DEXED (PS4)
When a game is created with multiple different modes of play, choosing which one to emphasize can greatly impact the way players remember your game. Their dominant opinion on the title will likely come from the mode put forward as the main one, so even when there’s something more enjoyable in the side content, they may never give the game a chance after seeing what should be the best part of the experience. Unfortunately, DEXED seems to have fallen into this trap, putting forth its weaker mode simply because its the one with greater longevity.
DEXED is a virtual reality shooting game, so at least it’s already got a few things going for it. The PlayStation Move controllers make for extremely precise one to one aiming, but rather than completely relying on the player’s ability to point at the right area to land a shot, DEXED takes an interesting approach to its shooting mechanics. Your two PlayStation Move controllers here each control an element, one firing ice shots and the other launching fire bursts, but neither one is fired freely. Instead, holding down the trigger on a controller allows you to lock onto enemies and fire your magic blasts at whatever foes are flying by. The shots home in surprisingly well, only failing to reach their targets if the environment blocks them and even seeming to weave around enemies you weren’t trying to shoot, this being a crucial detail because you can’t just shoot every enemy you see without a thought. DEXED’s big gimmick is your two magical weapons must be used to fire at their opposite. The enemies and targets you shoot at must be handled with the proper gun, the fireballs meant to handle the icy white and blue enemies while you need to put the freeze on any red or orange things you come across as the game moves you around automatically. Enemies appear in cluster or waves where you can’t just point a gun at them all, since you’ll lock on with the wrong shot and mess yourself up.
While points are always the reward for shooting the right enemies with the right guns, especially when you build up a combo of successfully assigned shots in a row, shooting an enemy with the wrong gun can have consequences. Depending on the difficulty, you might have an enemy fire back at you with their element, the player needing to raise a barrier to block it and wasting precious time they should be using to shoot down incoming enemies. If they do hit, a fire attack can burn through your score while an ice shot will lock it in place for a bit, preventing you from getting any more points until it thaws. These are the basics across the games two modes: Arcade and Challenge, and the sad truth is that everything works better in the much shorter Challenge mode, primarily because of a simple case of superior contextualization.
The Challenge portion of the game is segmented into five levels, each of these bringing a new visual theme with them. As you move forward automatically, you’ll be taken through a lovely underwater coral reef, a lava-spitting volcanic cave, a winter wonderland with massive snowmen, and a forested area, the final stage a boss battle with an octopus who must be hit with both fire and ice attacks. The VR definitely encourages you to look around and breathe in these detailed environments, giving you something nice to look at before the flying elemental skulls appear and the colored growths pop out of the environment waiting to be shot. Most of the time you will only have these two enemy types to shoot at, the need to match colors keeping it decently entertaining, but some stages like the ocean level will feature something like a whale covered in colored barnacles to shoot at for a change of pace, although the boss octopus is almost too simple to get excited about since its too easy to figure out where to aim and a bit slow. These levels mix in the spectacle of a tour through a detailed virtual reality environment with the simple thrill of the game’s elemental shooting system, and if Arcade mode had just linked them together endlessly with random enemy spawns, DEXED would be an enjoyable experience. Sadly, while they are fun for a trip or two, with set spawns and only difficulty options to change things up, the levels prevent this mode from really reaching its potential.
Had more development gone into more Challenge levels, then DEXED could have made more of them or added reasons to replay them beyond learning enemy locations for high scores. Instead though, DEXED bills these as preparation for the game’s Arcade mode, and sadly, the visual splendor on show in the themed levels is completely gone for this mode’s pure reflex challenge. You are given some new abilities in that you can use an explosive blast to clear the screen or a freeze blast to keep everything in place for easy lock-ons, and there is even a new bomb enemy that must be first frozen before you destroy it with fire.
