Every FPS that exclusively features hitscan enemies can get in the bin and stay there. That’s my main takeaway after playing the gloriously energetic Roboquest, a game where every second not spent emptying a huge variety of guns into adorable robots is spent weaving, jumping, and strafing out the way of projectiles.
The colorful cel-shading immediately shouts Borderlands, but the chunky, speedy gunplay is pure old-school Doom. Cover? Never heard of it. Recharging health? Nope. Staying still? Bad idea. Manic electro-industrial soundtrack that’s menacing as hell but in that uplifting way that makes you want to punch robots instead of eating for eighteen hours straight? Oh, yes.
It’s also one of the roguelites that seem to be everywhere these days. You’ll find plenty of health around stages, but death ends the run and throws you back to the start. This does mean you get to play with more guns, though. On one run, I found a gun that shoots buzzsaws, searing the scalps from angry automatons like the world’s most unnecessarily violent tin opener. There’s sniper rifles and shotguns and pistols, sure, but there’s also a thing that fires bouncing spheres of pure heat that ricochet from one robot to another.
Guns are divided into four categories and you’ll occasionally pick up corresponding upgrades that allow you to specialise in a certain type during each run. You can kit yourself out as a sniper, an energy weapons expert, a machine gun wielder, etc. You’ll also get some permanent upgrades later that allow you more choice in which weapons you find for each run, but it’s also just as viable to grab whatever you like the look of and spec-out as you go.
There’s three classes to consider as well, giving you a bit more variety between runs. The core shooty-dodgy-jumpy action stays the same, but each class has a recharging ability and a different melee attack to differentiate them. The recon marks targets for extra damage, the guardian fires a rocket (which explodes, like a good rocket should), and the engineer creates drones to fight alongside you. If this sounds far more useful than the other two, that’s because it definitely is.
Finally, there’s the ability to permanently upgrade your base camp, granting perks and items you can use in subsequent runs. A spare head to give you another life, a backpack to let you carry three weapons instead of two, more weapon choices between levels, that sort of thing.
Enemy variety is decent too. Visually, they’re all clearly from the same factory, but they change things up by combining abilities in ways that make skillful manoeuvring a must. Some bots rush toward you and explode, others float and try to snipe you from afar, while some lay electricity traps which stun you for a few moments. It’s all done in the name of keeping constant pressure on you, never allowing you to get too comfortable in one position. It all compliments the pulsing soundtrack and smooth locomotion fantastically.
Right, time for some ceremonial complaining, because it’s not all smooth sailing here. It’s mostly smooth sailing, but occasionally a shark nudges the boat and tries to sell you a chewed fitbit they picked out of their teeth or something. One of these metaphorical annoying sharks is the bosses. More specifically, the first time you encounter each one.
One boss is a mechanical snake that skates along rails above a pit of acid full of disappearing platforms. There’s very little that prepares you for this leading up to it. They’re good bosses, and they add tension to repeated runs, but I’d have appreciated some sort of warning that the game was going to turn into a completely different game for a few minutes since, you know, it’s a roguelite. You can skate along those rails yourself, though, which is very fun.
Another troublesome shark is that upgrade elements can introduce that unsatisfying, numbers-based weakness to weapons that stop them feeling as punchy as they should. It’s the risk you run with any sort of RPG elements, but I’d say this needs a bit of tweaking.
My other concern, and this is what it all hinges on, is the current price-to-content ratio. It’s very much in early access at the moment, and while the core loop is fantastic, there’s just not all that much to see. Then again, it is so tight and compelling that it rarely feels like a chore to repeat things. The fundamentals here are basically pitch-perfect, and it’s absolutely one to keep your singular, glowing red eye on while it evolves through Early Access.
