Schr?dinger’s Cat and the Raiders of the Lost Quark review for PS4, Xbox One

There is a lot to say about Italic Pig and Team17’s console port of Schr?dinger’s Cat and the Raiders of the Lost Quark. For starters, this is a case of don?t judge a book by its cover. When you begin the game you are greeted with an opening cinematic giving you the basis of the story.

The particle zoo is in utter chaos because all of the enclosures containing the universes particles have opened, releasing them all into the wild. Now the zoo has been put on lockdown and the rogue particles are wreaking havoc. In this game you play as the protagonist, Schr?dinger?s Cat who is tasked with stopping all the chaos and capturing the rogue particles.

Your main goal is to capture the rogue particles that have escaped and find out what happened in the first place. You will be speaking with characters within the zoo to find clues and sometimes even points of interest. There is some backtracking which can be tedious.

SC seems to be a simple platformer at first glance that is until you come across the Quarks. These little creatures become the basis of your control scheme going forward being integrated into the trigger buttons. The quarks are a helpful bunch that come in four different types. They are all unique and have their own distinct color. The four Quarks are the Tops, Bottoms, Ups and Downs. As you make your way through the sections of the zoo trying to find the Nucleus (Command Hub) you will need to capture the baddies using your quarks. It is a clever premise and it keeps you on your toes with managing your quark inventory.

In order to utilize their powers, you need to combine three quarks at a time to create items that will help you progress. Some of the things the quarks can turn into are a copter to bring you to high places, an anvil to smash floors below you, a drill to help you break walls that block your way, and a bubble to protect you from green slime in your path.

What I enjoyed the most from SC was that you have to mix and match the quarks while having to be resourceful when limited on certain quarks. This becomes more difficult and may require retrying a level since the quarks do not come back once used. In the early portion of the game, they do respawn. Some of the early levels are simple enough with pretty straight forward solutions, whereas a couple hours in I found myself having to restart the level because I didn?t choose my quark combos correctly and couldn?t get further into the level.

There are only a couple of issues I had during my time with SC. First and foremost, I really enjoyed the cast of characters and voice acting, especially SC himself. The problem that happens is the repetitive sound design for the quarks and limited quotes that the protagonist use like ?Schlabam? get old fast. Think physics-based jokes and one liners repeating after each death or checkpoint. Also, the little quarks themselves that once picked up or used tend to sound an awful like Angry Birds. Now imagine having 30 plus quarks making sounds at once. Yeah, it?s funny yet annoying after 20 minutes.

Another issue I came across was the platforming. Getting from place to place can be a chore sometimes due to the controls not always working in your favor. The inconsistent camera doesn?t help the platforming either. Inaccurate jumps and a finicky camera really take away from the experience.

At first glance Schr?dinger?s Cat and the Raiders of the Lost Quark looks like a simple platformer, yet when you jump into this digital title, you get a lot more than that. The vivid cast of crazy characters, entertaining voice acting, and the refreshing puzzle components utilizing the Quarks make SC a solid port of the Steam release. Even with the minimal audio repetitiveness and platforming frustrations, you can still have a ton of fun playing this ?Quarky? game.