Tachyon Project (PlayStation 4) Second Opinion Review

While most twin-stick shooters could be forgiven for not including a story, Tachyon Project still made the effort to give some context behind the nonstop action. Ada is a piece of software that was created by people who she calls "parents." However, upon being released into a network, her creators go missing, and Ada is forced to traverse the various other networks in order to discover the truth behind the disappearance of her creators. There is nothing ground-breaking in how the story is narrated, with cut-scenes placed in between stages, portrayed as static images with dialogue text at the bottom of the screen.

Tachyon Project is a simple twin-stick shooter that plays similarly to other titles in the genre. The left dual-stick controls the movement while the right stick controls the direction of the shooting. R1 and L1 buttons handle the secondary weapons, resulting in Ada having two different secondary weapons. Finally, she can also equip two passive abilities that are active from the moment the stage begins, without having to be linked to the press of a button.

The unique thing about Tachyon Project is that the life meter of Ada is connected to a countdown timer that is constantly ticking down to zero in each stage. When she kills the enemies and collect the orbs that they drop, she can increase the current time remaining. However, should Ada sustain damage by an enemy, then it would result in a significant amount of time being deducted from the time remaining. Should the time hit zero before Ada can complete the checkpoint, then it is akin to her dying, and, therefore, forced to try the stage again.

This contains ten stages, with each one split into six different checkpoints, which in turn has a mission or a task that is required to be completed in order to advance to the next phase of the stage. The objectives can range from defeating a set amount of enemies, to surviving endless waves for 120 seconds. While the missions are very repetitive in theory, the different variety of enemies that Ada has to face greatly changes the gameplay from stage to stage.

Tachyon Project also tries to add a new spoke on the wheel, by creating the "stealth" levels; levels in which Ada is hidden from her enemies as they roam blindly towards the light that is present on the screen. Then, there is a certain enemy, which can flush Ada out from her hiding spot and direct all the enemies on screen towards her, or she can give away her position by shooting at unaware foes. These stealth missions do change up the gameplay and force players to rethink their strategy in accomplishing tasks.

As Ada progresses through the game and completes certain challenges or tasks, she can unlock stronger weapons and abilities to assist her in the latter stages, and while the arsenal of items is not exactly large, the prerequisites required to achieve in order to unlock these weapons, provide some incentive to go back and replay sections of the game again, as some weapons are linked to earning a set amount of points on a specific stage.

While the early stages ease Ada into the action with a quick and concise tutorial, it is not too long before the game significantly ramps up in difficulty without warning. Rather than get progressively tougher, it quickly goes up a couple of gears, and Ada must adapt quickly in order to survive latter stages. The stages in the back half of the whole deal are only made additionally tougher because enemies can spawn on the exact same spot that Ada is on, resulting in her sustaining damage and possibly dying. The problem with this is that Ada can then die at no fault of her own, but rather due to the unluckiness of the spawn points generated for the enemies.

This also features a New Game+ and challenge modes, which can be used to extend the life cycle of the title, and generate a further incentive to continue playing the game. The scoreboards are in play throughout the game, and thus fun can be had from trying to get the highest score possible, while the challenge mode allows up to four players to play together.