Developer: Majorariatto
Publisher: Majorariatto
Platform: PC, iOS/Android
Tested on: Pc
Pureya – Review
While not technically considered a genre, Arcade games have been around since the inception of the medium. Games fitting under this umbrella can usually be played in short bursts of high activity, generally as minigames or with a focus on achieving high scores. As one of such titles, here is what Pureya has to offer.
Story
Pureya’s story is, as expected, a simple set-up for the game instead of an actual narrative. Told through a single cutscene, it is revealed Pureya revolves around a little girl playing with a gacha machine powered by marbles. Upon running out of marbles in the bowl she was keeping them in, the girl goes to grab a secondary one filled to the brim with more, but accidentally drops it and spills the marbles all over the room. With the marbles scattered throughout her toys, the girl becomes distracted and her imagination starts to run wild as she plays with said toys while collecting the marbles.
Graphics
The game’s graphics are made by a delightful pixel-art style filled to the brim with vibrant colors and imagination. Each of the different minigames features its own unique setting, widely ranging from things such as deserts to pirate ships or space. By playing simply the game, players will also unlock cosmetics in the gacha machine, changing the appearance of the toys in their respective minigames.
Sound
Pureya’s soundtrack is comprised of a large group of different high-quality songs. Similar to the cosmetics mentioned in the graphics section, more songs will be unlocked as players progress through the game, playing at random between the minigames. While this system adds a good amount of variation to the music, it also means the music may end up being completely wrong for the style of the current game. Luckily, players can disable tracks as they see fit, choosing to play as many or as few as they want.
Gameplay
As already mentioned, Pureya is a compilation of action arcade minigames, where players will have to collect as many marbles as possible to unlock more content. The game’s standard mode consists of a succession of 10 minigames selected randomly from the player’s unlocked ones, lasting 10 seconds each and varying in style and gameplay while remaining similar.
While the minigames are generally varied, the main mechanic in most of them simply consists of dodging different obstacles or hazards by moving the player’s character. More often than not, the changes to the minigames will be the controls, with some featuring floaty controls, a single button to move, etc. To top it all off, precision does play a large part in most minigames, requiring sharp reactions in order to stay alive.
Even though Pureya may appear simple, it doesn’t mean there aren’t difficulty or skill requirements to its minigames. This is especially proved true by one particular mechanic the game provides, through which the game will increase or decrease its speed based on how well the player fares. The faster the game is, the larger the number of marbles to obtain will become, thus incentivizing playing at high speeds and improving one’s skill level.
Besides the standard 10-minigames-at-once mode, Pureya also features an infinite mode, where players will be able to accrue more and more marbles without being interrupted by the unlocking system or pausing. While being a minimal change, this additional mode provides the ability for players to just “get in the zone” and keep on going for as long as they wish. Additionally, in a similar fashion to the song disabling system, players will be able to pick which games they wish to play and just blacklist those they don’t.
Conclusion
Pureya is a very entertaining game to play in short bursts in order to kill some time. While not offering anything excessively unique or special, it still is a thoroughly polished experience with a good amount of content to offer. Priced at €5,99/£4.99/$5.99, Pureya is not excessively expensive for the amount of content it offers, although waiting for a sale might be advisable for some.
Personal Opinion
“While I absolutely loved Pureya, I wouldn’t really recommend it on PC. The game’s quality is fantastic don’t get me wrong, but most of the time I spent with it I kept wondering “yeah, but why should I play this when I have other games which can offer me more in my library”. Pureya is simply not a game I would play for longer periods of time or anything besides killing time while waiting for a friend to go online. With all that said, my point is not to bash the game, but rather point out the fact that a mobile version on the Google Play store exists. I think we’ve all been there, commuting to work, waiting for the bus, or any of the other thousand little things in our lives that are basically dead time. In this scenario, Pureya is the game for those times. To be completely honest, I first discovered Pureya as a mobile game before even reviewing it and thought it was perfect in there, especially costing 2 bucks less than it does on Steam. That being said, the game’s review score might not be a 10 out of 10 for the PC version, it definitely is for the mobile version.”
Pureya - Review,
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