Murasaki Baby: PS Vita Review

Murasaki Baby: PS Vita Review

Platform: PlayStation Vita.

Hallowe'en comes a little early in this latest release, as the PlayStation Vita gets its latest all for the Vita game with Murasaki Baby

In fact it looks like Tim Burton had dabbled in the video-gaming world with this short run piece. (An opinion which has been echoed by so many who've played this Gothic styled game)

This occasionally twisted and nightmarish side-scroller takes the touchpoint reasons the VITA exists and moulds them to be the main reason for the game and its gameplay.

Taking control of an adorable little baby that has teeth on her head and her eyes near where her mouth would be, you get to guide her through a series of scenarios that she stumbles on after waking in the middle of the night and getting lost trying to find her mother. Clutching a heart-shaped balloon and blundering off into the dark, Baby's soon got her own concerns as the worlds around her proffer up all manner of scares and obstacles.

Thing is though, nobody puts this baby in the corner (sorry), thanks to the swipe controls and OLED touchscreens which are used, you're able to guide Baby around using the front facing screen, helping her to jump away from the boogeyman and various obstacles which soon confront her. Sinister is the key here as you progress through the game and the backgrounds change to be progressively darker and more moody.

But the backgrounds also hold the key to solving some of the mysteries of Murasaki Baby - bringing on rain can remove the threat of fire from Baby's path or using the wind to help propel her across an ocean - it's a really clever touch that takes a couple of moments for you to think laterally about how to solve the puzzles.

Cute is also the order of the day - you bond instantly with Baby as it plays on the nightmares of abandonment and horrors of things lurking under the bed from your formative years, as well as making everyone who plays this an instant parent.

Murasaki Baby is an essential buy if you're a PS Vita owner - its use and command of all the touch screen capabilities and the deep rich emotional and primal moods it taps into are a superb showcase of what a PS Vita title only should be doing.

Here's hoping there'll be some DLC for this fiendishly attractive and devilishly cute game.

Rating: