The role of the MacGuffin is tried and tested in gaming, and
without such plot devices I doubt the vast majority of virtual adventures would
be half as entertaining as they are. In recent Switch release Morphite, the
MacGuffin in question takes centre stage, lending its name to the title and
also playing a central part in this science-fiction mini-epic’s main quest.
Morphite was actually released a few months ago on the
PlayStation 4 and PC, and the Nintendo Switch version was due to release alongside
them, but multiple delays meant it was removed quietly from the e-Shop before
suddenly reappearing again – much to my delight – a few weeks later. So what is
Morphite? And should you pay this game some attention if you’re a Switch owner?
One of those questions can be answered in a much easier fashion than the other,
so I’ll begin with the easier of the two, which naturally is the former.
Morphite is a first person space-based adventure game that
casts you in the role of a female explorer called Myrah. Taking instruction
from the wise and elderly Mr Mason, you travel around the galaxy, hopping from
solar system to solar system exploring planets, scanning flora and fauna and
(occasionally) engaging in fire fights with alien nasties. The overarching story
in Morphite is one of discovery and enlightenment and involves you travelling
to specific planets and meeting certain NPCs, performing fetch quests and eventually
learning the history and the origins of the mysterious and eponymous Morphite
substance.
One glance at the screenshots will instantly tell you that
Morphite takes more than a few visual and gameplay cues from that other
exploration-based space opera, No Man’s Sky, but to compare the two would be
unfair. Yes, both games are from indie studios and both games feature
procedurally generated worlds to plod around on, but Morphite is on a much
smaller scale and really isn’t trying to be an alternative to Hello Games’
title. More than likely, it is more of an homage to it.
On Switch, Morphite stands alone as a huge first person
adventure game and one that really does what it sets out to do – and does it
well. With its budget price point and highly stylised low-poly visuals, you’d
be forgiven for thinking Morphite was a barebones indie experiment that
shouldn’t really warrant much of your time…but you’d be very wrong.
As well as the main story missions, Morphite actively
encourages exploration and inquisitiveness, and there are multiple gameplay
styles all waiting to be discovered. Due to the game’s currency driven upgrade
trees, it is pretty much a necessity to travel to worlds that aren’t actively
connected to the main story and you do this by opening up the star map of your
ship’s main control console. Selecting a solar system that’s within the fuel
range of the ship will allow you to warp there, and once in orbit you can
travel to individual planets by way of a transport pod that drops from the
bottom of the ship.
Once planetside, you are free to roam and marvel at the
weird and wonderful plant life, rock formations, caves and indigenous lifeforms
(both malevolent and benign) which make up the ecosystems. As stated, these
non-essential planets are procedurally generated and can vary wildly in size,
with some featuring sprawling landscapes and vast cave networks; while others
consist of a few caverns and a waterfall. You never know what you’ll get until
you land, basically. Likewise with the animal population – sometimes you’ll
find docile herbivores stomping around minding their own business, other times
you’ll be attacked by monstrous looking beasts as soon as the pod hatch opens.
It’s not all wandering around admiring the flat-shaded view
though. When you’re on terra firma, one of the main things you’ll be doing is
scanning plants and animals with your scanner and collecting minerals by
blowing up certain rocks. These can then be sold to the space stations dotted
around the galaxy in order to acquire ‘Chunks’ (the main monetary currency) or
– in the case of minerals – used to upgrade Myrah’s space suit and weapons.
It’s a fine balance between grinding and reward and it works quite well.
Your ship too can be upgraded, with weapons and hull
augmentations – both of which become quite important the further into the game
you get. You don’t actually fly the ship through the cosmos in real time (you
simply chose your destination from the map and jump into warp), although on
occasion you will meet bandits along the way and the game switches to a first
person Missile Command style experience, with you manning a gun turret. On
other occasions you’ll encounter an asteroid field and will have to manually
navigate the huge space rocks from a third person perspective.
There’s a decent amount of variety in the space stations and
the planets you’ll discover, and the scanning and mining of minerals adds a bit
of strategy to the story too. That said, proceedings can get a little bit samey
after a few hours of tramping around the various neon-hued worlds as there’s
only so much variety that you can expect from a game in this category. Combat
sometimes feels a bit light and loose, and most enemies crumple after a few
shots. Enemy AI too, is fairly rudimentary with most aggressors simply running
toward you mindlessly as you back away firing into their faces until they keel
over.
There are multiple side missions to embark on, but these
usually amount to little more than shooting a certain number of animals or
finding objects and delivering them to the quest giver. On one occasion I had
to build somebody a shed, but the physics engine in Morphite really isn’t up to
the job and various parts of the shed disappeared through the floor, meaning I
wasn’t able to complete the task. Not a major issue, but this little glitch
amplified Morphite’s low budget, indie credentials.
That said, the overall experience is more than the sum of
its parts. Pretty quickly it becomes quite enjoyable to spend 30 mins wandering
around a friendly planet collecting samples and minerals, before jumping into
your ship, heading to the nearest space station and doing a bit of trading and
weapon upgrading, before setting a course for the next story mission and
meeting another interesting NPC.
Performance on the Switch is pretty good in both handheld
and docked, although the interior sections of some of the larger enclosed areas
(such as the space station hangars) did cause minor framerate issues when
undocked. However, for the most part the game runs perfectly and is a joy to
look at. The highly stylised, flat shaded visuals are something of a novelty on
this platform and help to give Morphite a distinct air of individuality among
the pack of pixel art indie titles and top drawer first party exclusives like
Zelda, ARMS and Mario Odyssey.
Aurally, Morphite really shines, with the 80s synth-inspired
soundtrack really complementing the visuals. At times some of the soaring
electronic tunes made me think of the Stranger Things intro music, and that is
no bad thing.
As a fan of science fiction
and first person shooters, I went into Morphite knowing what I wanted to find:
a budget-priced, pocket-sized No Man’s Sky with interesting visuals and an
engaging story. For me it ticked all these boxes and offers players hours of
exploratory gameplay mixed with some light first person shooting, resource
management and space-based swashbuckling. Morphite is a fine example of a game
that blends gameplay styles and interesting aesthetics and for the most part it
works really well. One to consider if you’re looking for a palette cleanser
after Mario Odyssey and Zelda have run their respective courses.
Morphite is out now on PS4, Xbox One, Steam, and iOS Out for Nintendo Switch 02/11/17