Polara Review

 

What do Temple Run, Pac-Man Dash, and Robot Unicorn Attack have in common? And besides being endless runners? They are done right, and if done right gamers will have fun playing the game. And the game titled Polara is an endless runner and it is done right. So please read on fellow gamers.
The story has players controlling Lara, the conveniently-named heroine who uses a government-provided power suit that can switch between blue and red, in order to navigate the defenses that keep the lower class away from the upper class. Really. It turns out the upper class are kind of jerks, and seemingly killed her dad, so she rebels and runs to help the lower class resistance
Polara is surprisingly complex for a game with only two buttons. As fleet footed protagonist Lara races across the streets and rooftops of a Gibson-esque dystopia, myriad security systems threaten her every move with color-coded bullets, bombs, lasers, rotating death-chakrams, and what have you. There's the ability to absorb the same-colored bullets and lasers that come through. Platforms and jump pads are enabled and disabled based on which color the player is. Gravity switches around in some spots. Hexagonal gears pop up, which will kill the player if they are the wrong color, but get launched into the air otherwise, and serve as the way to defeat bosses.

It's not just that the game uses the color-switching, it's that it uses it well. It challenges the player not just to react but to also think about what they need to be doing. The wrinkle thrown in is that the game is perfectly willing to subvert its patterns, where players may react based on instinct to switch colors but actually don't need to do so. And even then, when the game plays it straight, it can still be challenging to figure out the proper sequence of jumps in order to survive. The game is rather brilliant, and its tricks don't get old, though it does get extremely challenging.
The game also boasts plenty of replay value: there's the quest for zero deaths in a level, and replays add collectible letters, and a secret icon that's rather challenging to collect. A randomized endless mode gets unlocked, and collecting the icons and letters in other levels unlocks new modes.

Polara is a great endless runner game to play and to have on your Android device. It has smooth responsive controls, great looking cut-scenes, and amazing replay value, and best of all it is free at the Google Play Store. So have fun with this one, and Happy Gaming Gamers