This game was a bit interesting from the moment it appeared. Since there is already a very famous game in a similar category, I thought it would receive harsh reviews here and there, but the reviews continued to be positive. But since I haven’t tried it myself, how can I evaluate it? I just heard people say, “It’s a lot more fun than I thought” and “It’s a good game,” so my expectations were quite high. Even when I watched the play video, something seemed a bit surprising, and I was very curious about what it would feel like to shoot those ‘bubbles’.
And finally, at this TGS2023 site, I finally had the opportunity to try out ‘Form Stars’, which everyone praised so much. And I understood why everyone said it was so okay. In fact, perhaps because of word of mouth, it was so popular that people had to wait for more than 100 minutes for the general on-site demonstration. To that extent, Formstars was truly a game that provided a refreshing experience and fun enough to be said to be Square Enix’s dark horse.
▲ Formstars open beta/content introduction video
The concept of Foam Stars can be summarized as ‘bubble shooting’. A TPS where the default bullet for the player-selected character is foam. The eight types of characters that were available for demonstration have different basic attacks and styles depending on their individuality, such as akimbo-style handgun, shotgun, rifle, launcher, charging, long horse and wide horse, and AR type. The main content is where you choose the character that suits you and compete in team battles.
The player arrives on the battlefield by sliding, expanding the area through bubbles and attacking enemy players to knock them down. Here, a character whose HP is low becomes a ‘bubble ball’. If you hit it by sliding through the R2 button while it is in a bubble, it will knock you out for a few seconds. Afterwards, the basic battle flow continues, with the fallen character rejoining the battlefield after a certain period of time. And when you become a bubble, an ally on the same team can slide to remove the bubble and heal you. If you do not clear the bubbles, they will explode over time and knock you out, so rescuing allies who have become bubbles and defeating enemies is the key to basic combat.
▲ Battle Summary: Bubble Bubble Pong Pong
▲ The operation is much simpler and simpler than expected.
In this not difficult process, you just have to play around with your enemies by using your character’s unique ‘skills’ that have a short cooldown. It was introduced in a form that strengthened the character’s individuality, including evasion and maneuver skills that instantly leap and leave bubbles, while also pouring powerful firepower into the area itself. And although the use of this skill itself is not difficult, it can have a significant impact on the battlefield depending on its strategic use. Powerful skills that can be used over time feel so influential that they must be used at the team level on the battlefield.
For example, if you use the Akimbo style ‘Child’ skill, you can jump high and leave a line of bullets to quickly leave the battlefield and use a hit-and-run style to disperse aggro. However, the launcher Melty uses guided bubble bullets within a certain distance, so its attacks are powerful, but its body is weak. So, you need someone to protect you, and even with the skill, you need to pour a lot of foam bullets at a certain distance, which has high instantaneous firepower and creates terrain with bubbles, so you need to strategically protect yourself and run away well. Chaos Ender, a sterilizing demon, has skills that maximize the style that suits him, such as hiding in a bubble and launching a surprise attack.
▲ 8 characters that can be used.
▲ You can use it depending on your preferred style. Personally, Soa and Agito were the best.
Players can move over their allies’ bubbles by sliding, and the bubbles are the key here. Surprisingly, direction changes are very quick and free, and the elevation difference caused by the accumulation of bubbles is more useful than you might think. Rather than a fixed terrain, the terrain of the battlefield changes temporarily due to the concentration of firepower and skills of allies, and the game suddenly changes. In the actual demonstration, they momentarily trapped the enemy star player with a wall of bubbles created by their ally Melty, and temporarily combined the firepower of the three players to take down the star player, turning the situation around and winning.
The reason why this change in topography and the difference in elevation has such a big impact is because the coal is a ‘bubble’. Basically, most foam bullets tend to draw a slow, parabolic curve. Of course, each character has different attributes, but first of all, the bullet does not exceed the speed of sound and is slow enough to be seen, and because it is very large, the engagement distance itself is very short, so it is easy to hit and get hit easily. If you shoot bubbles like that and hit them, you will become fluffy and the other person will also bubble and then explode. It is a strange game that can easily lead to chaotic fights.
In addition, perhaps reflecting the fact that it is a bubble, the terrain changes quickly but more slowly than expected. It’s a strange word, not like a hot iced Americano, but here’s how to explain it. The ‘creation’ of the terrain is fast, but changing the terrain means that it takes some time. The bubble area increases quickly and it is easy to change the terrain of our bubble area, but changing the enemy’s area to our friend’s area takes more time and bubbles than expected. However, the moment you turn the enemy’s bubble area into a friendly bubble area, the speed of terrain creation becomes so fast that it becomes difficult to predict.
So, walls and bubble gardens are suddenly built, and people or terrain explode here and there throughout the game. When the players’ skills are combined, it is not easy to come to your senses on the battlefield. A bubble hill rises and foam bombs pour out, and as it quickly turns into a lump of foam, people appear, hitting it with surfboards. I can do the same. The process continues throughout the battlefield.
▲ There is a certain amount of tension, and the atmosphere is refreshing and light.
So the feeling of a ‘party’ is strong, and the battlefield has a comical rather than serious feel, which makes you smile. The battlefield changes quickly depending on the terrain, and the rules of the battlefield make it difficult to let down your guard, so contrary to the slow and dreamy atmosphere of shooting, the transition of the battlefield and the tempo of the battle are really fast. The strange flow and charm of the game created by this unbalance seem to maximize the atmosphere of a light and casual party.
The battlefield rule applied in the demonstration is ‘Smash the Star’. If you knock down the opposing team a total of 7 times, the player who performed the most will be selected as a ‘star player’ and you can defeat this star player. There is no victory or defeat until this ‘star player’ is defeated, so if you do well, you can aim for a comeback even on a battlefield where you are losing, if you fight well while protecting the star player, allowing for a patient battle. In that respect, I think there are elements that create a more competitive spirit, and I am hopeful that experiencing other battlefields and maps will create other things of interest.
▲ Open beta begins at the end of September. It is said that at this time, you can queue with your friends.
Sometimes there are games like that. The feeling of “I don’t know why this is fun… it’s just fun.” It’s a truly terrible and terrible situation to make an evaluation from a reporter’s perspective, but the excitement of meeting an interesting game is a helpless feeling that can’t be helped. That’s what Pomstars did at first. It’s easy, simple, and simple, but I had fun playing the game the whole time, and even after the demonstration was over, I wanted to make a fuss and ask if I could order another game.
When I calmed down, thought about it, and analyzed it again, I realized that Foam Stars was really faithful to the concept of ‘bubbles’. Unlike the slow shooting, the tempo of the battle and the situation is fast, and the fuzzy bubbles create the atmosphere and the finale explodes.
It is a game that adapts the tempo generated by bullets called ‘bubbles’ to suit the party atmosphere. Yes, to sum it up, it is a game that utilizes the concept well and creates the basics well, but also has its own personality. I think that the game design that really captures the concept is the driving force behind Formstars’ unique charm.
It’s clearly a one-time demonstration, and the atmosphere created by the ‘bubble’ is so unique that there may be additional points that you may not even be aware of. Perhaps because the demonstrators were not familiar with it, there were many areas in which they were unable to utilize the skills well overall. So, it may be overrated in a one-time demo, but we should not overlook that it is a game that can feel different if you play it for dozens of hours.
But I can’t deny that the demonstration was incredibly fun. It cannot be denied that it is a game that creates a good atmosphere with a faithful concept. As the open beta test will be held on September 30th, I hope that many users will experience the charm of this game for themselves. It is an exciting shooting game where everyone can burst and explode in the crazy bubbling bubbles.
