The Impact Factor

A Drop In The Bucket

Review

Risk of Rain, Hopoo Games (PS4/Vita)

Abstract: Despite sounding like a game tailor made for my gaming interests, Risk of Rain underwhelmed. Buried beneath slow platforming, mundane combat and an overreliance on finding the right items is a wealth of smart systems that demand a better moment-to-moment play experience. I appreciate Risk of Rain’s premise, aesthetics and world and wish that there were more to keep me playing. Despite my issues, however, I generally enjoyed my time with the game. Risk of Rain is not bad, I just wish it could have been better.  When looking at Risk of Rain as zoomed out as its in-game perspective is, I find enough there to recommend to enthusiasts of the genre.

Life and death is measured in pixels. The vast openness, and emptiness, of an alien planet is the only shelter for the sole survivor of a derelict spacecraft. Equipped with basic weapons and little else, your goal is simple: find some way off this deadly planet and stay alive. Turns out neither of those is as simple as they sound. Every action, every decision, carries some risk. Welcome to the world of Risk of Rain.

Risk of Rain started as a student project that grew into something much larger, the freshman outing for the independent studio Hopoo Games. The game, originally released in 2013, was met with critical success. Reading reviews got me excited too. A purchase of a Humble Bundle a couple years ago granted me a PC copy, but I never managed to get controller support to work and therefore never played it. Risk of Rain made its way to PlayStation consoles this May so I knew it was finally time to jump in. Was Risk of Rain all it was cracked up to be? Yes and no.

Risk of Rain is a 2D pixel art action platformer with randomized elements. The game is set in the distant future, in which space travel is common. At the start of the game your vessel, functionally a space train, meets a catastrophic fate—it’s blown to pieces by an alien attack. It turns out your ship was carrying some pretty special cargo, a mysterious piece of technology with untold power. The sole survivor of the attack, your character finds himself on a hostile alien planet. The setting serves as a compelling backdrop for the game at hand.

This strange alien world is a great backdrop for Risk of Rain.

When I saw that Risk of Rain is a platformer with randomized elements I got excited. Spelunky also fits that description and is one of my favorite games of all time. Unfortunately for Risk of Rain, it nails neither the platforming nor randomization in a thoroughly satisfying way. Your character moves incredibly slowly and has short jumps. It makes progressing through each stage a slog, as you know where you want to go but actually going there is slow and unfun. The slowness and heaviness is reinforced by Risk of Rain’s chosen perspective—the view is incredibly zoomed out. Your character is no more than a few pixels on a gigantic backdrop. I appreciate the mood this sets for the game, you do truly feel isolated and insignificant on a strange alien planet, but it reinforced the aesthetic at the expense of gameplay. The large environments only further drive in the fact that your character’s movement is just too stiff. Platforming doesn’t require precision or skill, just time. It’s not great.

 

That tiny little speck in the middle of the screen is my character.
Not that you could really tell.

During your journey throughout the level in search of the exit you’ll face off against a variety of alien foes that want nothing more to end your journey before it begins. Risk of Rain has a nice suite of baddies to combat: tiny lizard people, sky soaring jellyfish, ancient golems, giant ethereal humanoids. Each character you play has four attacks: one basic that can be used constantly, and three special that have cooldown periods after use. Your starting character, The Commando, has a long-range rifle to shoot at foes as well as a dodge roll, explosive shot and concussive fire. The Enforcer, another character, has a short-range shotgun, a riot shield, and a grenade. Playing each of the game’s 12 characters changes the way you approach combat and adds replayability to a game that can be beaten in about 45 minutes. Despite being only a couple pixels large, Risk of Rains cast of characters is replete with personality that lends itself to various play styles and types of players. I loved trying out each of the characters to figure out who best suited me.

