Is this a Portal killer?
Relicta is a first-person puzzle game whose main mechanics combine magnetism and gravity. The player is equipped with a pair of special gloves that allow them to change the magnetic and gravitational properties of experimental cubes scattered around each level.
Relicta feels like a mixture of Portal, QUBE and The Turing Test, all of which are great games in their own right. But can it carve out its own identity? Let’s take a look.
First of all, can I say that the story is great and while it later takes a bit of a backseat with the puzzle-solving, it’s still a great tale and worthy of the journey alone. The gameplay itself has you mostly using your gloves to pick up cubes and place them to solve puzzles, but things can get in the way like barriers, which can be fixed through teleporters or using other cubes to power down the barrier. You can also use magnetic and gravitational abilities on the cubes to get them either down from higher up locations to moving them to where you need them to be.
It’s tricky trying to work out the latter types of puzzles at first, but it becomes second nature after you solve a few. That being said, it’s no walk in the park and can be very taxing for the old grey matter unless you cheat by looking up the solution online.
Relicta is only made by a small team so it’s surprising to see just how impressive it looks, you would honestly think a big team has made a game that looks this visually stunning. It runs at a solid framerate as well, with great voice-acting and a decent soundtrack to boot.
The Verdict
Relicta is a challenging and rewarding puzzle game that has a great story. It won’t beat the likes of Portal but more than challenges the QUBE games and is definitely better than The Turing Test, so it’s definitely worth a look.