[h1] Retromancer: family-friendly agony inducing bullet hell [/h1]
[i] Retromancer is a new game by a new indie developer, Spinfoam games, decides not to focus on hideous 3D graphics or boring dialogue but on great optimized combat and action. To simplify so many concepts into one streamlined experience, so you will neither want to rip your eyes out or refund the game because it’s so unplayable [/i]
[b] Pros: [/b]
✅ Great mechanics making the gameplay a blast and be almost always enjoyable
✅ Super large variety of enemies so you will always find something new to shoot
✅ Different characters with different abilities and the possibility to play with up to 4 people
[b] Cons: [/b]
❌ In certain sections, the ground, enemies, and projectiles can be hard to differentiate
❌ In certain sections, the difficulty varies to an extreme extent although this is only in 1 or 2 sections
Because an indie developer doesn’t have a large budget one can only pay so much attention to each element of the game. Because the graphics have been kept simple the developer's attention has gone towards gameplay which has created a really enjoyable game to play
[u] “We should probably devise a combat plan and-“ [INCOHERENT YELLING][/u]
Retromancer works relatively simply, a rectangular field in which you, as any of the 4 available characters, shoot either long or short range projectiles to damage and kill every varying enemy. But even though it sounds simple it does take some getting used to. This is because Retromancer doesn’t hold back, it’s not a game like “Enter The Gungeon” that will make you rip your hair out but it’s most certainly challenging and it’s meant that way. You will find that you’re quickly wondering if you accidentally set the difficulty to the max as within the first levels it will throw all the types of enemies that spawn in those levels, at you. The the enemies do get stronger the later in the game you get. Not only this but you can also play it co-op which not only makes this is a fun experience for yourself but also to play with as many controllers as your computer's I/O supports.
[u] so I’m supposed to play a 4 person game by myself? I think not! [/u]
Difficulty wise the game is, like I said, a challenge, this doesn’t mean it’s anywhere near impossible. It does challenge your skills but it adapts to how many people are playing, so you won’t have to take on a 4 player difficulty setting all by yourself. The game bases the damage and health of enemies on the number of players so you won’t get have any fewer enemies so you will still be running for dear life. The difficulty isn’t static if you play alone either, when you beat the revered Retromancer, which is the final enemy, you can start a new playthrough and the difficulty increases so you can keep playing until you finally get beaten or until you win for the 4th time since the difficulty doesn’t scale up after that anymore.
Dying does have an interesting characteristic, you don’t work on hit points or health, instead you work by a very interesting mechanic called “death’s door” it basically gives you 2 hits worth of life before you die, which causes you to die, if you are playing alone,or be able to be revived by your team members, if they're not dead as well. if you have any. It shows you this so you can switch to a more defensive playstyle when you’ve noticed that you’re about to die so you can run away and pretend you’re invisible.
When you do die though, because you will at some point, what happens? Well, we don’t know, really no one knows! Oh, you meant in the game? Well, the game contains 6 Stages, each containing 5 levels, if you die on any of those levels you can start over at the first level of that stage so it’s not a 1 life mechanic but it will set you back some time for sure which can become irritating in certain sections, but in general this is only helpful as you can easily fight your way back to the level you died at last time and try again.
[u] Battle noises and flashy magic stuff [/u]
Graphically "Retromancer" isn’t a very complicated game, it's made of only a few elemtns: the floor and walls, you and of course those annoying enemies that won't stop shooting at you for some reason. This is done simplistically with high-quality assets. The game runs on Unreal Engine 4 however so it still looks sharp and clear where the effects actually look like proper effects and not the kind that comes straight out of 1998.
Sound effects are okay and while it does technically have music it’s mostly drums going in the rhythm of some arena style music. After a while, I just turned off the music completely and put on my own because it was so painfully boring. I would like to see perhaps some stage-specific music in the future.
[u] Is it worth your money? [/u]
Retromancer costs 8 euros which is a great price, in my opinion, you will get at least 6 hours out of it and many more with friends, and even with timed discounts it really is a bargain for such an enjoyable game. Don’t worry if you don’t have friends that hang out at your house a lot or a very boring family it works great as well to kill some time when you don’t know what to play.
[u] Technicalities [/u]
Retromancer isn’t a complex game but it still runs on UE4 so a 2 year old laptop will struggle but you can turn off enough settings to make it work for your machine. I’ve never experienced lag except when dealing with a soon to be patched ability so it’s very stable. My specs [I5-7600K,1050TI OC, 16GB RAM]
[u] Summary [/u]
Retromancer is not a perfect game but I still very much enjoy with very fleshed out combat and mechanic. Its great variety of enemies keep each and every level as a new and intriguing adventure for you to explore and conquer. It’s an easy game to learn but a difficult one to master. You can play it on most computers even if it runs on Unreal Engine 4.
[b] Score: 91/100 [/b]
This game was provided for free by the developers.
[quote][url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/23741321/]Follow our curator page,[b] Alexander's Club Curations[/b] if you like and want to see more reviews like this one.[/url][/quote]
