Roar of Revenge Review | TheXboxHub

In the event you put half of the Sega Mega Drive again catalogue right into a blender, you’d get Roar of Revenge. There’s some Golden Axe, Altered Beast, Castlevania: Bloodlines, Onslaught, Ghouls’N Ghosts and even Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in there, all chopped as much as make a retro smoothie. 

SEEP and Ratalaika Video games have actually leaned into the comparisons. As default, the sport performs in a wonderful CRT mode, with the pixels smudged and the display curved. The midi soundtrack might have been ripped from any of the above video games, and there’s the identical deadpan method to the storytelling that you just bought from, say, Altered Beast. It’s Conan the Destroyer retold by a ‘90s Sega Megadrive recreation, and that’s going to be a nugget of nostalgic gold for lots of gamers. 

We bit into it and located it to be idiot’s gold, although. As a result of whereas Roar of Revenge stays true to these video games, it carries their faults and brings a few of its personal besides. Typically revisiting the classics isn’t the heady expertise you anticipate it to be. 

In Roar of Revenge, you play Keel the Barbarian, all nipples and loincloths, as you journey to defeat Leomhann, a lion-helmeted villain who has claimed the throne of the dominion. On the best way, you’re going to hunt to your estranged brother, declare the gadgets of the gods, and assist out the odd nun and cleric. 

This odyssey takes the type of ranges, every sewn collectively to kind a bigger constructing to discover. A pyramid is a collection of ranges, ending in three bosses that clear an aqueduct to disclose a merman’s crown. An underwater Atlantis is a sprawling map that pushes you to search out six gems that open a gate, revealing a path so that you can proceed. Roar of Revenge, to its credit score, by no means sits nonetheless. It’s at all times bought new individuals so that you can meet, gadgets to gather, mixing up the gameplay with swimming sections, boss ranges, and gauntlets of enemies. 

There’s some pompous storytelling strewn with typos, and also you’ll both find it irresistible or hate it relying in your affection for the dry storytelling of Robert E Howard or Michael Moorcock. However it’s all gritty lube that will get you transferring from location to location. 

The place Roar of Revenge actually comes undone is the gameplay. While you’re strapping on furry boots and pretending to be Arnold Schwarzenegger, you wish to really feel highly effective, and Keel the Barbarian is hardly spectacular. He’s bought a limp leap that makes you’re feeling such as you’re hulking round a whole bunch of kilos of meat, which to be honest he most likely is. However while you’re making an attempt to cross the smallest of gaps, the dumpy little leap is irritating to land. 

Keel has a single assault, a swipe of the sword, and that swipe doesn’t stretch very far. You’ll be able to crouch and strike, and stand and strike, however that’s the restrict of your arsenal for the primary half of the sport. If there’s an enemy above you, good luck, as there’s no upward strike, neither is there a downward strike. There are not any combos or heavy assaults, and it’s solely within the second half of the sport that you just actually get some beefier weaponry, within the type of magical fireballs, however even they’re restricted to a sure variety of projectiles per stage. 

In earlier ranges, the weediness is evened out by enemies that solely take a single hit to kill. You’ll be able to stride via the degrees like an oiled up colossus. A lot of the enemies don’t even have an assault of their very own: they only wander as much as you for a hug, hoping that will probably be sufficient (they’re making an attempt to stroll it in, Jeff!). However it’s within the latter ranges when the restrictions actually kick in, as bosses and blind guardians are sponges, and also you’re spending ages hacking at them within the hope they are going to fall. At no level did we ever really feel skillful: there was nothing between the simple sword-fodder and the sponges that demanded we hack, transfer again, after which hack once more. 

Every thing feels prefer it’s being performed at half-speed. Enemies amble, Keel ambles, the projectiles apologetically loop towards you. Keel feels torpid, and easy actions like strolling backwards to get a bigger run-up to an enemy is a laborious sequence of buttons and ready. And don’t get us began on ladders. Ladders are notoriously exhausting to get proper in video games, and Roar of Revenge likes to toss in sequences of them and watch as you lie face-down on them like they had been greasy solar loungers. 

Achievement hunters will probably be happy to notice that, as is customary for a Ratalaika-published recreation, 1000G is effectively inside grasp. You’ll have all of them earlier than the second half of the sport, and Roar of Revenge isn’t a very troublesome title. It’s solely actually difficult while you nudge the issue up and expertise areas the place checkpoints are nowhere to be seen. Roar of Revenge has a merciless streak, as it is going to solely save at checkpoint-bonfires and on the finish of a stage. Kill a boss, unlock a basic improve or unlock a door earlier than you die, and every part will probably be wiped. You’re going to be doing all of it once more. 

There have been moments when hacking via Roar of Revenge wasn’t a horrible expertise, however we must be clear that nostalgia fuelled them. It was within the moments when it was cosplaying as Actraiser or Castlevania, in among the extra elaborate ranges and the higher bosses (and we must be clear, the overwhelming majority of bosses are supremely duff), once we felt the adrenaline beginning to surge.

However that nostalgia is a crutch for an insipid, cumbersome platformer. Getting Keel the Barbarian to the tip of Roar of Revenge is as dynamic and thrilling as pushing a boulder up a hill. Except you could have a deep, craving love for old-school hack-and-slash platformers, you might be finest leaving this anachronism in its field.

You should buy Roar of Revenge from the Xbox Retailer