Platypus Reclayed Review

Platypus Reclayed is a bullet hell shooter with both a sense of humor and a sense of style. As alluded to in the title, the game’s world is entirely made of clay. And I mean entirely. The game world, the ships, the bullets – even the exhaust plumes left behind the ships and missiles – are rendered in clay. At times you’ll feel like you’re watching something out of Aardman Studios rather than playing a game, but the animation in the game is smoother than anything you’ve seen on screen from a Claymation studio.

The gameplay follows the classic formula for bullet hell side-scrollers. The world scrolls by from right to left as enemies enter the screen from both sides. Ships of varying sizes weave different flight patterns as they drop copious amounts of bullets behind. Success depends on how well you can balance weaving your ship through the bullet field while lining up enemies in your sights. While some bullet hell games can be really difficult and require really quick reflexes, Platypus Reclayed is more approachable for average gamers, and you can even turn down the default difficulty if you’re new to these types of games and are just getting your feet wet in the genre.

The game has fun with its clay-sculpted ships and environments, but its sense of humor doesn’t end there. Like other games in the genre, plenty of power-ups will float through the battlefield, and if you fly through them you will get a new weapon type or bullet pattern. While Platypus Reclayed will arm you with various energy bullets and missiles, you could just as easily find yourself fending off enemies with fish, cheese wedges, or hot dogs. These projectiles are still deadly to enemies, and, in fact, some of the enemies have a particular vulnerability to some of these weapons. You’ll probably find yourself having a few favorites, although I did find a few weapons that just didn’t seem to work as well for me (like the boxing glove) and that had me focusing more on finding a replacement power-up than on clearing enemies.

You may think that the effort required to model everything from clay would naturally limit the variety of enemies and levels you’ll face while playing the game. However, that’s not the case in Playpus Reclayed. Each of the game’s zones is unique and features their own enemies and challenges. There are also twists on gameplay in store for you that take you outside of the normal bullet hell experience, such as a sequence in which you need to maneuver your way through a swarm of balloons that dangle mines from ropes.

Unless you really don’t like side-scrolling, bullet hell shooters, it’s easy enough to recommend Platypus Reclayed. It’s not the kind of shooter that’s going to test the skills of hardcore players, but with the adjustable difficulty it will provide a fun challenge to most gamers. And, honestly, it’s just a lot of fun in and of itself to be a part of such a creative Claymation experience.