Review: Morphite for Nintendo Switch (2017)

Review

This game was practically made just for me. It's a first-person shooter that prominently features scanning creatures for their biological information as you explore a sprawling galaxy in your starship.

Morphite takes cues from games like Metroid Prime where in addition to exploring and getting power-ups, you can also scan various creatures and things to get little tidbits of information about the world. The difference is that this scanning feature takes the stage as one of the primary ways to advance in the game! In addition to exploring planets, you also need to travel to different solar systems in your ship, which uses fuel that costs money! When you scan flora and fauna in the game with your scanner, it is stored in a list, which can then be sold at various space stations for a profit!

I'm only a couple hours into the game, most of which is has been spent over-exploring the starting areas, so I've only scratched the surface on the plot, but what I've seen of the gameplay is what I would call "adequate but not great." The controls are fairly basic first-person fare: run, jump, shoot, and while I appreciate the motion control option for fine-tuning your aiming in the Switch version, the process of aiming feels just a bit finicky. Combine this with the fact that scanning animals requires that you be spot on their center of mass, and you've got a recipe for frustration! Fortunately, most of the animals I've encountered so far are fairly basic (and get stuck on geometry a lot), so it doesn't take too long before you can finally keep the scanner targeted in the right spot for long enough.

This game screams "indie," and it's very much like something I would have loved to make in a very similar way to how I would have made it! I wish it would have been possible to give it a bunch of polish and get it up to the standard of Metroid Prime, but I've really been enjoying it for what it is! It feels like the developers put a lot of heart and effort into making Morphite something special, and I'm excited to see what other secrets the game holds as I advance further in the plot!

Rating

76/100 It's enjoyable and you should check it out when it's on sale!