The Therapist Gamer

Risk of Rain

I heard about Risk of Rain from the good chaps on the PlayStation Blogcast, who raved about it for weeks.  It was only like five bucks so I figured I'd give it a try.  It's good!  Now I'm a man who likes pretty graphics, but I don't need them - especially if the gameplay is good.  Risk of Rain was made by only a few people, and I'm guessing their background was more in programming than in art.  Some reviewers gave the game a lower score because of the poor graphics, but I don't think that's fair in this case.

 

In Risk of Rain you play as one of many playable characters roaming a 2D world.  Monsters appear at random and, when defeated, give you money and experience.  There are chests throughout the randomly-generated levels that contain powerups, but you need money to unlock them (just go along with it!). The powerups are varied and are always beneficial.  Somewhere in the level is a portal to the next level.  If you activate it, you have to survive a huge onslaught of enemies for 90 seconds, including a boss.  If you survive, you can take the portal to the next level. In order to be prepared for the onslaught of enemies, you'll want to unlock all of the chests and collect all of the powerups throughout the level.  However, at the top right of the screen is a "difficulty" meter that is constantly rising.  So if you take twenty minutes on the first level to gather up everything the game might be too hard for you at that point!  There is a constant balance between trying to hurry and trying to be thorough.  However, I never really felt rushed - I just had a sense that I couldn't take forever and should try to explore the level systematically.

 

The cool part about the powerups is that they stack.  For example, there is an "icicles" powerup; whenever you defeat an enemy three icicles will circle you for a few seconds and they deal damage to enemies.  If you have three icicle power ups them you'll have five icicles circling you, which in turn helps you kill more enemies, which in turn results in five more icicles each time you kill something.  Later in the game when there are tons of enemies you could have a blizzard of icicles circling you almost the entire time!  And there are dozens of power ups.  There is a real sense of getting stronger as time goes on.

 

Over time you unlock additional playable characters.  At first you can just be a basic guy who shoot straight and can dodge, but you can unlock characters that have shotguns and shields (but move slow).  The game itself is pretty difficult.  There are about four levels before the boss level, and a complete run might last about an hour.  However, it is very difficult to beat the game even on normal difficulty.  All in all I think it is a well designed game that has a lot in store for players.  I played it on the PS4 as well as the Vita.