Risk of Rain’s combat itself left a lot to be desired, however. Given that the platforming and exploration was not too fun, being let down by the combat felt all the worse. Basic attacks on the whole felt weak, taking many attacks to take down even the most basic of threats. This meant that you had to rely on your three special abilities to deal noteworthy damage. But because these have cooldowns I often found myself just running away from monsters until my abilities had recharged, which led to overlong encounters and a reinforcement of the game’s deliberate pace. Further, enemies chase you relentlessly with little means to escape their attacks. A few characters have mobility options or shields that prevent damage, but many others do not. Given little damage output, this design choice artificially inflates Risk of Rain’s difficulty. It isn’t fun to be swarmed to death with few means of countering the attack. My favorite play sessions happened when I turned the game’s difficulty down to easy, not because I don’t enjoy punishing games (because I do) but because it was the only difficulty in which combat felt fair. Difficult games that feel unfair to the player do not do “difficult” well.

 

Not a whole lot of ways to mitigate damage here. Especially not without
the right couple of items.

Items shape the majority of your experience in Risk of Rain. As you explore each stage, your character levels up and acquires money. Money can be used at stores, to open treasure chests, and on luck-based shrines found throughout the map. Items strengthen your character in various ways: some have passive effects like increasing health regeneration or dealing damage to enemies that come close to you, and others need to be activated, like an item that summons huge meteors down from the sky. There are things I liked about item design in the game. Items stack, increasing their effect or effectiveness, so every single one you find is useful. Acquiring a huge collection of items feels great, you go from a weak defenseless survivor into a wrecking ball of might and space magic. Some item effects are really clever and can single-handedly change the way you approach exploration and combat. Unfortunately, however, playthroughs in Risk of Rain are totally reliant on obtaining great item builds in order to succeed. I say without exaggeration that every single one of my good runs relied on finding an item called the Frost Relic. I had so many runs that I felt like giving up just because I had not found the right kind of items in the first stage or two. You will be overwhelmed by your enemies without the right setup. This creates a terrible problem, and one I have had with other item-reliant games like The Binding of Isaac. My skill should be able to get me from start to finish, items should just bolster my ability. That was never the case in Risk of Rain. It makes the player feel disempowered and like he or she is wasting their time on runs in which they don’t get lucky in finding the right items. 

Not items and fighting a boss? You're going to have a bad time. Slowly.

I wish Risk of Rain had a more enjoyable moment-to-moment play experience, because there are so many smart systems at play. The way in which Risk of Rain creates risk versus reward for exploration is brilliant. Every playthrough features a bar on the right side of the screen that starts empty and indicates “very easy.” The longer you play, the more that bar fills. The higher it gets, the higher the difficulty rises (more monsters, new monsters, tougher monsters). The system is genius in that it makes the player carefully consider how long they want to explore before moving on to the next level. Is it worth killing and exploring more to find more items, even though the monsters are getting progressively stronger the longer you take? If you want a successful run, is it better to speed through the levels or take your time to get the best build? It’s a push-pull that I wish scaffolded a more fun play experience. Risk of Rain also features some great secrets, the kind that make you want to keep coming back. From hidden artifacts, to new characters, Risk of Rain creates a world you want to learn more about. I love the idea of incorporating abilities with cooldowns into new genres (not just MOBAs and hero shooters), and I appreciate their inclusion here, even if they didn’t fit well into the game’s combat.

It is worth noting that Risk of Rain has an impressive presentation. Though small, the pixel art is incredibly detailed and vibrant. Enemies and characters alike have distinct personalities. The game’s backdrops are simple but feel perfectly alien. Risk of Rain’s gigantic end of level bosses are magnificent. The soundtrack is great, nailing that 80s sci-fi vibe that is found throughout the game. As a quick warning, however, playing Risk of Rain on the PlayStation Vita is not ideal. The zoomed out perspective on the Vita’s small screen does not work—to the point in which gameplay can become incomprehensible. Skip the Vita version.

I love the way Risk of Rain looks. I only wish I loved the way it played just as much. 

In the end, my review for Risk of Rain probably sounds more negative than it should. Looking back on my time with the game, it was a mostly enjoyable experience. There is a lot to like. So much of my criticism stems from how narrowly Risk of Rain missed for me. With a few tweaks Risk of Rain would be exceptional. A game I could play for dozens of hours. But it wasn’t, and I only played for 10 or so. Oh well. Risk nothing gain nothing, right?

Risk of Rain

3/5