What if Peggle was an arcade action title from the 80’s or 90’s? That is the question POROTO poses and answers with a tightly woven selection of interesting game mechanics and level designs. It is an unusual mash up of ideas that plays unlike most things I’ve played before and it is all the better for it. Leave it to the smaller game developers to continue to try out new ideas!
POROTO sees you play as astronaut jumping around some floaty, reduced gravity single screen levels. You are able to jump and shoot your gun which sends out a ball in an arc. There are no enemies in POROTO but each level is full of white and red pegs and to complete a level you need to hit and remove each red peg. To do this you’ll need to jump and climb around the level to work out how best to make use of your limited ammo and this is where the arcade platforming elements come into play. Not only is each level structured with lots of ledges to jump onto, a lot of the platforms either move around or tilt depending on the weight of what’s on it. There are warp holes to fly between different parts of the level and plenty of breakable walls too. It is like being trapped inside a giant space pachinko machine and you need to climb around it to shoot and hit the red pegs.
Initially, you are only given 5 shots to do your best and for most levels this isn’t enough. There is one way to gain another 15 shots in each level though and this involves collecting three tokens named PO, RO and TO. They’ll be spread around the level and it means each level has a puzzle element to it – especially later in the game – as often the tokens will be behind breakable walls or in tricky to get to corners. It is not hard to get the tokens but if you go in mindlessly, you will lose the level. Once you’ve got the 15 tokens, you can still fail levels by not thinking about how the level is structured and where to fire your shots. Balls will bounce off bounce pads, fly through warp holes and fall out of the level. It is up to you to use your body to ricochet the ball back into play. Of course, you can just fire off multiple balls at once and that can be satisfying to do, if a bit cavalier. Save going crazy for the power up which gives you 1,000 balls so you can fire at will and watch the light show unfold as all the pegs pop.
POROTO is a short game and you’ll see most of its base content in two hours but that’s because the progression bar to get to the next level is low. Each level has three additional challenges that offer a much tougher game to play if you are a completionist. Levels are varied and no two designs feel the same. It is a real strength of POROTO’s game design and I found myself replaying levels happily to get additional challenge badges because the levels are so varied. Power ups the spawn at random help add a bit of chaos in too but giving you more powerful guns, more speed or a bigger jump. I’d also like to highlight that each of the four areas has its own boss to conquer and they are all unique too. The boss at the end of area 3 is a particular stand out because it turns the game into an endless runner platformer whilst still firing all your balls at the boss. It adds variety but still feels connected to the overarching game.
Whilst I applaud all the game design elements, I did find that when POROTO demanded platforming finesse, the controls or physics didn’t always support the player to do that. The movement and jump is floaty and woolly and for most of the game that doesn’t matter too much. It did cause me a few boss deaths though when platforming is much more important. This is a minor niggle though and it didn’t dampen my spirits for long.
So who would have thought Peggle as an arcade action title would work so well? In many ways it feels like a cousin of the Pang series. POROTO requires some platforming skill but its mostly about control and judgement of when to shoot your weapon and not waste your precious ammo and be left overwhelmed with balls to keep in play or pegs to bash. It is a unique hybrid of ideas and I’m delighted it exists. This is good arcade fun for breezy players and time trial fans.
Review copy provided by developer. POROTO is out on Steam on August 25th.
Higher Plain Games is part of the Higher Plain Network. If you like what I do, please consider supporting me via Patreon for as little as $1/£1 a month. There are additional perks for supporting me, such as behind-the-scenes content and downloads. You can also share the website or use the affiliate buy now links on reviews. Buying credit from CD Keys using my affiliate link means I get a couple of pence per sale. All your support will enable me to produce better content, more often. Thank you.
