Morphies Law: Remorphed Review

Reading Time: 5 minutes

Fast Facts

Title: Morphies Law: Remorphed
Developer: Comoscope
Publisher: Comoscope
Website: https://morphieslaw.com/
Genre: Action, Shooter
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Age Rating: PEGI 7
Release Date: 20/08/2018
Price: £15.99 – Rapid Reviews UK was very kindly provided with a review code for this title. *This game is currently on offer for £3.99 until 17/11/2019*

Morphies Law was a game I saw floating about on the internet years ago, its focus on distributing mass as you shoot others or get shot yourself intriguing. However, I hadn’t heard of it since so the release of the game went by me, only being reminded when we got given a review code. It seemed strange to me that such an anticipated game had gone under the radar, so I dived into the game to see for myself.

Mass Matters

In this multiplayer shooter, you play as Morphies, robots with different body parts which can change in size. Shoot another player’s arm, for example, and your arm will grow in size. However, if they shoot your head, yours will shrink, and theirs will grow. The overall goal of the game, no matter what game mode you’re playing, is to accumulate the most mass so that your team Avatar is the largest at the end of the round.

This concept is the selling point of the game, as it’s something I’ve never seen before! Unlike most shooters, the amount of kills you get doesn’t matter because of the mass element. Both being small and large has its pros and cons too; being small you are harder to hit and can fit through pipes, but of course, don’t have the mass you need to win. Then being large, you can jump higher but are a bigger target.

There are five game modes on offer, including Morph Match, where the sole goal is to have the biggest Avatar by shooting others for mass, and Los Angelitos. This is similar but every so often a random person on each team will be an Angelito, who cannot be harmed, can heal their teammates and stun enemies.

Though I do appreciate the variety of game modes, I feel like they were all too similar. I did like Mass Heist, where you have to shoot the enemy team’s avatar and bring it to an altar. But most of the time, you spend the majority of the match being shot and having to defend yourself, with the objective being ignored. So essentially, every game mode feels like Morph Match with a slight change.

Looking for Morphies…

There is both offline and online play; in offline, you can either play against bots or do local play with friends who own the game. In online play, you can create a game to play with friends online, play with random players in an online match, or play with online players against AI. The issue with online play, however, is hardly anyone is playing.

I’m not quite sure whether a lack of promotion caused this, but it is pretty shocking how little people are playing. There would always be at least one bot, and often only half the lobby would be real players. I’d even get only one other player in my lobby at times, so this online play essentially became online against AI. I did not see this appealing at all, as if I’m playing online, I want there to be real people challenging me. There wasn’t a couch co-op mode either, which is a shame when this game is perfect for it, particularly with the lack of online players!

That being said, I didn’t run into too many performance issues online. Occasionally, there’d be a second of lag between me being shot and then actually dying, but otherwise, things were reasonably smooth. I liked the controls too, being able to fly around the maps with your ‘butt rockets’ and customise both your weapons and special abilities to pack a punch! You can also change to motion controls, but this made me feel a little sick as you have to be quite quick, and there’s some motion blur.

Día de Muertos

Speaking of the maps, the game has gone with a Day of the Dead theme, so most of the maps revolve around Mexican style towns and decor. They also have elements unique to each map, such as moving floors and spike traps, which I think was a great idea to change things up in each round. The soundtrack then matched the theme, with trumpets to pump you up and transport you to the festive streets of Mexico. The graphics aren’t anything to rave about, and look a little worse in docked mode, but are suitable enough for the game it is. The Morphie designs and the Day of the Dead decor bring a splash of colour to the earthy buildings and environments.

I did find this theme a little random; you would think a game involving robots would have space or futuristic setting. However, this meant that you could have the pinata aspect of the game, which is essentially loot boxes, giving you three random items. These could be something to customise your Morphie, from sugar skull faces to emotes. There are also challenges to complete for playing online, which can give you pinatas, so this gives you an incentive to keep coming back to the game. Personally, I would never buy them with my own money, so I was happy with the ability to get them through playing.

Though I feel like I’ve spoken mostly negatively of Morphies Law, the concept is great, and it is a fun game. However, it has so much potential to be better and so many improvements to be made that at the moment, my excitement has fallen flat. A couch co-op mode, some different game modes, more people playing online through wider promotion; I think this is what the game needs, potentially in a future update, to live up to its potential, and I want to give it the benefit of the doubt.

Rapid Reviews Rating

You can purchase Morphies Law: Remorphed from the Nintendo eShop on the following link: https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Games/Nintendo-Switch-download-software/Morphies-Law-1277022.html