Theseus for PlayStation VR in the test

Escape the terrifying Minotaur! Theseus, our hero from Greek mythology, fights a little like Kratos from "God of War" in the action horror adventure of the same name. The VR feeling? Sometimes it's the third-person view from "Edge of Nowhere", sometimes the fixed level perspective from "Chronos" - but it doesn't work everywhere. Does it have to?

The developers from "Forge Reply" have launched "Theseus", a small action adventure game on the PlayStation Store for around 20 francs. Long-standing "God of War" fans, fans of ancient Greek history or VR horror fans looking for that certain thrill will naturally get tingling in their fingers when they see the trailer. Purchased, downloaded. But it was played through pretty quickly.

Prologue

The creature with a human body and bull's head is familiar from Greek mythology. According to Greek legend, the all-powerful water god Poseidon sent a bull to King Minos, directly to Crete, as a sign of his righteous rule. However, as the bull was not sacrificed as promised, for some reason his wife fell in love with the bull and gave birth to the vicious Minotaur. Ever since Minos locked the human cattle away in the huge labyrinth of master builder Daedalus, at least seven young boys and virgins have had to go in there every year to be sacrificed. Nobody has come out since then. Fortunately, there is our hero Theseus, who could no longer bear so much suffering and sets off in high spirits to this legendary labyrinth to tame the hybrid creature.

But that's not all that important - you don't need to know the mythological back story. A kind of goddess of light as your constant companion also has something to say and tells you in lovely Zelda fairy style what has happened and what you have to do next. (Incidentally, the subtitled monologue is not entirely in ancient Greek. It is merely "close to Greek", as the developers from Milan told me. Would probably be too time-consuming).

"God of War" meets "Edge of Nowhere" and "Chronos"

How would you describe "Theseus"? The game definitely falls into the somewhat vague category of "action-adventure". You play from a third-person perspective, so the camera usually follows you from behind, but not always. This is usually not the case when you enter a complex room or when the powerful labyrinth ruler "Minotaur" marks his property. Then it often switches to a fixed view, as in "Lucky's Tale" or "Chronos", so that we have one or two angles like a puppet theatre right in front of us. Sometimes the camera also follows you quite closely when the protagonist in the ancient war attire remembers something or the blinded labyrinth monster flails around wildly in the area.

Do we always need full immersion?

However, this means that the centre-drone experience in VR is not always entirely successful. After playing through the title, I now understand why. The way I interpret the gameplay, that's exactly what they wanted: the emphasis on VR is scene-based, because individual game levels first have to be surveyed so that you can see which switch or gate you're travelling to before the big beast suddenly hammers us from behind. Sometimes the camera follows closely from behind to increase the tension. Stiff neck hairs are guaranteed, especially when the giant (ingeniously designed) minotaur stares at you or comes very close. However, this possible approach is not comprehensible throughout the entire game. For example, you once enter a grotto beneath the snorting pet of the Cretans: There, for some inexplicable reason, we have the camera very close to our back again. If we walk in the wrong direction, it looks a bit strange when we suddenly find ourselves staring at ourselves again.

I think the immersion would have been better if everything had been solved consistently in the third-person perspective, because there aren't that many puzzles or hidden switches to explore. To get from one room to the next, you usually flip a switch so that the goddess can blind your opponent with her rays of light. This non-VR feeling sometimes also comes up when you stab the annoying octopuses as a perpetual crowd of enemies with your sword or blind them with your torch in somewhat lengthy battles. The combat system really only consists of the sword slash, the pike roll and fast running. Unfortunately, the collision detection is a little slow. To make matters worse, so-called "Quick Time Events" (QTEs) were not needed. As a trapped warlord, a long tap to free yourself can even make your thumbs cramp. Also a little tedious: During the course of the game, you also often have to pull yourself up various valley walls, as is so familiar from other games such as "Uncharted" or Rise of "The Tomb Raider"! The whole game has a rather linear structure. In most cases, only time-critical events have to be timed correctly. In addition, there are no long maze walks on the agenda.

A few good ideas - with potential

The developers had some very good ideas for "Theseus". In my opinion, the camera work and the combat system were not fully thought through. I would have loved it if, as in "Edge of Nowhere", you followed the hero from behind while the VR view was the actual camera. Otherwise, the puzzle elements could have been a little more varied. When pressing the fight buttons, I would have expected a little faster actions or perhaps even a few combos. After all, it's supposed to be a bit addictive to chop up bursting octopuses faster. To make up for this, they've included a finisher where you can flambé the creepy-crawlies at the same time. More of that.

The sound, the graphics and the spoken story are very overwhelming at first. However, this impression fades a little after about half an hour at the latest. Nevertheless, you want to continue playing straight away - that's how much a good graphic and sound backdrop can make! A few repetitive interludes such as climbing walls and the yawningly long battles are to blame for some of the boredom. Fortunately, none of this drags on too much. Especially when climbing, you don't get the feeling here and there that you could do it without VR. As mentioned at the beginning, the game is very short. I think I played it in under four hours. But hey, it only costs around 20 francs. I've played much worse VR titles in terms of overall quality.

Gameplay screenshots (PS4 Pro):

Theseus will be released for PC headsets (HTC Vive and Oculus Rift) at a later date.