Tentacular is a physics-based puzzle game in which you control tentacle monsters raised by the townspeople of La Calma, a small village in the middle of the sea. You are on a journey of self-discovery, trying to find out where you came from and where you belong.
It requires manipulating objects with long sucker-laden limbs and solving over 50 puzzling levels, taking 6-8 hours to complete. These include various silly objectives such as throwing rockets through hoops, launching items at towers (Angry Birds style), stacking shipping containers as high as possible, and more. There is a time limit and a global leaderboard invites you to improve your score.
However, although the tentacles are well tracked by the PSVR2 sense controller, we found that the tentacles were often stuck in the environment. Combine this with wacky collision detection and it can be a frustrating experience at times. Even more frustrating is the villagers who are always behind you, offering hints if you get stuck.
Control issues aside, the haptic feedback is fantastic, simulating the feeling of items being squared in the jaw and nearby explosions. Made easy. But despite making good use of the hardware, the rudimentary visual style, while pleasing, doesn’t push the technology to its limits.
Still, the mission scale grows as you progress, and later levels (like the good Heist) offer longer and more complex challenges, which we really enjoy. and gadgets at once, and appreciated the sandbox area, which offers a great creative space.
