Developer: Decaying Logic
Publisher: KISS ltd
Platforms: PC
RADical ROACH – Review
RADical ROACH is a challenging, fast-paced, side scrolling shoot ’em up brought to us by Decaying Logic and Kiss ltd. Annihilating bugs has never been this hard but fun at the same time.
Story
A nuclear bombing has hit the earth, wiping out all life forces except the toughest creatures. It is unclear as to why and who bombed the city you are in but these are the settings for the game. You are a mute roach that has gained special powers due the radiation of the nuclear bombings. As the city lays in ash, fleas are taking over the world. You need to get yourself to safety, going head on against these evil fleas and their army of other bugs that show a strange hatred towards roaches in general.
Graphics
The visuals are styled in a very cartoonish way but this say absolutely nothing about its difficulty. The backgrounds vary often and the ever-changing sceneries show you the destruction of a doomed world. Distinctively is that the backgrounds have their own animations such as bombs falling down and fires in forests that can make you confused as to whether or not these items can hurt you. These types of animations often come with flash bangs which increase the difficulty of the game even more.
Sound
The soundtrack is hard to define but it does resemble something like an electric dubstep arcade type of sound which in all honestly completely fits the game. For the Deluxe Edition, the music that can be found in the game has been remastered and lengthened into full tracks. The fact that you play as a mute protagonist in a game that has no voice-acting only adds to the overall silliness of the game.
Gameplay
Decaying Logic warns you, even before you buy the game, that RADical ROACH is an extremely hard game. They didn’t lie nor did they exaggerate. The difficulty increases by each level but even the first level is a bit challenging. It’s not only fleas that you have to worry about, they also have an army of mosquito’s, larvae, wasps, arachnids and more. The variation in enemies is good and each have their own abilities to watch out for which makes it more challenging than ever. Bosses you may encounter have several sets of abilities that will surely annihilate you at least once. Unfortunately, there is no health bar or anything on the bosses so you have no clue how much more you need to hit it for. The hit box of your bullets are quite large, especially those of your special attack which shoots a beam for a short period of time. This makes it a tad easier to stay motionless while spamming your attack but you can’t stay completely static for the entire level as there are other threats that may kill you, such as bicycle wheels. Yes, bicycle wheels are deadly for a roach that survived a nuclear bombing.
Overall the gameplay is fun and fast-paced but does start to feel like a grind after a while, especially if you keep dying. In the end it may feel like an impossible achievement to complete the game. The fact that there are no upgrades for your special powers makes it slightly dull. The powers that you have, the powerful beam and a protective bubble, are necessary to complete many of the levels but won’t recharge once used.
You can’t redefine the controls to your own liking but since there are, other than the regular movement controls, only three other buttons to play with it’s not entirely necessary. Playing with the Xbox controller only adds more enjoyment but you are forced to play with the D-Pad instead of the left thumbstick.
Conclusion
The shoot ’em up genre is typically done with a spacecraft or an aircraft but flying roaches with powers gained by radiation does have its charm. Radical Roach mixes the various elements into a limited storytelling, sidescrolling shoot ’em up with cartoon-rendered visuals that can be compared to games such as The Wolf Among Us. The game is tough and they did not add three difficulties for no reason: hard, hard and hard. Some gamers will have it slightly easier, but in the end, finishing the game is easier said than done.
RADical ROACH - Review,
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