

None of this means that the game isn’t fun by any means. Great for beginners and new players like myself, although veterans who are looking for a “definitive edition” may be disappointed. The forgiving new checkpoint system means that even when you do die you won’t be too far from the point you last left off on. Many of the side missions were still at the very hard end of the spectrum, which was a nice alternative to breezing through many of the story missions. I didn’t die for the first half of the game until the difficulty spiked a bit in some of the later story missions. During my play-through I very rarely ran into an issue with difficulty.
Retro city rampage dx review how to#
I was originally under the impression that the title was akin to Hotline Miami, a game with punishing difficulty that rewarded you for replaying levels over and over until you figured out how to get through it. Whether or not these changes are to the benefit of the title depends on how you approach it. Checkpoints are more plentiful, shaking the cops is a bit easier since there is a new power up that drops your wanted level, and weapon tweaking are just a few of the balance changes made to the game. The game offers many different tweaks to the formula while staying true to the source for the 3DS version (which, ironically, doesn’t include 3D). The zoomed in camera view isn’t the only thing that has changed. Retro City Rampage DX changes the camera slightly, zooming in closer to the action and making it much more appealing on first glance. When I originally eyed playing the title on some of the other consoles that it was released on, I was put off by the fact that sprite-based graphics can be hard to see especially with a zoomed out view that the game used. It has a not-quite 8-bit appearance to it. Retro City Rampage DX tries to take advantage of that nostalgic feeling by shoving as many retro video game references, modern game development tropes, and all sorts of 80’s and 90’s memories into a fun little top-down title reminiscent of the original Grand Theft Auto. We all harken back to the good old days of video games when waxing poetic with friends about how things used to be, how they were better and how great those days of our youth were compared to today. And I think it loves me, too.Retro City Rampage: DX brings nostalgia to the 3DS and welcomes newcomers with eased difficulty.Įveryone loves nostalgia. I still have plenty of side missions and collectables to grab, or I might just run down some pedestrians while riding the train. While Retro City Rampage DX’s story was somewhat short, its time on my Switch will not be. It’s rife with murder and car stealing, but features very little blood, drugs, or sex it’s surprisingly PG for a game about murdering everyone. The sped-up “Turbo Mode” unlocked after the credits takes the game to nearly unplayable levels of ridiculousness.Īlso, the game features dozens of retro screen filters and an absolutely wonderful soundtrack. The 3D effect was awful and ‘80s and perfect. When a screen before the final boss told me to put on my 3D glasses, dammit, I red-Sharpied some cellophane and tied a Blu-ray case to my head. Every time I thought “this is ridiculous,” it responded with an “I know, right?” and put a waypoint on Batman’s house or something. While hard to convey here, the entire game is drenched in a level of care hard to find in a big-team game. Being able to drive down the sidewalk for a minute before slipping away to your mission keeps the momentum, while reserving the really big weapons for certain story points and high-level law enforcements keeps them feeling special. Dying takes away every weapon but jumping and punching, so gathering weapons from fallen officers is almost a prerequisite for each mission. Kill enough cops or turn down the right alley of Theftropolis and you’ll find a coin that greatly reduces law enforcement’s interest in you. For me, unbridled destruction is the entire point of the genre but is usually ended all too quickly by a swarm of SWAT team members. Retro City Rampage DX does scratch that sandbox itch I was looking for with one major upgrade: cop-cloaking power-ups. Even the game doesn’t care about its story, made evident by the increasing absurdity of the scenarios. The script teases out a chuckle and a “WTF?” before quickly getting out of the way each and every time. At one point, a Ghostbusters-themed custodial team is frightened of dancers in a rundown club so Player has to “clean up” the club by murdering everyone.

Basically, the aptly named “Player” gets sent through time and has to steal parts to build a time machine.

Story beats clip by at an extreme pace, making sure you never care about what’s going on.
