Aside being a bit more aliased, the PSP holds up well in the most important department: controls. The analog stick is used for fine tuning the camera control, while holding R1 (or R on the PSP) allows for speedier rotations. The face buttons take care of mannequin controls such as speeding up his walking speed or telling him to stop. All the controls work as intended for both platforms. The PSN version allows for SIXAXIS motion sensing camera control, but I would advise against it.

Both demos featured tutorials of the five techniques and three puzzle levels. What I enjoyed most about these puzzles was the fact that there was more than one way to solve them. I solved the last puzzle without using the perspective drop, but another person out there may have and another may have solved it without using either.

I’m a fan of puzzle games, especially ones with unique mechanics and thus, I really dug what Echochrome was offering. The demo itself was rather short, but it did give a taste of what I should be expecting. There are a few off putting design choices such as the classical background music and simplistic graphical design, but if you could look past it or simply enjoy trying something new: give Echochrome a try.

As for which version I would buy? I’m leaning towards the PSN version. I have no idea what North American pricing would be for the PSP or PSN versions, but I would gladly pay $10 CAD to $15 CAD for the PSN version. It was confirmed that both versions will include level editors and the ability to share levels online with the PSN version greatly enhances the replay value. I have no idea why, but the North American release is scheduled for Summer, but the Japanese version is going to be available on the 19^th of March. There’s no need to even translate the voiceovers for the PSN version since they’re already in English and I’m sure translating the limited lines of text does not take 3 months. Go figure.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, March 6th, 2008 at 8:39 pm and is filed under PS3 Previews, PSN Previews, PSP Previews, Previews and Impressions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.