7 Raven Studios appears to be the latest developer releasing budget priced indie games on the PlayStation Store with easy trophies. Games from Eastasiasoft and Ratalaika Games flood the store every week with the promise of easy trophies but sometimes the game actually turns out to be quite good too. I wasn’t too impressed by Ghost Sweeper from 7 Raven Studios and now I’ve played another new game from them called Dyna Bomb. Did this one turn out to be any better or is it another one you should skip if you aren’t after easy trophies?
Dyna Bomb is a single-player action platformer with a colorful art style. Much like Ghost Sweeper you have two different characters you can play as while you try to beat the eight levels in each of the eight worlds. Your character has two main abilities those being a jetpack used with the X button and the ability to shoot bombs with the circle button. Your goal in each level is to fly through them to find a key that will let you open the door at the end. While doing this you’ll have to battle with enemies and the controls to make it through. While you only have those two controls to deal with it gets a bit cumbersome having to hold down X or tap it to make use of the jetpack while also having to use circle to lob bombs at enemies. Had you been able to remap the jetpack to one of the triggers the whole thing would feel much more fun to actually play.
Along with the controls being a bit irritating I also just found the game to not be that interesting. Sure, it feels good to launch your bombs and take out enemies in one hit but over the course of the 60+ levels things grow repetitious very fast. There just isn’t enough variety in the enemies or the actual level designs to keep things from not feeling stale by the end of it. Levels have gems in them to collect that can be spent on a slot machine for power-ups and much like Ghost Sweeper each level also has multiple stars you can earn depending on whether you pull off certain objectives. Whether you’ll want to actually try for all of those stars is another matter.
The visuals in Dyna Bomb also aren’t that pleasing to look at as everything looks a bit too fuzzy. The game was apparently on mobile phones a few years ago and it looks like the team didn’t properly adjust the resolution to make playing it on a big TV screen more pleasant. The menus are also very basic and scream mobile game design. It’s a bit of shame that more work wasn’t put into making it look better on consoles as the colorful art style does seem like it could’ve had a charm to it. Just like Ghost Sweeper and many other indie games flooding the PlayStation Store, Dyna Bomb has an easy Platinum trophy to earn. There are 13 trophies in total and you don’t have to come close to actually beating the whole game to earn them all.
Dyna Bomb is a solid action platformer but one that isn’t memorable or in need to be played. The jetpack and bomb gameplay can be fun for a little while but over the course of the 60+ levels it gets repetitive. It also doesn’t help that it looks like barely any work was put into making the presentation look better on consoles compared to the mobile version. Unless you’re after some cheap, easy trophies then I think you can safely pass on Dyna Bomb.
*Dyna Bomb is available now on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC. PlayStation 4 version reviewed. Review copy provided by the publisher for this review.
Dyna Bomb
$4.99
Pros
- Flying through the levels and dropping bombs can be fun for awhile
- Lot of levels to play and replayability should you enjoy it
Cons
- Way too repetitive
- Mobile game presentation
