Risk Of Rain (Review)

Risk Of Rain is by Hopoo Games, LLC, which is a team of two students involved in computer science and mechanical engineering, plus one more guy for the music. Hearing about a small team like this always changes my opinion slightly and makes me want to give out gold stars by the handful, but I'll still try to be as unbiased as possible.  

When I first heard about this, I was more than a little intrigued and pleasantly surprised, as there are so few multiplayer rogue-likes out there. I linked it to Pete on Facebook, and shortly afterwards it was being purchased and played.  

While classified as a retro platforming adventure, it breaks this guise by featuring randomised environments and other unique elements. It opens with a simplistic scene of a space train bearing lots of strange cargo, and an obvious villain who swarms it with monsters before sending it crashing onto an unknown planet. You are the only survivor, and as the screen loads in, you are told to find the teleporter.

It won’t take you long to notice that all that weird and wonderful cargo has plunged onto this alien planet along with you, and is obtainable for only a small fee. Some appear in the form of a chest and are randomly generated upon your purchase, while some items are openly presented and give you the option to choose one item out of three. Almost every item you find is crucial to your survival. Whether it is healing mushrooms, or explosive shots, you’ll need all the help you can get against the masses of monsters that start appearing all around you.

This game will never be classified as casual or easy-going. “Drizzle”, the easy equivalent, holds quite a challenge even with a team of two. Interestingly, item and enemy spawn rates seem to be unaffected by the number of players. If you aren’t playing as a team, I imagine the race for the next upgrade would be quite competitive, but fortunately they fixed this in early stages so greedy players can’t pick up after a certain point.

To add to the challenge, each level is on a timer, and things increase in difficulty the longer you take. This means if you are struggling, things are only ever going to get worse. It is best to backtrack as little as possible, but often the items can be worth the journey. Raising your level and money by defeating the constantly spawning enemies in areas close by a currently unaffordable item is recommended.

New items and characters are earned through achievements. At the outset you are given access to a wide availability of items, but only one character type out of ten, regardless of the amount of players. This means two (to four) identical characters on the screen at any one moment, differentiated by only a coloured number. I consider this a minor flaw as you do adapt to identifying yourself by that little number.

Different characters have their own unique set of abilities, but I can’t comment on that as we barely got close to earning another type in our first five play throughs. The default character has three attacks and a roll ability, which also works as a kind of dodge. With the exception of the first basic attack, all the other abilities have a cool-down period. Precious seconds tick down before you can blast an enemy back or dodge again. 

To aid you in your battle are also drones, sparsely scattered throughout the level, just as invaluable as your upgrades. They can temporarily die in battle, but are revivable for a large sum of money. Healing drones can turn the events of the battle quite considerably, and battle drones also have their role to play.

You’ll be hugely relieved the first time you finally come across that teleporter, possibly after more than a few failed runs. Triggering it will cause even more monsters to spawn around you, not to mention the dreaded boss fight, as well as a timer for the power-up of the teleporter (90 seconds). A new message appears on-screen: “Stay alive!”

The screen becomes absolutely congested with enemies of all kinds in those final moments, but fortunately, after the counter has stopped, enemies stop spawning. It is impossible to teleport before all enemies have been destroyed. A counter appears detailing how many enemies are left, as well as a handy arrow pointing you in the right direction.

Once you take out the boss and all the littlies, you head back to the teleporter and start the second level, which plays out identically to the first but in a new environment, once again trying to make it to yet another teleporter. However, here you are armed with all your upgrades, drones, and experience from the previous level. And on it goes.

Things get rough as a result of a few bad design decisions. Players can separate, and if Player 1 is high on a cliff while Player 2 has dropped down, the screen will linger between them, with both players off-screen and represented by only a small bubble, with no hint of the surrounding dangers. I can only imagine how chaotic things get with three or four. It is also possible to disappear behind the status bars.

On a brighter note, the music is pretty phenomenal, and deserves a hearty mention, as does the pixel-art which, despite being simplistic, is clean and easy to read, and paints the perfect picture of an alien world. Combine the graphics with the atmospheric soundtrack and they beautifully convey the desolation of the bizarre planet that you have suddenly been forced to briefly inhabit.

Even though you’ll die again and again, this game will constantly have you back for more. Each time you play you’ll learn a new trick or two, form a new strategy, and just want to have another crack at it, knowing you’ll do better. The team at Hopoo knew this was going to be the way gamers approached this, and stated, “We intend on making the game playable by anyone, but only master-able by a few.”

We had a lot of fun with this, but I am not sure if it is worth the original asking price. This is still worth a look-in if you’re into sci-fi adventures or rogue-likes, so if you don’t instantly checkout with this in your cart, be sure to add it to the wish-list and nab it when sale time comes!