Thrasher review – thumping soundtrack

The spiritual successor to Thumper is a stunning VR game that mixes music and visuals to impressive effect, but will it also go down as a classic?

2016’s Thumper described itself as a ‘rhythm violence’ game and while it was released across multiple formats it was at its best when played in VR, where its pounding beats and swooping visuals came where at their most pulse-elevating. Even though it was an instant classic, Thumper never got a sequel, but new release Thrasher describes itself as a spiritual successor, by some of the same developers, and you can immediately see why.

Although not strictly rhythm action, Thrasher also specialises in blending music and visuals. Using only your dominant hand – you don’t even need a controller – you project a slim beam of light, connected to a sparkly, glowing cyber-centipede (the press release calls it an eel), which follows the tip of your flexible, fishing rod-style laser as you whip it around the space in front of you.

Its ultra-fluid motion is instantly hypnotic, enhanced by the trippy landscape around it, which shifts and dances to the beat. Each of the worlds you work your way though has its own signature visuals but all conform to the basic techno-hippy vibe, with neo-psychedelic rainbow-coloured lights pulsing to the music in strange, abstract 3D shapes set against an inky black backdrop.

Your job is to slice your highly manoeuvrable space eel through sets of blue shapes. Initially that’s very simple indeed, the game gently easing you into its ruleset. It’s also endlessly satisfying, with the swing and slash of your neon pet dismissing sets of blue bars as you go, which feels nothing short of fantastic. It’s reminiscent of Sega’s flawed Dreamcast-era classic NiGHTS Into Dreams, in the way it makes you feel part of an elegant digital dance routine.

Soon enough, Thrasher adds red shapes that you need to avoid. Each level comes with a 60-second timer and colliding with red objects knocks off a few precious seconds. It also momentarily prevents your eel from connecting with blue shapes, further slowing down your completion time. As punishments go it’s not a particularly severe one, although as you progress through each world you’ll be seeing a lot more of it.

That’s because things rapidly start to heat up and what began as a calm, almost relaxing set of interactions becomes far more pointed, the red and blue shapes speeding up, spinning, and rotating on their axes, making them far harder targets. You’ll also need to learn how to use your eel’s dash attack, which shatters both blue and red objects in its path.

Tactically that means you can get rid of just enough red shapes to make the blue ones accessible, so you can slash through them all without accidentally stunning your eel. The rapid movement, neon visuals, pounding music, and increasing difficulty mean that at its best, it plays like a dizzying hybrid of Rez Infinite, Tetris Effect, and Fruit Ninja.

Unfortunately, Thrasher can’t quite live up to those heady inspirations, its game design foundering as the complexity ratchets up. When the rapidly spinning patterns of shapes get faster and harder to predict, trying to pull off perfect levels becomes more a matter of luck than skill; the motion of your eel and the uninterpretable patterns of the shapes you’re trying to hit or avoid, becoming way too much for humble human reactions.

The developer apparently realised this, because if you keep messing up a particular level, eventually you’re simply dropped back in without a timer, letting you finish it off at your own pace with as many mistakes as you like. It’s a poor substitute for a consistent difficulty level, but at least it means everyone with enough patience can see all Thrasher has to offer.

At the end of each world a boss looms; a giant, slightly demonic looking head that you have to defeat in discrete rounds that vary only subtly from the main game. Beat its dancing, spinning sets of shapes three times and it, rather boringly, sinks back down to whence it came. No explosions, no razzmatazz, just a quiet exit. It’s perhaps representative of Thrasher’s wider issues.

Although it can look and feel magnificent, for much of its play time levels feel either too easy or too difficult, with relatively little time spent feeling challenged, and as though your skills and reflexes are carrying you through. It leaves a few difficulty spikes, but also swathes of the game that are pointlessly trivial.

The impression it gives is that everything is just slightly undercooked, as though the core visuals, music, and balletic interaction with your space eel were nailed so perfectly that the rest of the game’s development took a back seat. It’s a shame, because there’s a great deal of potential here, even if much of it remains unrealised.

When the difficulty hits perfectly, the combination of its rapidly moving visuals, music, and skill-based, eel-swinging swordsmanship is mesmerising, giving you that elusive sense of being in the zone. Sadly, for much of your time in Thrasher you’re not so much in the zone, as staring wistfully back at the zone and wishing those transcendent moments arrived more frequently.

Formats: Meta Quest 2, 3 (reviewed) and Pro, PC VR, and Apple Vision Pro
Price: £14.99
Publisher: Creature
Developer: Puddle
Release Date: 25th July 2024 (PC VR TBA)
Age Rating: 3

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