I am not exaggerating - Kona VR has the worst graphics of any PSVR game. If you can cite a PSVR game with worse graphics, I will retract that statement. There have been many PSVR titles criticised for "blurry" graphics, but Kona takes this to a whole new level with a resolution so low, you can count the pixels. It's difficult to know whether this is the result of ineptitude or severeI am not exaggerating - Kona VR has the worst graphics of any PSVR game. If you can cite a PSVR game with worse graphics, I will retract that statement. There have been many PSVR titles criticised for "blurry" graphics, but Kona takes this to a whole new level with a resolution so low, you can count the pixels. It's difficult to know whether this is the result of ineptitude or severe efficiency problems with Kona's game engine. We all know what the PSVR is capable of; Kona VR is worse than nearly all the launch titles.
The original Kona engine is surely quite simple? The graphics are nice, but not mind-blowing, there are relatively few visual effects and the draw distance is naturally short due to the perpetual snowy fog. And yet, this VR adaptation seems to run at a resolution around the 480p mark... possibly even lower. Compare this to the incredible-looking Skyrim VR, which has to attempt a draw distance of several miles, in a massive open world with no loading screens (except going in/out of buildings and caves) and many fancy visual effects. Kona VR does the PSVR a huge disservice, and one has to wonder why they didn't call out for help from Sony (or any other PSVR developer) instead of releasing it in this state.
The graphics are so bad that you can't read any of the leaflets you pick up - so the game presents you with a black screen and white text that you sometimes have to scroll to read. For the "journal" instead of doing this, you're presented with the graphical version at what feels like 2 inches from your nose, which is extremely disconcerting. Presumably this is done so that you stand some chance of reading it, but it's still painful to look at.
Forget reading road signs or posters on the walls unless you can get close enough to them. One of the best things about the original version of Kona was looking around at the detail in your environment. Forget all that in the VR version.
But it's not even just bad in the game - the initial setup menu is so low resolution, it's hard to tell whether a setting is "Enabled" or "Disabled".
The Move controllers are largely redundant, and are not explained at all in-game, so good luck figuring out how to run, jump or crouch. They're particularly useless in the setup menu, as you can only click on the various settings boxes to turn them from yellow to red, but there's no obvious way to change the values.
In-game, there's no smooth turning option (with either Move or DualShock), so if like me you find that makes you dizzy/nauseated then your enjoyment is going to be impaired throughout. You can at least turn off teleport and vignette.
Loading screens occur far too often (again, compare with the amount of graphics Skyrim chucks around) and are a completely black screen that can last anything up to 16 seconds, leaving you wondering whether or not the game has crashed.
I really wanted to give this a 1/10, but I love the original game so much, I felt I had to give at least something for the gameplay underneath. Sony really need to raise the standard for PSVR games, as Kona VR is a poor advertisement for the platform.… Expand
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