Discover Games
GAMES Entwined
Entwined Review
Posted: 9 weeks ago, last updated 8 weeks ago.
Author: Ben Kendall, @GeekDadGamer and Jo Robertson.
Overview
You play the souls of a bird and a fish, two beings in love yet eternally separated. Directing their movement with only a stick, they automatically move forward as you aim to collect energy to bring their souls together and transform them into a majestic dragon.
As you progress you learn to direct the fish to collect the orange energy and the bird to collect the blue. The more you miss, the further the two souls move apart. The level is complete when the souls converge and become the dragon until the start of the next stage. It can seem like an impossible ask, but with practice and persistence, you improve and make it through the stages.
The result is a game that offers a unique ambidextrous-like challenge with its unusual controls that demands you balance your focus between both characters simultaneously. The esoteric visuals and music combine with this flowing play to create a rewarding and uplifting challenge.
Game Details
Release Date: 09/06/2014, updated in 2014
Platforms: PS Vita, PS3 and PS4
Content Rating: PEGI 3
Skill Rating: 7+ year-olds
Players: 1
Genres: Rhythm, Traversal (Action, Collecting and Narrative)
Accessibility: 14 features
Components: 2D Side-On
Developer: Pixelopus (@Pixelopus)
Lists
View our choice of games like Entwined. This game is good if you want to:
Duration
Play Style
You can play this game in the following styles:
Age Ratings
Skill Rating
7+ year-olds usually have the required skill to enjoy this game. Using both joysticks simultaneously in different ways to move the two characters around the screen can be tricky to get right and requires patience and practice. Younger players can team up with a parent or guardian so they only need to control one animal.
Costs
Accessibility
Because you move forward automatically, you only need to focus on moving your characters around with the joysticks. Aside from menus, you only ever use the joysticks and the triggers, which must be pressed simultaneously for the dragon to progress. You can either hold them down or press them repeatedly to use up all of the energy you've gathered.
In the main levels, you lose energy if you fail to get to a zone, but you can't fail the level as you can just regain the energy lost as you continue playing. The levels last an indeterminate amount of time until you successfully gather enough energy, so the game is low-pressure.
Text is fairly large, but not 1/20th the size of the screen, and is always high in contrast when it appears, which is only in menus and for a brief tutorial.
The game does rely on colour to distinguish between energy and zones, as well as the individual souls (the fish and its energy and zones are orange, and the fish is blue), which is important to note for colourblind players. While these do contrast each other nicely, they can both blend into the background due to low contrast and occasional flashes and other distractions.
Although it's a rhythm game, the sound isn't necessary to play.
Diversity and Inclusion
Hand-Picked Games Like Entwined
Here are our hand-picked short list of similar games; the perfect thing to play next if you enjoyed Entwined. We also have a long list of games similar to Entwined.
