Ballotron Oceans Review – Written By Guggs

Less than a year since the release of Ballotron, sequel Ballotron Oceans has made a splash on to marketplaces.

Ballotron Oceans is a puzzle game in which the goal is to hit the large green ball with the large blue ball, using any/all of the three smaller blue balls. Ball control is achieved by using simple hold and pull back mechanic, meaning both speed and trajectory are set simultaneously allowing for precise control. You’ll find yourself strategically rebounding balls off solid blocks, using other smaller balls to remove obstacles in your way, and causing chain reactions where your reflexes are tested as you control various aspects of a level once your ball has been set off on its journey. Although a handful of these levels offer a reasonable challenge, it’s a shame that most are uninspiring and can be finished by ramping up the power and carelessly blasting your way through whatever’s in front of you.

If you’ve played 2022’s Ballotron, this is essentially a copy and paste job with an underwater re-skin and a few “special” golden coins and stars dotted around. These new inclusions add to your score and help determine your star rating at the end of each stage, but with no unlockables or customisation options to spend your accumulated underwater treasure on, there’s no reason to worry about finishing a level without collecting them.

Visuals are vibrant and add some character, as various tropical fish swim around in the background and the occasional orca bobs up and down. However, the same can’t be said for the audio, which is oddly turned off by default, and although this can be changed in the menu, it doesn’t add anything that enhances the experience.

It won’t come as a surprise that it’s likely this new instalment will be popular amongst achievement hunters. Featuring 10 easy achievements which are obtained by clearing the game’s first 10 levels, you’re likely to end up seeing this on the profiles of most of the achievement and 100% completion community member’s profiles. The Xbox Store boasts that this is the “next part of Ballotron”, and whilst there’s an active community who will lap up these 5-minute completions, it almost certainly won’t be the last.

Ballotron Oceans is a mind-numbingly simple puzzler which doesn’t add any substance to its 2022 predecessor. Whilst the base mechanics are solid, implementing them in challenging and enjoyable ways ultimately misses the mark, making it more of a damp squib than a wave of success.

Review played by and written by Guggs