RUBATO

This game might be the most absurdly beautiful game I've ever had the pleasure to experience

What just happened?

Still too underrated

[h1] WELCOME TO RUBATO WORLD [/h1] I rarely ever write actual, full-on reviews for games, even for my literal favorite games of all time. So, the fact that here I am, finally getting off my lazy ass and writing one for this game in particular should already be a testament that this game is really something special. Rubato is a very fun and quirky metroidvania type platformer that also happens to be a collectathon!! A fun to 100% percent one at that, which is extremely appreciated considering how other collectathons can feel way too annoying to achieve 100% percent completion on with never ending collectibles that can feel like you're endlessly searching for a needle in the haystack in a giant open world. The in-game map shows you where most of the planet bits (this game's big main collectable) are located, a very appreciated feature and prevents searching for these from being too frustrating. Platforming feels great too, albeit with the occasional physics related shenanigans getting in the way, though such is the nature of a physics based game and they were usually pretty funny that I could always laugh it off. Speaking of humor, this game is one of the funniest games I have ever played in recent memory. As someone who grew up watching stuff like YTPs and later being attuned with ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ culture (and perhaps being a little too online but shhh), I love the surreal, absurd and nonsensical humor that this game is chock full of!! I had a big stupid grin on my face the entire time I was playing this game, there's no shortage of gags, weird NPCs and jokes in this game. Multiple times I was audibly laughing out loud at whatever positively and great stupid room/enemy/sound effect I'd come across [spoiler] I think my favorite gag by far was the dog exploding chamber, where I blew up a PNG of a dog, it screamed loudly and then proceeded to get swarmed by more PNGs of that same dog, I had to pause the game for a minute to process what had just happened and was absolutely losing it LMAO [/spoiler]. I ADORED this game's humor for sure!! I would like to talk about the story but I really don't wanna spoil anyone. If what I have just described up until this point remotely interests you, then I would HIGHLY implore you to check out and play the game for yourself. The story and its themes really hit me hard and resonated with me so much more than I anticipated, and as I rolled credits, I had to take a moment to process everything in the best possible way. PLEASE go into this game as blind as possible, I promise it's so worth it. Overall, damn what a GAME Rubato was. This is a game I'll be thinking about for a long time and is something absolutely special to me. I love the weird and wonderful, the ambitious and anything that tries to do something truly unique, and Rubato is certainly all of that and is so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ GOOD!! This game has definitely entered my top 10 games of all time, and could very well enter my top 5 as I let the experience ruminate in my mind. Occasionally, you may play a game that feels one-of-a-kind, something that shapes you, really resonates with you and takes over your entire brain out of sheer love and adoration for it. I can say without any hesitation at ALL that Rubato, the funny frog game is one such game to me, and I'm so glad I got the chance to play it. [i] P.S. Luna is best character <3 [/i]

First game in a long time to have me completely enraptured. The plot gets very serious which contrasts with the overall very goofy humor of the game but I find that works in its favor and was honestly one of my favorite parts. For a 20$ indie game it had a shocking variety of content. The aforementioned surrealist story switch up intrigued the hell out of me. When the story had its comedic bits (3rd zone's entire boss fight was a 3 stooges sketch) i was laughing heartily. Some parts definitely felt a bit jank. If you enjoy PS1 style low poly 3d it uses that to very comedic effect. 9/10

... That was still just a funny 2D platformer collect-a-thon right? Gameplay was honestly top notch, I have no complaints about the movement mechanics or even level design since once you get all your gadgets you can just go wild. Just experience the game and story yourself and stop reading this review, it's good, trust the reviews. There were 2 major bugs that affected my playthrough but both of them get into spoilers, hope these are fixed in 1.3: [spoiler] Bug 1: The final boss "planet" softlocked my game, which sucks because I have to redo the entire boss to hope it won't happen again. For the planet cutscenes I would probably setup a skip button so freak things like that don't happen, this bug also happened when making venus so its something wrong with the planet sequences themselves. Bug 2: Button issues, sometimes it was consistent but other times whatever wall they raised or whatever planet bit they spawned in just... didn't? A reload of the save or going out of the area generally fixed it though, biggest culprit was the planet bit in route 77 (area 3) since it happened multiple times in a row. I had to completely exit the game and it became my last planet bit since I was still struggling to load it in even then. [/spoiler]