Riposte! – Review
Follow Genre: Party
Developer: Misdirection Games
Publisher: Misdirection Games
Platform: PC
Tested on: PC

Riposte! – Review

Site Score
5.0
Good: Concept, Atmosphere
Bad: Lack of content, Needs a full party to remain entertaining
User Score
2.0
(2 votes)
Click to vote
VN:F [1.9.22_1171]
Rating: 2.0/10 (2 votes cast)

Riposte is a term that will sound a bit familiar to some, but still not as something commonly used in their day-to-day conversations. The term comes from the art of fencing and is actually a strike at your opponent, after a successful parry. The following game, Riposte! fully relies on making a stab at your opponent, while also deflecting his attacks. The game relies on very simple controls and mechanics, and serves as a party game for local play. We were enamored by the art style, but also at the simplistic concept.

Story

Riposte! drops you in a medieval setting but comes with absolutely no story value, except for a short written intro that the best knights of the land have been invited to duke it out on a tournament. The game also mentions that other knights showed up, but as they aren’t known by anyone, they were sidelined and not allowed to participate in this valiant competition. You’ll have to make do with this small snippet of text for the duration of your gaming sessions.

Graphics

You’ll be treated to a medieval-esque painted style of graphics, where every color is mixed with some gray-tones to keep things a bit bland. This doesn’t mean that the graphics are bland, they are amusing and perfect for a game such as this. The different pictures don’t show that much movement, but it also adds up to the artsy style of the game. There isn’t more to discuss, as the backdrops are somewhat static, but still very nicely designed. Other than that, there are a few different knights to battle, and you’ll see a set of different weapons floating around, often with the proper color tone of the team that is controlling them.

Graphics

All we are missing is the bard from the Witcher, as the music has the proper medieval setting, just like the graphics. Nonetheless, the little music that is present gets looped really fast, becoming a bit stale after a while. The sound effects are simple, but they do the trick. We would have loved a bit of voice acting to go with the silly one-liners that sometimes appear on the screen.

Gameplay

Riposte! is a party game that is best played with four players. While the world is currently in lockdown, you’ll either have to play against the limited AI in the AI mode, or duke it out with a family member or friend. We had trouble getting together a party of four, but we were able to battle in a true duel-esque fashion, namely the 1v1.

The game is simple. You pick a weapon, you use your stick to rotate it on screen, and you parry incoming attacks, use your ability (a swift movement or strike) and you try to hit your opponent. Depending on which area you hit your foe, you will either destroy his armor, or slay him. The game’s offset is simple, and we like it. It’s pretty much a Nidhogg experience, albeit in a more static fashion.

While playing the game, we had the option to start different tournaments and such, but these often required a minimum of four players. It was sad that we couldn’t properly explore these modes, as it’s hard to get a party together when your country is in lockdown. You can opt to do a free for all, or you can simply work together, by having one player function as a shield.

When playing the 1v1 mode, we were limited to normal duels, and couldn’t pick any of the game’s other modes, in which you hit fish, or pop balloons in a Mario Kart fashion. We are not sure if this will be added in the future, but when not having a full party together, the game gets dull fast, and we learned these can only be played with a full 4 player team in the Tavern mode. This game could have benefitted from proper AI battles, making the mini-games available in the 1v1 mode, or at least an online mode.

We’re not really sure what the matter is with the game’s loading times. It often says the loading is done, but even then it takes a rather long time for the game to get properly started. Also, when selecting a new weapon after being hit by your foe, the timer still keeps going, which is probably to allow the losing player to reconsider their new choice, but even so, a proper confirmation option would have helped the flow of the battles.

Conclusion

Riposte! is a fun concept and overall a fairly amusing game, but only if you can gather more than four friends in a single room. It feels like a missed opportunity not having a fully fleshed-out AI mode, or a function to play this game online. We reckon the latter would be annoying with lag, but even so, it’s better than nothing. Fun can certainly be had with this game, but as it currently stands, the game misses its chance to fully shine through.

VN:F [1.9.22_1171]
Rating: 2.0/10 (2 votes cast)
VN:F [1.9.22_1171]
Rating: +1 (from 1 vote)
Riposte! - Review, 2.0 out of 10 based on 2 ratings
Ibuki


Aspiring ninja.

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