However, these don’t make up for how sterile and bland the arena Arcade mode takes place in feels. Gone are vivid colors and sights you’ll want to turn your head to watch move by. Instead, you sit in place and stare at a wall of giant polka-dots, the ones that are about to spawn enemies flashing before they release a stream of the colored skulls. This is where the game definitely gets the hardest as it throws the most enemies at you, but it’s essentially a batting cage. A batting cage can be made harder with a fast pitching machine, but it doesn’t compete with the thrills of a real game scenario, and here, Challenge mode feels like the baseball game despite it being billed as the batting cage for Arcade. Arcade may be more hectic and challenging but it feels lifeless comparatively, difficulty achieved by doing the same things more rather than finding new ways to push the player.
Shooting for a high score in DEXED’s Arcade can feel like a drag because it’s so drab and slow to reach the hard parts. It ends when too many enemies escape the screen or you get hit with too many blasts from skulls you used the wrong shot type on, but the pace makes it hard to get invested and by the time things ramp up, it’s tempting to just go play through the Challenge stages on the hardest difficulty if you need a hard shooting gallery that can keep you visually stimulated as it eases you into the difficulty. The shooting mechanics are actually quite good, the need to carefully spot foes before doing your lock-ons making it just involved enough to feel similar to the old kind of score-chasing games for older game systems like the Atari, but almost every level in Challenge mode feels like it’s getting cut short, another hit to the title caused because they likely had to fine tune the Arcade mode instead with the development time. Neither mode is truly bad, but DEXED is a S’more with too much graham cracker and not enough marshmallow. The sweet tasty part ends too soon and you’re left with the more serviceable base that was given too much emphasis.
THE VERDICT: DEXED has the potential to be good, and its shooting system is right where it needs to be to support that possibility. Swapping which element type you’re using means you’re thinking about your shots and how you set them up, with the score system rewarding being fast and precise. The problem comes in the canvas for this shooting system. The Challenge levels are beautiful themed landscapes you float through and shoot down enemies, but they wrap up too soon, leaving you then with just the simplistic design of the Arcade mode that feels too utilitarian to excite. The shooting mechanics instead need to buoy the fact the two gameplay modes aren’t where they should be, the exciting and varied Challenge mode ending too quickly and the Arcade mode boiling things down to the bare bones for the sake of a longer and harder mode. DEXED can still be enjoyed, but sadly, not for as long as it could have been with more time and love in the proper places.
And so, I give DEXED for PlayStation 4…
An OKAY rating. There are simpler games that are better just because they focused one one simple but repeatable style of play, and even if DEXED hadn’t altered too much about it’s design, picking either Arcade mode or Challenge as the focus would have likely benefited the development. Moving through the environments is oddly relaxing as you swing your controller around to tag the right enemies and see the shots fly off to do their job, but then Arcade mode can be frenetic as the world around you is barren save for the dots spitting out a flood of skulls. Neither is a bad approach by definition, and the concepts behind the shooting mean that they aren’t boring, just neither is really realized enough to warrant shooting for the top scores. The levels have environments that are an enjoyable tour on the first trip, but more than just difficulties would be needed to make these short stages really shine. The Arcade mode, meanwhile, just does the bare minimum to make for a challenging shooting gallery. Challenge definitely feels like it has the most potential if things were constantly changing or there was just more to see, but Arcade is not a lost cause because it could have mixed in new enemies or clever arrangements to push your ability to tag and shoot enemies effectively.
DEXED has trotted out all it has to offer before it really feels like either mode got going well enough to carry the experience. The shooting style is a good fit for a PSVR rail shooter and a high score focused title, but by the time it’s pulled you in with its design, you’ve run out of interesting activities. Game length can hurt a title if it never gets the ball rolling, and DEXED just starts getting that ball rolling when it reveals it has nothing new left to share. Everything works right and is enjoyable enough, but returning to the baseball comparisons of earlier, DEXED wraps up at the sixth inning. You can enjoy everything right up until then, but leaving early means you’re missing what could be the best moments of the experience if only things had kept going.