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Entwined Review (PS4)

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Entwined is about sex. Sure, they may claim it’s “a game about two souls who are in love but can’t be together”, as creative director Dominic Robilliard said during Sony’s E3 conference. I’m pretty sure it’s about simultaneous orgasm.

You play by controlling two separate entities with your analogue sticks – an orange fish squirms in your left hand while a blue bird soars in your right. They’re inexorably flying down a tunnel and you’re priming them to conjoin into a single green dragon.

Smoothly trace your way across the targets in the tunnel and you fill each creature’s meter. Sometimes you’re doing the same movement with both hands, sometimes the bird and the fish will have different needs. Miss the visual cues and your souls will be jarred out of their reverie, losing some of your progress along the way.

Fill both meters and you’re prompted to press L1 and R1 to create a bond linking the two entities. Continue to hit the right spots and you’ll strengthen the bond, bringing the two ever closer, whirling faster and faster through the maelstrom. Sustain this for long enough and your bodies will mingle together, forming a dragon that explodes out of the tunnel into an oasis of tranquillity.

Sure, it’s about “love”.

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As the dragon, you get to mill about in space for a bit. Collect blue and orange orbs until you can “skywrite”, leaving glowing trails behind as you float across the sky. Once you’ve run out of skywriting juice, a glowing white orb will appear. Fly into it and you’ll begin the cycle all over again.

It’s a beautiful game with lovely ambient music and I finished it in under 90 minutes. There’s not a lot of complexity – you really are just trying to hit a bunch of targets in a row while the challenges get ever so slightly more difficult as you go on. I never had an oh, wow” moment – the game is exactly what it seems from the start and any longevity would have to come from the high-score challenge mode.

Entwined, is cheap, cheerful and pretty. And despite my claims, it’s totally fine for children to play. They won’t get the metaphor for at least a few more years.

Entwined is out now on the PlayStation store for PS4.

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