Thrasher review

Thrasher is simple in concept. There’s no story or background. No characters beyond the hulking big space eel or nightmarish bosses. Yet despite this, it becomes as addictive as Thumper did before. While more a spiritual successor than a sequel, Puddle has built a fast-paced rhythm game that gives you one simple mechanic of controlling the slithery eel with your controller, trying to destroy various shapes while avoiding other flying orbs that begin to frustrate the living hell out of you.

There isn’t a lot of diversity in Thrasher. You play through a few levels trying to get the best time, destroying objects with the eel without getting hit. Every time you’re struck with an enemy projectile or shape, you’ll incur a time penalty. In the early stages avoiding these penalties isn’t too much of a challenge, but the difficulty soon ramps up and you’ll find yourself at times getting overwhelmed by the amount of them flying around the screen. It’s less about skill and more about holding on for dear life.

Every time they connect, your eel gets rocked and you have to refocus on trying to fly through the various circles, grids, or lines in an effort to clear them before more get thrown at you. It’s satisfying to see them disappear, especially in VR, and with a solid soundtrack that adds to the psychedelia, you’re often impressed by the visuals and the music, along with how they work so well together. That Thumper vibe is ever-present, even when the busy screen leads to familiar bouts of frustration.

There are power-ups that gradually get introduced, allowing you to slow down time or do extra damage. These do help, and when you’re in that zone of avoiding the enemy while trying to find a route through the shapes you need to destroy, they give you that edge you’ll so sorely need. The immersion through VR makes Thrasher much more enjoyable, and I can imagine it having nowhere near the same effect if you were sat in front of the television with just a controller in hand.

Another facet of Thrasher is the boss fights, and the design of these weird and monstrous creatures is pretty impressive. Within the bright lights and trippy visuals, floating skulls and the like add to that weird vibe the game has. After each wave of puzzle, you have to hit these bombs with your eel to send them crashing towards the boss, and once done you’ll knock them out of the sky. Like the standard levels, they get tougher, but keeping focus is a key part of both defeating these bosses and making your way through the stages altogether.

Thrasher can be played with both a controller and with hand tracking. While the controller is the more responsive of the two, the hand tracking is great. There were a few instances where the screen temporarily froze when getting smacked to holy hell by multiple targets, but the tracking never faltered as a result. For the majority of my time with it, I rarely encountered any issues, but these freezes do break the immersion and do nothing for that frustration that seeps in from time to time.

Thrasher is a good VR game that is simple in its approach to gameplay, yet never feels weak or unrewarding. While the busier moments can be hampered by a couple of technical issues and an intensity that can’t always be overcome with skill, the visuals and soundtrack are excellent, and some of the boss designs make you excited to press on and find the next one. It’s no Thumper, but it isn’t trying to be, however, it’s hard to not compare the two due to the similar art style and design.