listened to while playing: Nickelback The Offspring, Breaking Benjamin, Smashing Pumpkins, Hum, Silverchair, Linkin Park (you cannot convince me Kara wouldn't listen to literally all of these bands)
One of those concepts so obviously good it's kinda shocking there aren't already a few exponents more of this kind of game. Frenetic trick skating movement shooting set in a battle arena that's also a massive skate park, genius. Roller Drome is a game that lives and dies by its momentum. By design, both the shooting and skating feel really good to in an unbroken combo, continually building up speed and picking off one enemy after another genuinely reaches transcendental levels of Cool at times. That coolness is all the more enhanced by the pseudo-comic book artstyle, which in combination with the increasingly frantic and overwhelming fights can make for some really nice visual moments. But as a direct result of this focus on momentum, any major failure in the moment is made all the more punishing by it's shutting down of that momentum. This makes this a Very fun game to be doing good at, and a pretty annoying game to be having any difficulty with. This is mostly okay cause as a natural curve you are going to mostly get better faster than the game gets harder, in my experience at least.
Another distinct aspect of the game I noticed was how, fucking complicated it can be. If you play this game with a standard controller, literally every single button on that controller is mapped to a thing you have to Regularly use and intuitively have at the ready for the right situation. This can be kinda dizzying at first, it's a very easy game to stumble around with the controls in its learning process. It is extremely satisfying to have all figured out though. I do wonder how much of that could have been simplified? The complexities of the trick system rarely if ever served to enhance Any of the core gameplay for me. I kinda just, ignored it for anything other than "hold down the flip and grab buttons when I need to reload" and instead focused on refining my abilities with the combat systems in the game. The core of combat and movement feel good enough on their own that I'm actually not really sure what end the implementation of a semi-complex trick system actually serves? Regardless.
The core gameplay loop and aesthetic elements here are so plainly strong it would be hard for me Not to love this game, but, I have a couple key hang-ups. One being, for a game this much about movement, these fights are like, kinda static. Almost none of the enemies in the game move at all. Which like, sure, aiming is a little awkward in the context of a fast pace skating game you're supposed to play with a controller, adding a slew of moving targets on top of that is just gonna make that even weirder. But this leads to me ask, is the arena format really the best suited structure for this combat system? I can't help but imagine this same synthesis of movement/combat systems in the structure of like, a series of linear Sonic the Hedgehog style stages, that feels all the more natural with frenetic momentum based movement gameplay this game seeks to prioritize. The combination of the closed in arena environments and static enemy types can make the game feel a tad, restrictive and empty, at times at least. When you are shredding ass during some of the more chaotic stages, you don't really notice it. My other big issue is a lot more direct: The progression system is kinda stupid and counter to any of the games Actual strengths. Each stage has a set of 10 achievements for specific actions you can take during the stage, and at the end of each leg of the tournament you have to complete a certain number of these in order to progress. Let me tell you, in a game that lives and dies by its momentum: this is a terrible idea. Forcing me to stop in my tracks and complete a bunch random specific nonsense tasks in order to move forward in the game is the most efficient way to kill any built up player momentum from match to match. And to be completely clear, I'm not even entirely opposed to the premise of making me go back to the previously completed stages to do better on them in order to progress. I actually had a lot of fun specifically doing any achievement that was just, "get this certain high score", "get a combo this high", those were awesome, Those work because they reinforce and encourage the player to build momentum and become more efficient and effective at the core systems in the game, the things that are fun to do anyway. What I don't enjoy are the tasks that are like, "do this specific trick at this part of the map!" or "kill this tough enemy using just your pistols" cause all those serve to do is completely and entirely halt you in order to do some overly pedantic nonsense in some part of the map. These eventually just become chores. Since you aren't required to complete a match in order for them to count (i'd be even more annoyed if they did), you just end up loading into the match, ignoring everything else in order to do this One specific thing in order to get enough Good Boy points to move on to the next part of the game you actually want to play. I get this was done to pad out the games length some, but I woulda just chucked this shit wholesale tbh. Just make it so I have to beat specific highscores to progress if you really want to have a system like this in place, force me to do the fun stuff in the game plz.
