Fantavision

"Catch 'em. Detonate 'em. Watch an explosive display of brilliant pyrotechnics that you control. Sounds pretty simple. But once you get the hang of it, it gets faster, tougher and more fantastic than you could ever imagine! A PYROTECHNICS PUZZLE CRAZE! A fast and furious puzzle game taken to all new heights! Combines action, shooting, strategy and puzzle gameplay. It's totally addictive with mind-blowing intensity. COMBINATIONS, CHAIN REACTIONS, EXPLOSIONS! Combine a wild assortment of flares and other special FX to create explosive chain reactions! Then replay your aerial spectacular and vary the camera angle, weather conditions and more! EXPLOSIVE VISUAL EFFECTS! A combination of unique gameplay and advanced graphics, mixed with stunning lighting and explosive visual effects. SET IN ENVIRONMENTS ALL OVER THE WORLD! Cityscapes and amusement parks to the outer reaches of deep space. Design and detonate an awesome show of willow, peony, circular and splash flares."

This is one of those games from the arty types that is a break from the norm with simple rules and simple controls that looks great, sounds good with a non sensical plot. Its a game that I want to like but am just terrible at it. Trying to put the basic rules into practice goes over my head and because you have to be quick thinking I end up panicking and just scraping by to the end of the game unable to achieve a high score.

The game is fairly simple as you aim at the fireworks one by one forming a link and blowing them before they disappear. of course there is a lot more to it than that. The controls are part of the issue for me as you try to aim quickly at the firework you want but it will often jump to the next nearest one. Did I mention it may just me being bad at the game already ..

The game was also released on PS5 for PSVR2 and like with Rez, the vr control mechanism is a game changer with much more manageable control and again with its own highscore tables in that mode due to that.

I start off the longplay showing the tutorials on how to play before heading into the normal game. I complete the mode but with a less than impressive score. The trick is to chain as many fireworks as you can and waiting as long as possible before setting them off. You kind of need future sight on what will fire next. Whilst it does tell you at the bottom of the screen what is coming up, if you are looking there you may lose sight of what is going on as it can get frantic.

Following this, I show the ultra techniques video and head of into Hard Mode. yeah .. I'm not doing so well here either. Upon game completion I show the 2nd Ultra gameplay video and closeout with a sample replay showing some of the different display effects there.

00:00:00 Title Screen
00:02:00 Tutorial - Basic rules
00:05:00 Tutorial - Advanced Rules 1
00:08:18 Tutorial - Advanced Rules 2
00:12:30 Tutorial - Advanced Rules 3
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00:16:15 Normal Mode - Stage 1
00:21:50 Normal Mode - Stage 2
00:27:20 Normal Mode - Stage 3
00:32:45 Normal Mode - Stage 4
00:38:15 Normal Mode - Stage 5
00:43:55 Normal Mode - Stage 6
00:49:25 Normal Mode - Stage 7
00:53:35 Normal Mode - Stage 8
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00:00:00 Extra Video - Ultra Play 1
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01:06:05 Hard Mode - Stage 1
01:11:30 Hard Mode - Stage 2
01:17:00 Hard Mode - Stage 3
01:23:10 Hard Mode - Stage 4
01:28:40 Hard Mode - Stage 5
01:34:05 Hard Mode - Stage 6
01:40:15 Hard Mode - Stage 7
01:44:20 Hard Mode - Stage 8
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01:52:20 Extra Video - Ultra Play 2
01:57:48 Replay - Showing some effects and camera views.