Skully: PS4 Review

Developed by Modus Games, Finish Line Games

Platform: PS4

For those gamers of a certain age, the words Marble Madness will strike fear into hearts and cause basic RSI flashbacks.

Having to roll a ball around a series of vertiginous alleyways and being prone to gravity, the arcade game was a massively frustrating and thrilling experience from the 1980s.

The moment Skully begins, there are echoes of Marble Madness 

Mixed bizarrely with the golem properties of Knack, Skully is a curious platformer that's crippled by its camera, but soars when the rolling gameplay comes together.

On a mysterious remote island, a skull washes up on shore and is reawakened by an enigmatic deity. 

Dubbed Skully, the newly reanimated being has been summoned to intervene in a war between the deity's three siblings, whose quarrel jeopardizes the island they call home.

It's a simple enough story, and Skully delivers it quite well in terms of the basics, as you roll through rather linear levels.

However, as the camera occasionally impedes your view, the rolling can be limited to where you can barely see where you're going to go next. And given some respawn points are quite few and far in 

between, the frustration levels are likely to rise substantially if death comes and it's not your fault.

But the whirling camera can be used to your advantage.

As you roll your skull around curved areas, the camera can be whirled around so you never once lose your line of sight - it's dizzying stuff when it works.

Equally, the idea of turning Skully into a golem monster via clay pits is nicely done too - the fluid gameplay of the clay creatures means that any gamers of any level can pick up and play.

However, given some of the leaping around is extremely hard to do, precision timing is needed and the gameplay is from time to time punishing, it's possible younger minds may not have the staying power to see the game through. But the response time of the controls is impressive and rolling feels fluid enough.

Which presents somewhat of a quandary for Skully - older players may feel the game's somewhat archaic mechanics aren't enough for what they need.

All in all Skully's a fairly pleasant way to pass a few afternoons - long term, the seeds of something brilliant are here, but they've yet to fully germinate. But there's enough of a premise and a twist to keep even the most jaded of gamers engaged.