Velocity 2X is interactive poetry. All of its pieces, all of its movements, all of its systems and mechanics flow seamlessly into and out of one another to create a constant tone of movement and a feeling of endless flow. A mistimed jump, a poorly placed shot, and even death are merely delays–brief hurdles in your pursuit of a perfect run. Velocity’s influences–Metroid, Mario, and countless classic shoot-em-ups–are clear from the outset. Molding such disparate genres together isn’t easy, but Velocity is a tight and focused experience with a stunning level of finesse.

At any given point you could be at the helm of a blazing-fast ship equipped with the ability to teleport anywhere within a lever, or you could be running around as protagonist Kai, whose resemblance to Metroid’s Samus Aran is more than just a passing one. Shortly after Velocity 2X’s opening, Kai undergoes numerous cybernetic experiments that bestow upon her an extraordinary set of abilities. The game lacks a complex or gritty narrative, but Kai’s arc as a protagonist is nonetheless a sympathetic one. She regularly flashes between aggressive, sassy, humorous, and even nostalgic moods, and prismatic artwork reinforces that broad emotional spectrum. Cel-shading and clever lighting give Kai and the world she inhabits a palpable sense of weight and presence. Velocity 2X pulls heavily from its 2D inspirations, but adds distinct visual layers that give the environments depth. That flair effectively communicates both the emotional context for any given scene and highlights key obstacles to you so that you can maintain momentum without getting lost in a morass of visual information.

Bombs can be fired in all directions, and they don’t hurt you. The effects do look gorgeous, though.

Early stages introduce each gameplay mechanic separately so that you can familiarize yourself with how Velocity 2X works. Later, once you’ve mastered individual techniques, the game twists its ideas together in ways that keep the experience consistently fresh. The smooth layering of mechanics is one of Velocity 2X’s finest attributes, nuanced to such a degree that it takes an entire campaign to move from “comfortable” to “fluent” with all of its mechanics. As a result, the entire game serves as its own tutorial, and subsequent runs provide a masterful degree of challenge. Each stage is an incremental step up in difficulty that then loops back to subsequent play throughs. Perfectly finishing an early level is substantially harder than merely completing a later, an approach that makes keeps you growing and learning each time you play. The unfortunate side effect of that approach is that the finale lacks the appropriate thematic climax. Tension is constantly ratcheted higher and higher, but there’s no conclusive release–just another loop.

The first few areas teach basic ship movement; from there, Velocity 2X folds in its unique brand of lightning-fast teleportation, which provides a novel way to move throughout your environment. Walls cease to be barriers as you zip from place to place effortlessly, charting a new kind of course. Zipping about in this manner does take some getting used to, and you might feel at first as though you are haphazardly bouncing around. Starting a jump requires careful aiming, and when you’re racing through a new section, it’s easy to get sloppy and accidentally kill yourself. Fortunately, death is never a big deal: you respawn quickly, losing little more than a second or two most of the time. Even in these early moments, however, the harsh sound of a warp and the smooth animation make these micro-jumps consistently satisfying. On the second, third, or fourth time through, you’ll have become familiar enough with the area to rapidly plan and calculate safe (if imprecise) warps, and will have grown to appreciate Velocity 2X’s forgiving aiming system, which favors snaps of the analog stick over meticulous targeting. Later levels, which are even more loaded with environmental dangers, have you playing as Kai on foot. In such levels, teleportation works only at set distances for each of the four cardinal directions, which keeps the action-platforming from becoming unnecessarily lethal. Once you have unlocked the game’s full array of leaps and dashes, it becomes an elegant endeavor full of opportunities for slick maneuvers and deft timing.

After the pieces have been introduced and tested in controlled environments, Velocity 2X starts combining them in increasingly complex sequences with longer, sometimes labyrinthine challenges. Telepods allow you to set up long range warp points, and they facilitate puzzles that have you completing certain parts of the task at hand before flashing back to the beginning to take an alternate route. It’s a brilliant system that creates controlled bursts of backtracking without the monotony that too often follows in other games. In one level, “The Labyrinth,” you must set up these points across the map and warp between them repeatedly as you unlock new zones. This process may sound slow and tedious, but teleportation is integrated so smoothly that Velocity 2X never stumbles and always maintains its focus on speed and momentum.

That constant pressure to move forward and be faster creates moments in which you must quickly weigh the risks of one approach versus another. When on foot, for example, you can’t dash and use your arm cannon at once, but you still have access to a rifle that can only fire left or right. As a result, you are forced to sacrifice speed for protection (or vice versa), putting yourself in danger so that you might move just a bit faster. Similarly, while in the ship, your boost pushes the entire map upwards. Maintaining top speed can catch you on ledges that appear as the screen continues to scroll, and the tradeoff provides enough emergent variety to keep levels fresh on subsequent playthroughs. Velocity 2X’s exceptional locomotion and omnipresent timer make the traditional act of shooting things in video games newly thrilling.

A mistimed jump, a poorly placed shot, and even death are merely delays–brief hurdles in your pursuit of a perfect run.

Velocity 2X is meant to keep you rushing ahead, and every individual mechanic reinforces that sense of momentum. Death isn’t a mark of failure. Shifting between story and play isn’t marked by an abrupt change in background music. Fractions of a second separate ship combat from platforming. Sleek animations and consistent frame rates visually echo the motif. You can shift seamlessly between the PS4 and the Vita, and Velocity 2X is just as gorgeous and just as fluid on both. There’s never a dropped beat, never a moment where you aren’t moving, and never a point at which you aren’t considering how to be even faster.