Ultracore Review (Switch, PS4, PSVita)

At first glance Ultracore looks like an extremely faithful Sega Genesis homage, right down to the sound board and music. And while there does seem to be a never-ending font of retro indie games styles exactly like this the actual origin of this title is far more interesting. 25 years ago when the great founders of the industry were waging The Console Wars,  DICE (Then Digital Illusions) was nearly finished with an end-of-era 2D omni-directional shooter (then titled Hardcore) that was destined to be an instant classic. Structured like Metroid but played like Terminator, Ultracore was constant action in maze-like levels with weapon upgrades but also laced with instant death traps and pinpoint accurate platforming. Quoted to have been 99% finished publisher Psygnosis, famous for the WipeOut and Lemmings series and countless others, pulled the plug on this rising star. 

Thanks to a small crew of DICE employees and co-founders and publisher Strictly Limited Games the now-titled Ultracore is finally released. Reverse engineered with an actual Genesis dev kit this version is truly like jumping into a time machine. Incredibly the creators must have had a time machine themselves because there are some really advanced ideas within Ultracore. Physics based bouncy pads, interactive computer terminals with keypad entry, and as we stated before there are hordes of enemies. Attacking from every angle the enemies all have unique attack patterns that explode with smoke and debris and send pixels all over the screen. It really seems like too much for a Genesis to handle. However, games at the end of a consoles life-cycle always seem to do the impossible. 

Ultracore is nestled between two interesting positions: A classic game nobody has heard of and nobody is anticipating and a new release that looks like a retro shooter-platformer with a long campaign and plenty of challenge. Only the hardest of the hardcore who can rattle off Psygnosis games or have a complete Genesis collection have probably heard of this, while the rest of this are learning this super cool and probably a little sad story twenty-five years after the fact. Regardless, the timing for this release is seemingly perfectly timed. In the middle of a U.S. pandemic when game sales are soaring and peoples retro appetites are still yet unsatiated.

One word of caution: This is a 25 year-old-game. The high-end animation we’ve come to appreciate with titles like Blasphemous and Dead Cells is absent here. Thanks to the deep-fried-like Sega sound bank the sounds and music tread on grating with hard-edged synthesizers and extra crunchy explosions bordering on white-noise. The graphics are simple and the cutscenes rendered pretty poorly with questionable character design and anatomy. Though, under the nostalgia lens, the game kicks a lot of ass and will probably challenge any seasoned player. We’d love to see this game make its way into the speedrun and charity marathon scene. 

Luckily, what you see is what you get. If the trailer tickles you, you’re in for a quality treat.

~Benjamin Sawyer
@sketchsawyer