Loopindex review for PS5/4, Xbox Series X/One, Switch

As I?m sure I?ve written before (but I can?t figure out exactly when), games published by Ratalaika generally fall into two categories: the ones where the Platinum pops very quickly but you?re so enamoured by the game that you can?t help but want to keep going, and the ones where the Platinum pops quickly but even within that short time frame it still feels like a slog. (There?s also a third category, the visual novels where you get the Platinum just by advancing the text, but that?s beside the point.)

Loopindex, unfortunately, falls into that second category. There are 70+ levels, the Platinum pops after level 49, and I was desperate for the game to end somewhere around level 15. While there are some Ratalaika games — say, Rabisco+ — where the time and levels fly by and everything just works, in Loopindex, time drags endlessly.

Of course, that?s kind of how the game was designed. It?s basically a single-player co-op game where you have to guide a pair of robots through a series of levels by having them flick switches, push boxes, and avoid traps. Each level has no margin for error; screw up one thing, and you have to start it over from scratch.

While that may not seem like the worst thing in the world, it feels like it when the robots slowly walk from one platform to the next, angling a box just so, only for you to push it a tiny bit too far and find it trapped against a wall. Or when you start walking, press square instead of circle, and put your robot on autopilot where he walks into spikes and dies. Or when you walk up to the edge of said spikes, switch robots, and accidentally push the first robot into the spikes. Basically, every level has lots of ways to screw up, and only one way to get it right, and nothing about any of the levels is interesting enough to warrant that kind of difficulty.

Obviously, given it?s only about $5 at the time of this writing, it?s not like Loopindex costs you a whole lot in terms of money. But there are much, much better ways to spend those $5 — not to mention much better ways to spend the time it would take you to earn this quick-ish Platinum — and you?d be well-advised to look into any of those, and forget about this one.

Ratalaika Games provided us with a Loopindex PS4/PS5 code for review purposes.