Mad Rat Dead

released on Oct 30, 2020

You've got one day to live and a big score to settle in Mad Rat Dead! Combining elements of action platformers and rhythm games with a cartoon-meets-punk art style, this crazy caper has you guiding a newly-resurrected rat in his quest for vengeance. Move in time with the music, smash through hordes of enemies, and rewind to escape hairy situations!


Reviews View More

WE MAKIN OUT OF THE LAB WITH THIS OST

good game i don't like the controls

What if Yoko Taro made Dustforce after he’d just finished playing The Sands of Time, was on a Crypt of the NecroDancer kick and liked rats? That’s a really reductive description, but it’s also probably the closest thing to a box into which you can pigeonhole Mad Rat Dead. Rhythm games mixed with other genres are like crack to me, so even with the high standard I hold them to, it’s probably a sign that it’s done something very right whenever I start replaying levels for S ranks before I’ve even finished it.

The game's differentiated from most similar rhythm-plus-something-else hybrids in that, instead of maintaining a consistent beat, its songs’ BPM actually change throughout each stage and you’re expected to adjust the timings of your actions on the fly (which, without spoiling anything, goes into maximum overdrive on hard mode). There’s great foresight shown in some of the design decisions implemented to prevent this from becoming too overwhelming, namely how there’s a three second countdown after you close the pause menu to give you some prep time, Mad Rat’s basic movement isn’t tied to the beat and the game briefly goes into slow motion whenever the beat switches tempo. Considering how taxing it can be to mentally juggle the sheer amount of obstacles it’s often chucking at you with the need to time all his dashes and jumps correctly, these do a pretty remarkable job at avoiding frustrations which would have easily been prevalent in the hands of a lesser team.

Iffy situations can still arise sometimes despite how thoroughly thought out it is overall, though. Dying in Mad Rat Dead works like the 3D Prince of Persias’ time rewinding mechanic except it subtracts from the time limit instead of a collectible resource and any source of damage kills you in one hit; there were consequently a few instances where I’d found myself in enough of a cyclical death trap that it was more beneficial to just restart the whole level instead of trying to work my way out of a situation where (for example) I’d eventually ran out of disappearing platforms to rest my weary rat legs on. On the initial playthrough there doesn’t seem to be any way to skip cutscenes either, which can become grating in some of the especially difficult levels. That said, I’m hesitant to pour too much haterade on this partially because most of your time’s likely going to be spent playing through the level select menu (which wisely makes cutscenes optional), as well as the old adage: never attribute to flawed design that which is adequately explained by skill issues.

The third part is because it’s ultimately outweighed by what a joy this is to control. Without hyperbole, Mad Rat himself’s got to be one of the most fun characters to fundamentally just move around as in any platformer. He doesn’t get any new moves or abilities over the course of the game, but that’s because he doesn’t need any – familiarising yourself with all his quirks, like being able to jump mid-air if you’ve dashed off of a ledge, breakdancing while airborne to maximise airtime or shortening his dashes to a custom length by tapping the opposite direction you’re dashing in, intrinsically progresses you from feeling hapless at the start to like a champ by the end. There are lots of segments I initially couldn’t stop dying during which’ve eventually become ones I now occasionally boot up the game specifically to replay, just to dance around the proverbial litterbox of hazards that once gave me so much trouble or party with bosses that feel like you’re at a particularly malicious concert, complete with moves that resemble strobe lights.

Something you might notice in the first of those clips is how much the soundtrack’s reverbs sound like the mewling of an angry cat, which reflects another one of the game’s specialties: conveying character through music. Take a second and picture in your head a morally dubious cartoon rat breaking out of his cage with the intent to kill his owner, then imagine what a soundtrack to that scene would sound like: chances are it’s exactly like this. Now do the same for this scenario: that rat’s feeling like a hero with a newfound sense of purpose after developing a moral compass and saving the life of a young girl – same situation. The fruit of looking at a rhythm game and going “the music’s good” hangs so low it’s effectively underground, so it’s just as well that Mad Rat Dead’s soundtrack goes the extra mile and evokes all the right emotions so effectively (which is especially impressive considering how many different composers it has and how tonally scattershot it could’ve been as a result; clearly some strong direction going on here).

Speaking of strong direction, there’s a reason I mentioned Yoko Taro at the start. How many funny rat games kick off by interviewing you about whether or not you hate other people, if it’s always right to do what benefits the most people and whether or not you’ve the will to realise your dreams, complete with booting you back to the main menu as a joke if you pick the particularly suspect options? I don’t know either, but this one does. It’s not eccentric for the sake of itself, either, because these concepts tie in with the events that unfold throughout the story far more neatly than you’d expect; such a mechanics-driven game could easily get away with not putting this much effort into its narrative, but they did anyway.

It's what it says on the tin: platforming madness with an extra helping of heart. Don’t be a scaredy rat and give it a go – or else.

This review contains spoilers

A rat and his heart fall in love on his last day alive. Compassion makes revenge look so small. The moon means everything. And a wedge of cheese tastes it's best when it's from the heart.