Screamer can be a satisfying arcade racer with plenty of hours of content to sink your teeth into. That being said, the unique control scheme and various meters can make it difficult to find the groove.
Don’t let those intimidating first impressions get the better of you! We promise that getting past them is well worth the effort. Here are five tips to make your Screamer experience a much more rewarding one.
Play Tournament Mode
Screamer doesn't have a traditional tutorial segment or glossary. All mechanics are instead introduced progressively through Tournament, the game's story mode. If you dive headfirst into the other modes, you'll need to figure things completely out on your own.
Just keep in mind that Tournament mode slowly introduces these mechanics. The combat systems weren’t explained until I was 20+ races in. 30+ races in and I only knew a handful of character skills. At least the story is entertaining!
Be aggressive to balance Sync and Entropy
Screamer has a lot of mechanics at play, with the Sync and Entropy meters standing above all. A race starts with you slowly building up Sync, with each use of Boost adding to your Entropy meter. Something important to remember is that if you spend Entropy to activate a Strike and KO an opponent, you'll gain more Sync.
This leads to a nice loop of spending and refunding both meters if you manage to keep knocking out other drivers. First place only has to worry about defending themselves, but every driver behind them can make a comeback by playing with aggression.
Remember to hit Accelerate after leaving the pause menu
Whether it's to check your driver's passive skill or for life reasons, sometimes you have to hit pause. However, if you exit the Pause Menu with the Accelerate button already pushed, the game won't recognize it. Chances are you might not either until you've lost considerable speed.
Yes, this is a niche problem for offline modes. But I mention it because it happened to me even when I sometimes pressed Accelerate too fast after exiting the Pause Menu. So give yourself a bit of, err, pause, when you leave the menu, before putting the pedal to the metal.
Try out different characters
The numerous racers available to play aren’t just set dressing. Each one performs differently in terms of speed, drift handling, and even how many stocks their Sync and Entropy meters consist of. As someone whose drifting skills still aren’t quite up to snuff as I’d like, Hina and Noboru have been my go-tos.
Further differentiating these characters are their unique passive skills. Most of them overhaul or serve as extensions of the existing mechanics. Either way, none of them feel the same and promote slightly different play styles. Try them all out to see which fits better for you.
Keep an eye out for shortcuts
They can be hard to see when you're driving around corners at high speeds, but you can find shortcuts within Screamer's tracks. You might need to drift into one from the outside of the track or potentially slow down a bit to enter, but the time saved is almost always worth it.
I would suggest boosting to get through them as soon as possible. Most of them are small alleyways or streets, which makes for a dangerous situation if more than one racer is driving through at the same time.
That covers our top 5 tips for Screamer. If you need more help, we can help with an explanation of how Perfect Boosts work as well as how to unlock characters and tracks. Screamer is available on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.
