Review toddler 3/5 · Jan 3, 2021
A Unique Twin-Stick Challenge
Semispheres is a quirky little curiosity I would happily recommend to fans of puzzle games. In Semispheres, you control two jellyfish-type entities and must guide them through 60-odd single-room puzzles by getting past obstacles and sentries to reach the end goal. Each entity is controlled by one of your analogue sticks. The only other buttons used are R1 & L1 …
Semispheres is a quirky little curiosity I would happily recommend to fans of puzzle games. In Semispheres, you control two jellyfish-type entities and must guide them through 60-odd single-room puzzles by getting past obstacles and sentries to reach the end goal. Each entity is controlled by one of your analogue sticks. The only other buttons used are R1 & L1 controlling actions that draw sentries’ attention, create portals or connecting lines.
What makes Semispheres unique is in the need to control the two entities simultaneously, each with one of the analogue sticks. The entities are on separate halves of the screen and both must reach the end goal to complete the level. Most rooms can be completed moving one at a time, planning your movements carefully. A handful, however require pre-planning of movements and button presses just to wrap your head (and fingers) around controlling two things moving in different directions while being able to only truly focus on one. It is a unique type of challenge where knowing what your fingers should be doing and what they actually do are not one and the same.
Puzzle games can very easily become frustrating: being defeated and feeling stupid is inherently unpleasant, but so is being pandered to, feeling patronized by a lack of challenge. Semispheres perfectly skirts the thin blue line in the middle for its duration. There is a mild increase in difficulty in the final couple of ‘worlds’, but nothing that took more than 5 minutes of thought or, sometimes, trial and error.
This is largely due to the game being structured as one big tutorial. Each new mechanic is introduced in a room using it in isolation, before being brought together with previously learnt mechanics in subsequent rooms. No solution appears out of thin air, but rather comes from combining techniques learnt earlier on.
Visually, Semispheres is exactly what it should be: a glossy, neon look like something from a Pink Floyd album. The music is quiet and calming, helping to ease tension if you’re struggling with any particular level. It looks and sounds nice, simple as that.
So, with all this positivity, why only 3 stars? Well, for one, this was all over in comfortably less than 2 hours. Now, I stand by the fact that a game should only be as long as it needs to be, but I can’t help feeling there is more potential here. There is certainly room within these mechanics for more than 60 levels. On the other side, I also found my attention drifting even within that 2 hours, hardly ideal for a ‘meditative experience’. Semispheres as a puzzler seems structurally perfect for the mobile market, the question is whether the unique right-left mechanic would translate as well.
In truth, I probably admire Semispheres more than I really love it. I admire the creativity in aesthetics, I admire the uniqueness of gameplay and I admire the effort and overall polish. I just would probably only recommend it as something to play for 10 or 20 minutes at a time, do otherwise and it’s all gone too soon.
