Roboquest is a real pickle of a game to review, because nothing in its presentation particularly stands out. In fact, it was the comic booky, cel shaded looks of it, complete with onomatopeias and comic book looking cutscenes, which kinda drove me away from it when I first saw it come out in Early Access: it did look like a game that put form over substance to cash in on an otherwise bland and stiff pew pew roguelite.

If you listed all its bullet points, Roboquest is just an aggressively mid game in every sense of the word: It's got RNG-y weapons, it's got a few classes that play essentially the same just with a couple different actions, it's got mostly static maps with branching paths, you get perks every once in a while, there's some collectibles, whoop de doo. So why should you pick this over Immortal Redneck, or Nightmare Reaper, or Witchfire, Gunfire Reborn, RoR2 or even something like a Borderlands?

Before I get to the main reason, it's important to mention that, while Roboquest doesn't have many standout gimmicks, what it does have is an exquisite craftmanship. It is a delicately spiced melange of otherwise mundane mechanics, tuned in such a way that they deliver a fun, solid experience run after run regardless of what class you picked, how you leveled your guy through the game, what weapons you grabbed and which path you picked. Every class feels unique, and every improvement is palpable, and there are a ton of ways you can play through the game, and yet everything feels viable while retaining the identity of the class and the choices you made as a player. I would be remiss if I didn't mention the music, which is absolutely incredible and perfectly accompanies the action as you progress through the game.

Either as a happy accident or whatever baguette witchcraft the developers practiced, it cannot be understated how well everything comes together and how pleasant the game is to play. From sniper rifles to shotguns to deployable turrets to room-clearing gatling cannons, the player will be able to pick up whatever class they choose, with the corresponding unique abilities and melee attack, and advance through the levels however they see fit. You can stand on top of a level and snipe everything, or you can even just skip entire levels, if you don't mind missing on the level-ups. Or, you can charge headfirst into a room and let the hallmark feature of Roboquest take center stage: the schmovement. Oh my god the schmovement.

It is hard to describe how incredibly good movement feels in this game. There's nothing fancy, you can run, jump, crouch-slide and grind on the rare rail, but it's how it comes together. Again, it's hard to do it justice in text form, but it's just so, so good. Chaining actions is so effortless, and it's so easy to keep the action going while shooting and swapping guns and using your abilities, and just running into Mario jumping off a robot into another jump into a stomp into a slide, and the genius of Roboquest is that it makes it easy. I don't know how, 'cause the game doesn't feel as if it's helping you, but it somehow makes it so easy and accessible and yet incredibly rewarding at the same time.

It doesn't matter if you're playing as a juggernaut spitting missiles and shotgun blasts, or a scout teleporting around and backstabbing enemies, no matter how you play it, the game is going to make you feel better than you really are, and it feels incredible. Let me tell you, I'm an absolute scrub when it comes to FPS games, and Roboquest has awakened feelings in me that shouldn't be attainable without chemical assistance.

So what's bad about Roboquest? Well, progression will always be funneled down into big room fights where movement speed and being able to nuke a lotta robots a lotta fast is the only thing that matters. This means that a lot of builds and weapons are suboptimal at best and a death sentence at worst, so invariably whether a game is successful or not will boil down to being able to find something that shoots very fast for a lot of damage most of the time. Certain upgrades are massively more useful than others as well, and finally, the (mostly) static levels will eventually end up feeling repetitive. But like I said, these are the rare blemishes in an otherwise incredibly well balanced game that at the end of the day will give you an incredible amount of bang for your buck.

Roboquest is an example of polish over gimmicks, and how focusing on the fundamentals of gameplay pays off. An incredible example of a game laser focused on providing an exquisite moment to moment gameplay that will never fail to feel amazing.

9/10.

Roboquest is a real pickle of a game to review, because nothing in its presentation particularly stands out. In fact, it was the comic booky, cel shaded looks of it, complete with onomatopeias and comic book looking cutscenes, which kinda drove me away from it when I first saw it come out in Early Access: it did look like a game that put form over substance to cash in on an otherwise bland and stiff pew pew roguelite. If you listed all its bullet points, Roboquest is just an aggressively mid game in every sense of the word: It's got RNG-y weapons, it's got a few classes that play essentially the same just with a couple different actions, it's got mostly static maps with branching paths, you get perks every once in a while, there's some collectibles, whoop de doo. So why should you pick this over Immortal Redneck, or Nightmare Reaper, or Witchfire, Gunfire Reborn, RoR2 or even something like a Borderlands? Before I get to the main reason, it's important to mention that, while Roboquest doesn't have many standout gimmicks, what it does have is an exquisite craftmanship. It is a delicately spiced [i]melange[/i] of otherwise mundane mechanics, tuned in such a way that they deliver a fun, solid experience run after run regardless of what class you picked, how you leveled your guy through the game, what weapons you grabbed and which path you picked. Every class feels unique, and every improvement is palpable, and there are a ton of ways you can play through the game, and yet everything feels viable while retaining the identity of the class and the choices you made as a player. I would be remiss if I didn't mention the music, which is absolutely incredible and perfectly accompanies the action as you progress through the game. Either as a happy accident or whatever baguette witchcraft the developers practiced, it cannot be understated how well everything comes together and how pleasant the game is to play. From sniper rifles to shotguns to deployable turrets to room-clearing gatling cannons, the player will be able to pick up whatever class they choose, with the corresponding unique abilities and melee attack, and advance through the levels however they see fit. You can stand on top of a level and snipe everything, or you can even just skip entire levels, if you don't mind missing on the level-ups. Or, you can charge headfirst into a room and let the hallmark feature of Roboquest take center stage: the schmovement. Oh my god the schmovement. It is hard to describe how incredibly good movement feels in this game. There's nothing fancy, you can run, jump, crouch-slide and grind on the rare rail, but it's how it comes together. Again, it's hard to do it justice in text form, but it's just so, so good. Chaining actions is so effortless, and it's so easy to keep the action going while shooting and swapping guns and using your abilities, and just running into Mario jumping off a robot into another jump into a stomp into a slide, and the genius of Roboquest is that it makes it easy. I don't know how, 'cause the game doesn't feel as if it's helping you, but it somehow makes it so easy and accessible and yet incredibly rewarding at the same time. It doesn't matter if you're playing as a juggernaut spitting missiles and shotgun blasts, or a scout teleporting around and backstabbing enemies, no matter how you play it, the game is going to make you feel better than you really are, and it feels [i]incredible[/i]. Let me tell you, I'm an absolute scrub when it comes to FPS games, and Roboquest has awakened feelings in me that shouldn't be attainable without chemical assistance. So what's bad about Roboquest? Well, progression will always be funneled down into big room fights where movement speed and being able to nuke a lotta robots a lotta fast is the only thing that matters. This means that a lot of builds and weapons are suboptimal at best and a death sentence at worst, so invariably whether a game is successful or not will boil down to being able to find something that shoots very fast for a lot of damage most of the time. Certain upgrades are massively more useful than others as well, and finally, the (mostly) static levels will eventually end up feeling repetitive. But like I said, these are the rare blemishes in an otherwise incredibly well balanced game that at the end of the day will give you an incredible amount of bang for your buck. Roboquest is an example of polish over gimmicks, and how focusing on the fundamentals of gameplay pays off. An incredible example of a game laser focused on providing an exquisite moment to moment gameplay that will never fail to feel amazing. 9/10.