The days of taking dollars from my dad, putting them in a quarter machine, and then living the dream of spending hours upon hours playing short arcade experiences might be long gone, but games like Quantum: Recharged from developer SneakyBox are keeping the memories alive.
Quantum: Recharged is a reimagined 1982 arcade classic called Quantum that borrows the concept of creating connections by forming shapes, a concept that first appeared in a 1981 game called Qix. Anyway, Quantum: Recharged is a simple game that tasks you with flying a ship with a power to create portals through connecting lines to suck in evil enemies and destroy them. Quantum: Recharged contains an amazing amount of intensity to the gameplay and was changed just enough from its arcade origins to get with the times and offer up a richer experience.
Put those quarters away, celebrate that you never spent hours in a smoke-filled arcade, and let’s get this review going.
Classic gaming, new bells, and whistles
When you’re re-developing a classic game that is over 40 years old, you don’t want to mess with the formula too much. Ruining the essence of the game can equal a horrible disaster and potentially a marketing nightmare. If you need proof of ruining something good, feel free to check out the history behind New Coke. That story proves that you just don’t screw with something that works.
Quantum back in 1982 was a good game. You played as an asterisk (they probably couldn’t create a ship – just go with it) that would create shapes with a trailing line in hopes of encircling and trapping enemies to destroy them and score points. The more enemies you trap within your circle, the more points you get. As you progress through the levels, you find more enemies, faster gameplay, and easier ways to lose. This was a simple arcade gameplay formula that worked. Much like every arcade game in the early 80s, the goal was to score the most points while spending the least number of quarters. Nothing more, nothing less.
SneakyBox took that old concept and didn’t change too much with the base-level gameplay in Quantum: Recharged. You still fly a ship (an actual one this time) that has a line trailing from it, create shapes, and you take out enemies. The big difference is that the shapes you create can now suck in ships as the created shapes become portals that draw everything near it into it. Like a black hole sucking in planets. And that change is subtle, though effective, as the shapes last longer on the screen when compared to the original game. In addition, the shapes created aren’t just lifeless vector lines, rather they are visually exciting and come in a variety of colors and styles.
Compared to the arcade version, where the shape simply disappeared after a quick second, probably a hardware limitation for a 1982 arcade machine, this small improvement makes a huge difference as the player can breathe a bit while also creating more shapes while the original shape is doing its thing. That makes the gameplay far more interesting and a little less intense. But don’t worry, that intensity that was toted with the original 1982 classic didn’t go away. It just was built up differently.
The core of the original game was playing off the pressure the player was feeling trying to take out as many moving enemies without running into them. The game was always hoping that the player would overreact. And trust me, there were plenty of moments where that would happen. That core hasn’t been lost in translation despite the subtle improvements to the crux of the gameplay with Quantum: Recharged.
To balance out that new ability to create multiple shapes quickly, thus taking out enemies, the game gives the player the option to boost their ship’s speed. This one element of the gameplay design change from the original creates a new choice-driven intensity. Choosing when to use the boost decides how intense you want the gameplay to become. The boost can help you out of a sticky situation from surrounding enemies. If you feel like you’re getting too deep into an enemy squadron, you can boost your way to a clearer area with a push of a button. Trust me, that boost saved my butt more than a few times during the review period of this game. While the boost is finite before it needs recharging, its inclusion means you have an out when you need one. Of course, pointing the ship quickly in the right direction while avoiding boosting into an enemy, and you have three hits before your ship explodes, isn’t as easy as it may sound. That’s where the panic pushing and overreaction come into play. It still maintains that element of gameplay that the original created.
The second use of the boost is to connect your lines to create bigger shapes. Unlike the original game, Quantum: Recharged has dissolving lines if you wait too long to connect them. For example, if you’re creating a giant circle, halfway through the circle creation the end line (where you began) starts to slowly dissolve, which makes it more difficult to fully conceive the shape. To balance that dissolving out, the boost can quickly connect your ship to the end line with a simple point of the controller and a press of the boost button. It works, even though at times it might feel like you’re chasing lines. That line chasing mixed with enemy avoidance can create an incredibly intense experience. It’s beautiful but intense.
That boost mechanic does a fantastic job of adding just a bit more depth to a simplified original gameplay design. It certainly adds choice for the player and gets them more engaged with the game.
Enemies everywhere
To add even more challenge and intensity, the game does a great job of gradually adding interesting enemies that come in a nice variety. You start with enemies that are actively trying to avoid you by turning 90 degrees consistently and mainly staying away from you. The game shifts to newer enemies that are moving more freely around the level and in a faster manner. When you take out those enemies and move on in the game, it adds enemies that are actively trying to seek you out, which can be incredibly annoying, yet challenging. The gradual step-up with enemies and how they react is something that works well in this game, as it increases the challenge while still providing a wonderful arcade experience. Outside of the occasional Galaga or Galaxian, you didn’t get a lot of enemy varieties in these types of arcade experiences. Hardware back in the day was expensive and the more you had happening on screen meant the more hardware you would have to pour into the arcade cabinet. The goal of being an arcade owner was to keep costs down while making the most profit. It’s a good goal, but sadly one that wasn’t sustainable.
Anyway, with Quantum: Recharged the sheer number of enemies on screen at one time and variety only helps to keep the player hooked to this experience. Compared to the 1982 game, this recharged version can have as many enemies as it wants as it has taken the restricted confines of an arcade monitor size and expanded it to fit a more widescreen/16:9 ratio. That means more real estate for packing in more enemies. All this leads back to more intensity, and a bit quicker experience that is mostly fun.
Extra is extra but good extra
The folks at SneakyBox sprinkle even more fun into this good game by adding in power-ups. Those power-ups can be items like extra lives or more power for the ship, or other little things that you can acquire easily as you play. Extra little items like this make the experience more interesting and less dry. While I love my arcade games from the 80s, sometimes they were quite dry with interesting boosts and power-ups.
If power-ups weren’t interesting enough, the devs also had challenge elements for stages. For example, there was a stage that featured a timer (90 seconds) that challenged me to take down enemies in a restricted amount of time. The gameplay didn’t change one bit but throwing in a timer added some good variety to the stages, meaning you were playing for a different reason – even though it was the same, which added yet another layer of intensity to the gameplay. The first time I ran into this stage, it was a doozy, I was panicking pushing boosters, and dying quite often. Still, it was a fun variety that changed up the level progression just a bit.
Other extra items of interest for this game included a challenge mode, a local co-op option, and an old arcade concept – a global leaderboard. You can’t remake an arcade game without creating a scoring competition, otherwise, you stand to lose the essence of the original game. You never want to lose that essence.
The gameplay with Quantum: Recharged retains everything that made the original arcade experience wonderful, sans the use of quarters and a cigarette-filled arcade room. This game doesn’t stray far from the original design, but it does improve it in several areas such as enemy and level variety, and a badass soundtrack that keeps you energized even amid your continual failure. The gameplay makes for a quick and beautiful experience while tugging on your sleeve saying, “Try this again, you’ll do better next time”. You want an arcade experience to do that for you.
Now, in addition to all this improvement, the price tag is quite reasonable at $9.99. I’ve bought old arcade games on PSN for $7.99, so having a new and improved version of an old arcade game at a nearly comparable price point is a steal of a deal.
On that note, let’s wrap this up.
Conclusion
Quantum: Recharged from developer SneakyBox and publisher Atari is an improvement from the original arcade experience. It brings enough newness to enemies, provides a good dose of mode variety, and is quick fun. While the arcade experience might not attract every gamer due to its lack of depth, there is enough here to warrant a hard look.
