent a revolution or some kind of differentiator that distinguishes it from any free flash game. It stands out above all for its colorful apex, this because a standard color palette is enough so that the main principle of the video game is not hindered. Still, at higher levels, the monotony and loss of new mechanics will make the experience a bit dull.
The game ends by finding its charm in a dark background as if it were space; with very simple graphics, making each element understandable without the need to develop a complex visual style.
The sound section turns out to be more or less the same, something quite simple. We are not talking about a game that necessarily contains many sound effects, only those necessary to designate the most relevant actions, such as matching circles or dying. There is only one song in the whole game., accompanying us and completing the monotony of the visual scene. Certainly nothing remarkable.
Without a doubt, where the video game shines is in its playability, being the key factor in becoming addicted, ignoring all its possible flaws. If you like games platforms and puzzles, Kombinera is for you. The principle is simple, we personify several circles that all move at the same time, the objective is to bring together all the circles so that only one remains. With this idea in mind, the game puts us in various situations where the platform and our ingenuity must solve the situation.
In this way, we will advance through each of the more than 300 levels that Kombinera has, discovering new ways to play and increasingly complex challenges. The game has a brief introductory story, where apparently we lose all our skills, which are 4 and are assigned by color, being: yellow (breaking barriers), green (projectile immunity), pink (spike immunity), and blue (blue pillar immunity).
Continuing with the colors, I can say that it is the most striking mechanism of Kombinera, transforming the game into a constant search for paths and options on the same screen. Unfortunately, everything is not perfect, and it is that a point is reached where we already have all the skills, so the game does not take advantage of its possibilities and becomes monotonous.
On the other hand, there is the platform system. In addition to thinking about the right path and the combination of situations, the game challenges us to execute precise and fast jumps. There are two types of jumps, a long and a shortbeing the only control besides movement. Therein lies my biggest objection to Kombinera.because the controls aren’t very responsive, so the experience becomes frustrating when you don’t jump and, on top of that, you don’t know if you’re solving the level correctly.
The experience is marred by small nuances of chance and skill, being a circle that jumps from the spikes, collisions don’t help the experience. It happened to me that because of the jump, which did not go well, I died dozens of times after having already solved the riddle of the level.
I don’t think duration is something measurable in Kombinera, because it’s a game of skill and thinking, so some players will finish it earlier than others. The number of levels is a good point in favor of this title, given that it can take you more than ten hours to pass all the levels. In my experience, some levels cost me more than 20 minutes to solve, others, at least, some 100 attempts due to its difficulty on the platforms. If we add to all this that there are collectibles that unlock another section with secret levels, we could speak of a fairly extensive game for its genre.
If you dare, you’ll rack your brains for hours to finish it.
Kombinera turned out to be a pleasant surprise for me, although at first I assumed it was just a filler flash game with empty and simple gameplay. If you like puzzle or platform games, with a retro aesthetic and without worrying about being at the cutting edge of technology, Kombinera is for you. It’s a title for a more unbridled audience, without stories or competition; It’s perfect for playing when you don’t want to spend hours in multiplayer or immerse yourself in complex story campaigns.
Without a doubt, it is a game that is worth always having installed on your console, it is a highly recommended experience. Do not hesitate to try.