Hiccups aside, this is game where doing the most Basic shit is fun enough it'd be ridiculous of me not to have had a good time while playing it. Good Shit.
One of those concepts so obviously good it's kinda shocking there aren't already a few exponents more of this kind of game. Frenetic trick skating movement shooting set in a battle arena that's also a massive skate park, genius. Roller Drome is a game that lives and dies by its momentum. By design, both the shooting and skating feel really good to in an unbroken combo, continually building up speed and picking off one enemy after another genuinely reaches transcendental levels of Cool at times. That coolness is all the more enhanced by the pseudo-comic book artstyle, which in combination with the increasingly frantic and overwhelming fights can make for some really nice visual moments. But as a direct result of this focus on momentum, any major failure in the moment is made all the more punishing by it's shutting down of that momentum. This makes this a Very fun game to be doing good at, and a pretty annoying game to be having any difficulty with. This is mostly okay cause as a natural curve you are going to mostly get better faster than the game gets harder, in my experience at least.
Another distinct aspect of the game I noticed was how, fucking complicated it can be. If you play this game with a standard controller, literally every single button on that controller is mapped to a thing you have to Regularly use and intuitively have at the ready for the right situation. This can be kinda dizzying at first, it's a very easy game to stumble around with the controls in its learning process. It is extremely satisfying to have all figured out though. I do wonder how much of that could have been simplified? The complexities of the trick system rarely if ever served to enhance Any of the core gameplay for me. I kinda just, ignored it for anything other than "hold down the flip and grab buttons when I need to reload" and instead focused on refining my abilities with the combat systems in the game. The core of combat and movement feel good enough on their own that I'm actually not really sure what end the implementation of a semi-complex trick system actually serves? Regardless.
The core gameplay loop and aesthetic elements here are so plainly strong it would be hard for me Not to love this game, but, I have a couple key hang-ups. One being, for a game this much about movement, these fights are like, kinda static. Almost none of the enemies in the game move at all. Which like, sure, aiming is a little awkward in the context of a fast pace skating game you're supposed to play with a controller, adding a slew of moving targets on top of that is just gonna make that even weirder. But this leads to me ask, is the arena format really the best suited structure for this combat system? I can't help but imagine this same synthesis of movement/combat systems in the structure of like, a series of linear Sonic the Hedgehog style stages, that feels all the more natural with frenetic momentum based movement gameplay this game seeks to prioritize. The combination of the closed in arena environments and static enemy types can make the game feel a tad, restrictive and empty, at times at least. When you are shredding ass during some of the more chaotic stages, you don't really notice it. My other big issue is a lot more direct: The progression system is kinda stupid and counter to any of the games Actual strengths. Each stage has a set of 10 achievements for specific actions you can take during the stage, and at the end of each leg of the tournament you have to complete a certain number of these in order to progress. Let me tell you, in a game that lives and dies by its momentum: this is a terrible idea. Forcing me to stop in my tracks and complete a bunch random specific nonsense tasks in order to move forward in the game is the most efficient way to kill any built up player momentum from match to match. And to be completely clear, I'm not even entirely opposed to the premise of making me go back to the previously completed stages to do better on them in order to progress. I actually had a lot of fun specifically doing any achievement that was just, "get this certain high score", "get a combo this high", those were awesome, Those work because they reinforce and encourage the player to build momentum and become more efficient and effective at the core systems in the game, the things that are fun to do anyway. What I don't enjoy are the tasks that are like, "do this specific trick at this part of the map!" or "kill this tough enemy using just your pistols" cause all those serve to do is completely and entirely halt you in order to do some overly pedantic nonsense in some part of the map. These eventually just become chores. Since you aren't required to complete a match in order for them to count (i'd be even more annoyed if they did), you just end up loading into the match, ignoring everything else in order to do this One specific thing in order to get enough Good Boy points to move on to the next part of the game you actually want to play. I get this was done to pad out the games length some, but I woulda just chucked this shit wholesale tbh. Just make it so I have to beat specific highscores to progress if you really want to have a system like this in place, force me to do the fun stuff in the game plz.
Hiccups aside, this is game where doing the most Basic shit is fun enough it'd be ridiculous of me not to have had a good time while playing it. Good Shit.