It’s No ‘No Man’s Sky’, but it doesn’t need to be.

Morphite is Blowfish Studios’ mobile-come-console exploration game, which puts you in the shoes of Myrah, a girl who explores the galaxy, against her mentor’s wishes, in search of the titular Morphite; an item with immense power, both creative and destructive. It also has links to Myrah’s past. The expositional mouthpiece is Kitcat, a robotic cat. Kitcat is the show stealer, no doubts.

In Morphite you’ll explore dozens of planets, with each acting like a small Metroidvania environment in which you’ll shoot monsters and solve puzzles to obtain key items and progress the story. As you play, you’ll discover new ways to upgrade both Myrah and her ship – which criminally doesn’t have a name. Upgrading is done mainly via vendors and space stations. Upgrading your armour is a must, for a while at least, as it grants access to new planets; those that are too hot or cold are restricted at first. Upgrades require currency, these chunks are obtained via looting chests, killing monsters and destroying other objects on the surfaces of the worlds you explore. The chunks are complimented with resources which are obtained by picking harvesting mineral nodes found scattered around the various landscapes on the numerous planets you’ll find yourself visiting.

You have a fair few gadgets at your disposal, from grenades to a robo-pet. These tools will allow you to approach each location with a degree of freedom; you can choose to just go in phasers-a-blazing, killing any wildlife in your way, or you could – if you upgraded your shields and/or scanner – tank the damage from hostile animals and scan them for valuable data. This data can then be sold to upgrade your items further.

This circular approach sums up Morphite nicely, as, like a circle, Morphite doesn’t stray from the formula it establishes very early on. This isn’t a necessarily bad thing, as we have to remember that Blowfish made Morphite as a mobile title first, with console following.

As I stated at the beginning – It’s No No Man’s Sky, but it doesn’t need to be.

Thanks to Xbox and Crescent Moon Games for supporting TiX