Risk of Rain – Review

What is Risk of Rain?

Risk of Rain is a roguelike action platformer which is set in a futuristic world. It is developed by Chucklefish Games who are most likely known for developing the game Starbound. If you have ever played games like the Binding of Isaac or Spelunky, you’ll feel right at home.

Dying in this game means you are dead for good and need to start over in the somewhat randomly generated levels.  I call it somewhat randomly because most of the levels have the same layout but some parts vary every time. After a few deaths you’ll soon realize on what part of the map you spawn and where you’ll have to go to reach the teleporter to the next world. This is also your main goal in this game, you have to find a teleporter and activate it, after that you’ll have to fight and survive lots of enemies and if you manage to survive the massive wave of enemies, you will be able to step through the teleporter and advance to the next level.

There is one big catch to this though: the longer you play, the harder it gets. The game starts at very easy and after around 40 minutes of playing you’ll find yourself at the difficulty: “HAHAHAHAH”. At this points previous bosses will spawn as regular enemies and this already stressful game becomes even more demanding. Also you PC will start to have a few slowdowns at this part of the game which is one of the very few complaints that I have.

There are 10 different classes to chose from and every class has its own unique abilities. So in theory you should be able to find a class which suits your particular play style. But you will need to unlock the various classes first and this can take some time… I for one thought that this restriction is unnecessary and holds back the game’s full potential. Especially newcomers to this genre can have a hard time to advance in this unforgiving world and I think many players will never unlock particular classes such as the huntress who is a much more noob-friendly class in my opinion.

Enemies spawn randomly and yield experience and gold when you kill them. Leveling upon increases your damage and health. Gold can be used to purchase different items from various, randomly placed shrines. And this is where the game really becomes fun. This is the reason why people are still hooked to The Binding of Isaac – every run feels different, depending on what items you get. There is a huge amount of replayability added to the game by this simple but unbelievable rewarding mechanic. The items vary between almost useless and absolutely overpowered and there are more than 100 different items in the game. Most of the items give you passive upgrades such as damage reduction and exploding shots. But some items are enabled on use and can really help you turn the tide in this challenging game. There is one thing that I don’t really like about the items: you don’t get to know what the items do, until you actually buy / get them. This is the same mechanic as in the Binding of Isaac. If you see an item and have never seen it before or you just haven’t memorized it’s icon yet, you are totally out of luck when it comes to knowing what that item actually does (until you actually buy it).

The graphics

The art style of this game is unique but I think it really suits the game well. I personally love it, but I guess you’ll have to decide this one for yourself.

The music

The music is simply amazing. I really really like the tracks and think that they fit perfectly into this game. Watch the video on top to experience it!

The story

I’m not going to lie to you: I have no idea what the story is actually about. I never managed to actually watch the intro because it always instantly bored me to death.  Ok  I did watch the intro by now and I must say that the game really has no real story. There is a strange guy who attacks your space ship for no reason whatsoever and then you crash and the game starts. That’s it! But this game isn’t about story anyway ( at least not for me ).

Multiplayer

Risk of Rain supports local and online multiplayer. I’ve tried both and they work really well. But I found the game really hard on local multiplayer because you have to play on one screen and share the items between the local players. So you basically need almost the same time to complete a level as you would while playing solo, but you end up with less items and a lower level than usual. You also have to share the items when playing online, but you actually can split up and by doing that you are able to complete the levels much quicker than you normally would on single player. This pretty much mitigates the  item sharing disadvantage and resulted in more fun than the local multiplayer, which is kind of sad.

Pros & cons