Risk Of Rain

They will surely feast on your flesh.

The basic idea behind risk of rain is that games only last like 10-15 minutes until you get really good at it.  Once you die, you're dead.  It's yet another member of the Roguelike But Not genre, along with Binding of Isaac, Spelunky, and Rogue Legacy.  Based on that list you probably think RBNs are all good, right?  Well, they are.  Or at least, those three and RoR are.

What makes RoR unique is how quickly you amass upgrades, each of which range from decent to way rad.  You can expect to get four or more upgrades per level - more if you try for it - which is good because when you start out you're kind of a piece of crap.

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In this shot I have a barbed wire aura which hurts enemies that come near, a rusty knife that makes enemies bleed when I shoot them somehow, and some bazooka thing that makes all my shots explode.  As you can see from the timer I'm only three minutes in at that point, so they add up pretty quickly.

Oh yes, and about the timer.  You see, every 5 minutes the difficulty increases, which basically just means stronger enemies.  This means you have to consider whether or not it's worth it to go back and get upgrades once you can afford them vs. pressing on and not compounding the increased difficulty of the timer with the harder enemies intrinsic to lower floors.  You also have to intuit whether or not you're good enough to take on the floor's boss yet.  It's generally best to take a boss on as soon as you're able, but summon it while you're still weak and you might take longer to kill it than if you had grinded out the last 25% of a level or whatever.

There are many bosses, but 80% of them are Magma Worm for some reason.

All of this adds up to a game that is unpleasantly difficult at times, much like every roguelike ever.  Thankfully this game is far more skill-based than your standard roguelike, but you can only so much damage with crap upgrades, and with the game timing you crap damage means things can get more or less impossible in a hurry.

Even though I've only played for about an hour and a half I can say that skill is very much key here.  Like in Rogue Legacy, no amount of upgrades can help you if you stand in the middle of a bunch of enemies and let them beat you to death.  Nearly anything can be survived at any level assuming you have the reflexes and timing to deal with it, especially with the Commando's forward roll which gives him about a second of invulnerability.  I say nearly anything because there are some attacks that simply cannot be jumped over or dodged, which is really unfortunate.  I get that they don't want you to be able to bunny hop your way to the end of the game, but giving enemies attacks that can only be dodged by your roll is just annoying, especially since it has a cooldown.

Rolling is the only way to be sure not to take damage here.

There are ten different characters you can play as, all with their own set of abilities.  I haven't unlocked a single one yet, so I can't speak to their strengths unfortunately.  It would be nice if I even knew how to work toward it but I don't.  Expect to play as the Commando for a long time.  Once you do manage to unlock a new character, though, you'll see a very different playstyle for most of them.  The Enforcer, for example, has a shotgun and a shield, making him far more of an up close tank character.  The Commando's least favorite place is up close so the two characters fill entirely different niches.  It's a nice way to break up the monotony that must roguelikes suffer from.

All in all it's a good game.  I'm glad I bought it and I'll probably play more of it once I submit this article.  It's definitely not for everyone given its difficulty and high skill ceiling, but if you're looking for a challenging platformer you can pick up, play, and be done with in under an hour no matter what, well, there you go.

Look at all the stuff I had.  LOOK AT IT.

We here at Goblin Axis tend to eschew ratings, especially given the fact that ratings are so incredibly normalized now, but we recognize that a quick summary can be helpful.  I think what I'll do is steal an idea I got from Fraser on Video Games Awesome and just put whether or not I think a game is worth what you'd pay for it.  After all, that's what really matters.  Let's give it a try.

Current Price: $10
Verdict: Worth it

Yeah, bold font will do nicely for now. 

I'd have personally priced this game at $15, maybe even $20 if it ends up surprising me.  Ten bucks is a steal, and what with the Steam sale going on right now it's even less than that.  This game gets my Slyver Medal of Buying.  I...eh I'll work on that.