Risk of Rain Review

Risk of Rain PS4 Review

Finally after over 2 years of waiting Chucklefish have brought Risk of Rain to PS4 and PS vita. After its April release it will be available via the PlayStation store. This game if filled with 8-bit goodness, a blast from your childhood that is infuriatingly addictive. You start the level with no need for lengthy tutorials you have a heading that tells you how to move that fades after a short period and at the bottom of the screen at all times is your ability panel that has the rest of the buttons that you will need. Simple but smart, you get straight into running for your life on an alien planet, jumping climbing falling and running to safety and you encounter a plethora of monsters as you aim to find the teleporter so you can move on to the next level of franticly fun nerve testing gameplay.

As you progress though the levels you will gain cash and XP from killing monsters, the money can be used at shrines, to open chests or to fix downed droids in the hope of gaining upgrades to aid you in your adventure. After dying (and yes that will be a lot) you will unlock boosts that will drop in your next runs, you can keep track of everything you have unlocked in your item log, think of this as your own personal Pokedex. At the start you can only play as one of the survivors the rest you have to unlock through game play, you have to chance to play through as either human or monster. You have a wealth of customizability to the game play which includes having different perks for different characters and also changing the amount of monsters that will spawn through-out the level.

Risk of Rain PS4 Review

Each run through starts with a very easy difficulty rating, this can be found in the top right of the screen and as you advance that will change and you will see the difficulty ramp up until you become overwhelmed and face your inevitable demise. This game has so much replay ability appeal, you will be coming back to this game for years trying different combinations and aiming for new high scores and faster level times. The bosses that try to impede your passage to the next level are insane, when they show up you will most likely want to go and hide in the last chest that you opened, they are large powerful and take a lot to take down so team this with hordes of monsters also trying to kill you it will take a lot of running hiding on ropes to regenerate health and quick thinking to progress, oh and don’t forget luck you will need that in spades. The monsters and bosses are randomly generated so no two play-throughs will be the same.

The sound track for Risk of Rain is amazing it fit superbly with the alien landscapes and it’s a great addition to the game. You will find yourself being enchanted by the music as you escape certain death on your travels, the tracks loop but they never grow annoying, an amazing achievement. This electronic score is eerie and adds to the tension created as you pray you stay alive long enough to complete the level as you see your health bar drop and you become more frantic the music amplifies these feelings.

Risk of Rain PS4 Review

As well as a single player mode Risk of Rain has both local and online multiplayer modes allowing for gaming with friends for when going it alone is just too much. Playing with company will make everything easier. It’s not split screen so you have to remember which character you picked or the age old fight of who is who will rear its ugly head. It’s fun and competitive as you both level up while battling the seamlessly infinite hordes of monsters.

This 2D platformer is truly a great game and a must play for any PS4 owner it has its own charm that may not be visible straight away but after five minutes of repetitive dying and wondering what you are doing wrong you will have to play again and again. The game draws you in and doesn’t let you go and I’m glad with all the hype around all the latest AAA releases its nice to go back to simpler times and play a game that isn’t all about a short story that can be completed within 20 hours of game play you have to simple objectives that stay the same, find the teleporter and stay alive as you go running through the levels looking for something that you swear isn’t there until you find it tucked away in a little corner of the level. You will come back to Risk of Rain time and time again for the eerie alien soundtrack and the nerve shredding feeling of trying to find somewhere to hide safely so you can regenerate health. It’s simple and it work amazingly a perfect addition to any PS4 owners library.

Rating 8

REVIEW CODE: A complimentary Sony Playstation 4 code was provided to Brash Games for this review. Please send all review code enquiries to editor@brashgames.co.uk.

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