Tri Breaker: A Sacred Symbols Odyssey review for PC, PlayStation, Xbox, Switch

Colin Moriarty is a polarizing figure, but with a last name of Moriarty I guess it would only make sense that you would have to become the nemesis of an industry writ large…however to me he’s just a local boy who did good (He’s a dye in the wool Long Islander and I’m more or less a lifelong Brooklynite…although some would claim you need a birthright to claim “New Yorker status”). So when he revealed that he would be penning a story which would be integrated into a brick breaker game from Lillymo Games, I was going to be there on day one.

Twin Breaker: A Sacred Symbols Adventure delivered on old-school arcade action with some interesting twists (Although I still shutter at the levels which required the player to control four bouncers) and a story which saw a future at which America explored the stars and two heroic pilots who’s visage resemble Moriarty and his collaborator Chris “Chris Ray Gun” Maldonado take off into the great unknown to investigate the disappearance of some of the US’s generation ships. The game clocked in at 40 levels and saw boss fights being integrated into the brick breaker genre and your value was doubled as a NG+ mode featuring the levels tweaked to be harder would be available once you’ve completed the initial batch. The title sold well to warrant a sequel which was supposed to arrive in 2021, but that year came and went with nary a peep.

Years passed and one would be right to assume that the franchise was on hiatus, but late November we got an announcement that the sequel would finally arrive. The thoughts came into my head…how do you can one continue to iterate brick breaking and will it be worth the wait? I guess we’ll find out…

Tri Breaker: A Sacred Symbols Odyssey sees a time skip at which the previous game’s protagonist has long since retreated to a life of seclusion and leisure. After discovering a government conspiracy tied to the duo’s discovery, a military man named Dustin (Modeled after Dustin Furman, who is the 3rd chair of Last Stand Media’s Sacred Symbols: A PlayStation podcast) coaxes the duo out of retirement to aid him in his investigation. The ships “Greetings” and “Salutations” return and while you would think the inclusion of a third person would mean a third Bouncer ship, but the game flips the script on its head and has Dustin piloting the Breaker aka the ball in brick breaker games. So out of the gate Tri Breaker will give you some semblance of control of the ball on the field. You are then treated to another 40 levels of brick breaking…and then some.

Veterans of Twin Breaker will note that the 4 years between the titles saw plenty of changes come to the sequel. The bouncer ships no longer have a pulse attack, certain power ups have gone the way of the dodo (Speed up/down, Scarabs and Fireball) and of course the ability to pilot the Breaker. Having played both games recently I would gladly trade the bouncer pulse attacks for the ability to pilot the breaker. It doesn’t exactly turn on a dime, but a simple nudge can help nail that one brick which has been eluding you as the stage’s clock ticks down. I do lament the loss of the speed adjustment power ups, but I can see when paired with the pilotable breaker it would be a tad game breaker. The biggest exclusion which I was overjoyed with was the loss of the stages where you have to control four bouncers. Those just required a bit too much hand eye coordination and the pulse attacks were more or less useless as one button would trigger the pulse for both bouncers on one side.

Tri Breaker also spends a good portion of its time not having you brick break. In fact the game utilizes mechanics from other arcade titles such as Snake, Pong, Pac-Man, Frogger, Gradius, Galaga and maybe a couple that aren’t coming to mind. These stages are a nice break from the brick breaking and adds much needed variety to the title. Also it’s somewhat cute that there are storyline justification to the additions.

Speaking of storyline, Twin Breaker did plenty of world building with its collectibles…which aren’t present in Tri Breaker. In fact, Tri Breaker’s story felt a bit more light and almost like an action movie where the heroes of the past had to come back for one more job that they could only do. Like the podcast which the trio do in real life, the addition of Dustin felt like the final piece to make the package whole. I also want to applaud the visual upgrade of Tri Breaker, whereas the in-game cutscene art of Twin Breaker felt like a child’s depiction of their favorite uncles, Tri Breaker’s cutscenes looks like a stylized comic. Although some of these improved graphics did throw me for a loop, especially the T-Rexes in the 2nd quartile of the game…on a small screen that looked like crabs and it had me scratching my head until I saw a larger more detailed version.

Tri Breaker manages to iterate on brick breaker as well as throw in some other game play styles, fans of old school arcade will enjoy the title in that respect. Fans of Last Stand Media will enjoy the little easter eggs in the game’s cutscenes. I made it a point to try to get 100% of all of the game’s trophies before putting pen to paper and I have to say it definitely tested my skills and made me pray to RNGesus for the right power up to drop. All and all I’m looking forward to another 40 levels in a 3rd entry of this franchise and I’m curious which member of the LSM hosts will get introduced into this world, Dagan? Micah? MrMattyPlays? LordCognito?…or maybe Gene Park? Guess we’ll have to wait and see.

Tri Breaker: A Sacred Symbols Odyssey is available now on the PC, Switch, the Xbox and PlayStation platforms…but not the PlayStation Vita, because it’s dead, very, very dead.

Note: Lillymo Games provided us with a Tri Breaker: A Sacred Symbols Odyssey code for review purposes.