Since then I have logged approximately 17 hours in Risk of Rain and 44 in Starbound (will get to that later). Yes, I have been playing pixelated indie roguelikes on a computer where the highest of graphics settings isn't high enough. This might not say much for me and my PC gaming needs, but what I find is that it really doesn't say much for the triple-A gaming industry at all. All of my needs have been met by two games whose combined prices don't even approach a shiny new $60 investment from some money-grubbing CEO's farm of development drones, and who's graphical style is still locked in a time vault from the 1990's with the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis.
Risk of Rain is what you get when you combine equal parts modern roguelike and metroidvania, shake vigorously and serve in an 8-bit glass. May be chilled to frigid and unforgiving difficulty or to taste.
You play as one of 10 unique character classes on your way through 6 procedurally-generated levels. You've got the Commando, Enforcer, Bandit, Huntress, Robot Janitor, Engineer, Miner, Sniper, Alien and Mercenary. Each one has a standard attack (mapped to Z) and 3 unique abilities. The Enforcer hides behind his riot shield, the Sniper does absurd single-fire, single-target damage, and the Huntress is the only character that can move and shoot simultaneously.
Now forget I said all that because at the start of the game you're locked into only the Commando. Everything else is unavailable until you complete some seemingly meaningless achievement that unlocks them. Well, most are seemingly meaningless. Acrid (the Alien), HAN-D (the Robot Janitor) and the Miner need to be rescued from a randomly generated map and a specific location that may or may not be randomly generated. The Huntress required obtaining 15 monster logs that are randomly dropped by enemies. The Enforcer is only unlocked after defeating 3 specific, randomly generated bosses. Am I random enough for you yet?
Not quite. Through out the levels are scattered chests holding items. As you devastate the local fauna, you'll be rewarded with money that you'll use to open these chests and experience. Each chest contains a random item with a predetermined ability. Some aid health and recovery, others are solely intended as damage boosters. Others still have odd effects like the jetpack which grants you temporary flight, and the snowglobe that randomly freezes enemies for a short period of time. By collecting equipment, you ensure you're survival against the strengthening hordes to come.
It's clear that the game placed an emphasis on randomness, being that each area has a set number of pieces that the game throws into a blender to spit out a map at you. Located somewhere on the map is a teleporter which will take you to the next level. Upon reaching and activating the teleporter, you're told to survive for a predetermined amount of time while the game throws a considerable amount of foes at you and spawns a mini-boss near your location. Should you survive, you're still tasked with eliminating all hostiles before being allowed to progress.
Even within levels, there's an element of randomness. For the second level, you could end up either at the Damp Caverns area or the Sky Meadow area, but will never end up in either of those areas outside of level two. More elements of randomness come from the enemy spawns. The game pretty much rolls the dice with this one on deciding how many and what kind of enemies to spawn, and if any of them are "elite" (see: better than normal).
What all of this RNG (Random Number Generation) does is place a higher emphasis on skill instead of raw memorization. Situational awareness and keen reaction times are rewarded in this game instead of memorizing a pattern of attacks and spawns. This ties neatly into one of Risk of Rain's selling points, gradual difficulty increase. The longer you play a particular session, the more the difficulty ramps up. The game will throw more enemies at you, more of them will be elite and at a certain point will also spawn mini-bosses mid-level. Because of the layout of the chests and the fact that all of your remaining cash turns into experience at the end of each level, you're forced to balance speed and patience as equipment is key to making it through.
So what's the culmination of all the hard work and slogging through each level? Well, once completing the wait for the teleporter in level 5 "Temple of the Elders" you can advance to the final level "Risk of Rain", or return to a previous area. Returning to a previous area keeps the difficulty at it's current state (and allows it to progress as well), but allows you to continue grinding for experience and equipment. Progressing to "Risk of Rain" puts you in the final area chock-full of mini-bosses and high level enemies that all wish you a quick and painful demise. One unique aspect of the final area is that keycards are scattered about that grant access to specific areas of the ship. In each of these areas there is a special piece of equipment that can be teleported to the final boss room and used to aid your defeat of Providence.
There's not really a story to Risk of Rain, but with how short the game is and how often you'll be dying, why should there be? The game possesses a considerable amount of replay value, given that you'll need multiple playthroughs to unlock each character (the Mercenary's requirement is beat the game five times). There are also 3 different starting difficulties that scale the game's timer as well as enemy spawns up or down depending.
The only thing I can say that I really dislike about Risk of Rain is that it's TOO random. Having to grind away at the game trying to reach the Magma Barracks (level 4) to unlock the Miner, only to end up in the Hive Cluster is downright infuriating. In my 17 hours of gameplay, I still have yet to unlock anything past the Enforcer and Bandit (I've been sitting on 14 Monster Logs for days goddamnit!). Though all things considered, it's this same randomness that keeps me coming back. Combined with the ruthless difficulty, Risk of Rain continues to challenge me on a regular basis.
Grade:
A
Risk of Rain does an outstanding job of being infuriating, but not enough so to quit. It sits at that fantastic edge of pissing you off just enough to beat it. To quote Yahtzee Croshaw: "Angry is not bored. Angry gets shit done."
- Nik "Latency" Trumble
No comments:
Post a Comment