39 Days to Mars has finally made its way to PS4 and this is our review of this brilliant co-op game on the PS4. 39 Days to Mars has been already released earlier on PC, Nintendo Switch and Xbox One however now PS4 players can finally experience this brilliant co-op puzzle game as well. It brings all the features of other platforms to PS4 so players are not missing out on anything. Now without any further ado, let’s jump in the review of 39 Days to Mars for PS4 by It’s Anecdotal.
39 Days to Mars is a heavily co-op themed game. It is essentially a puzzle-solving game however all puzzles in the game are designed to be much easier when you are playing the game in co-op mode. However, it also comes with a solo mode where you are joined with a cat as your sidekick. The game features Sir Albert Wickes and The Right Honorable Clarence Baxter. Both of these characters are playable in the co-op mode however if you choose solo, you get to play alongside a cat.
This change is so evident that while solving puzzles, the second human hand is replaced with a kitty paw which makes it easier for you to distinguish between the two hands. As we mentioned earlier, 39 Days to Mars is best played in co-op and we really mean it. In solo mode, you will need to control both hands and on your Dualshock 4, each joystick controls one hand and L2 and R2 work as their interaction key. This becomes a little easier after a bit of practice however some of the difficult puzzles will really grind your gears when you are playing in solo mode.
The plot of 39 Days to Mars features both Sir Albert Wickes and The Right Honorable Clarence Baxter suddenly deciding to take a trip to Mars. For this purpose, they build and use their very own spaceship called HMS Fearful which is made to look extremely like a Victorian England themed house which is basically the era in which the game is set in. You will find a lot of things like a kettle and cupboards which you find in a house. As you interact with different ship parts, your characters will go in their history and tell you exactly how they managed to build that ship giving you hints at why everything keeps exploding in the ship.
As you try to keep your ship in one piece by solving different puzzles and exploring the space around you, quite often your character will want to simply have a cup of tea before they tackle the issue at hand. For this, you will enter a small mini-game where the game will tell you what sort of tea your character would like and then you will need to make the right tea by using your hands and choosing the right ingredients. Beware that if you fail, you will need to keep trying until your character has his fill of a good cuppa.
This offers a very good change of pace however with all the puzzles so varied and the occasional trip to the outside, the game already offers quite a decent amount of variety when it comes to gameplay. As the days go by, you will often have some silent days in your trip however normally, after a day or two, something will definitely explode on your ship and you will need to improvise and find resources from the space to fix the problem or solve a complex puzzle to make the things go back to normal.
The game’s story is not really long however it offers tons of replayability because the scenarios are shuffled every time which means that each journey in the game will be unique. If you are extremely good at solving puzzles, you can complete one full journey in less than 50 minutes however a normal playthrough will take any time between 1.5 to 2 hours before you either land or crash on the mars. The game does not really punish you for failing puzzles and gives you decent tries to solve them.
However every time you fail a puzzle, they will get much harder the next time around as the part in question will get more damaged every time you fail a puzzle. If you manage to complete a puzzle on your first go, it is the easiest way to complete that specific puzzle. Fail it once and it get tougher. Fail it again and it gets toughest. The game also gives you hints every now and then in some puzzles however timed puzzles are the most intense in the game and they will keep you on your toes as you try to figure out how to fix your ship in time before it explodes.
Visually, you will find that 39 Days to Mars is extremely pleasant to look at with soft Victorian England themed visuals. Most of the machinery used in the game is a classic throwback to this particular era. The sound design is also pretty decent with the game characters making witty comments about the puzzles and the condition of the ship every now and then. In short, the PS4 version comes with everything that makes this a brilliant game and being on a console, you can give another player with you the controller and have some amazing couch co-op fun.
Final Verdict
39 Days to Mars plays brilliantly on PS4 and it is not short in any way from the rest of its versions. It is a solid title when it comes to couch co-op games and since we have so little couch co-op games now, 39 Days to Mars is a perfect game for people who still want to play couch co-op titles on the console. It will keep players busy for hours as they make the trip again and again and each trip to Mars offering them unique experiences along the way. Just one thing, if you are going to play it solo, you better sharpen up your hand-to-eye coordination as you will need it to be in its top shape.
Final Score: 8.5/10
