Reviews

• gamedeal user

  Sep 28, 2021

  "Turn Based But Fast Paced" means, about 1/3 into the game you suddenly have real-time elements introduced so it can break its own rules. I played the demo, I read reviews. Everything seemed to indicate it was only "fast paced" in that executing combos and playing quicker got you a better score; that the game is strictly turn-based and can be played at any pace you want if you don't care for score. I've played and enjoyed games of this genre before and liked them well enough. I purchased this game specifically with that type of gameplay in mind, and then felt like I had the rug pulled out from under me. So I get to the point where I'm unable to beat the boss who introduces the real-time elements, smacks me upside the head, and demands very fast thinking and speedy execution (which again, I was not expecting to need for this game). It's late, so I take the "I'll be fresher tomorrow and be able to beat it with enough effort" approach...only to find the game had saved none of my progress for that chapter despite showing the autosave icon after each room. I saw there was a recent "bugfix" to resolve that, I guess my copy didn't get the memo. As for everything *before* that, it was fine but nothing spectacular and if I'm being honest I was getting a little tired of it. The demo is the first chapter. The second chapter is a "stealth" segment with enemies that kill you on sight and you aren't allowed to touch. The third chapter has more enemies that insta-kill if you dont leave enough space at the end of your movement. Half of the time, areas can be solved by moving back and forth until enemies walk into your path. The story is just kind of a background element up to the point I played, I can't speak for the rest. The music and sound design is great, so that's something I guess. You have the ability to slow time to get a double movement in before enemies can respond, and a button meant to be like you're pausing the action to analyze things (with another ability tied to it). Several enemies I had already encountered don't respect those abilities and will react regardless because ??? actually I couldn't tell you what the reasoning is. The real-time stuff pretends like you aren't using them at all (time stop? nah. strategy/tactics mode? haha, you thought), which again not only disrespects the abilities but makes little sense (I guess missiles can ignore time stop. RIP Dio). I should also mention that I've since watched several videos with examples of gameplay beyond the point where I quit out, thinking that maybe if it was JUST this boss that did that, I could maybe tough it out and then play the rest of the game the way I wanted to. Nope. The real-time elements continue to be sprinkled through the rest of this game just to induce headaches whenever possible. Unfortunately, I can't refund the game because I hit the 3 hour mark, and Steam won't take "misleading game description" as a valid refund reason. I have to wonder if the dev actually wanted to make an action game more in line with Hotline Miami. I suppose if you want a simplified version of Hotline Miami as a slide dash "puzzle" game, go ahead and try this on sale. I personally am too soured to continue playing.
• gamedeal user

  Dec 6, 2021

  I like the concept of the game, i just feel like the execution was slightly off. Game is basically a cross between "Katana Zero" and a game called "Keen" probably no one has heard of. Alot of the negative reviews are complaining about the real time elements of the game, and while I didn't make it super far, the few realtime elements I saw I didn't really mind and were actually pretty interesting. I only made it to chapter 5 before calling it quits, but the main issue I had was that the level design felt far too messy and chaotic to really feel like a puzzle. Every stage or "screen" was just filled with so many enemys with nearly impossible to predict pathing and random hazards/powerups all over the screen that "solving" them just felt like a combination of pure luck and brute force almost every single time. Failing repeatedly was frustrating, and clearing a room wasn't very satisfying because it just felt like I got lucky every time. I addition to the level design itself being messy, the graphics are also just a bit too muddy and make visibility of the stage a bit difficult. Theres no way they could change this now that the game is fully released, however I feel like 1 major change that would have simplified the game a bit and helped reduce the clutter is if they removed the consumable powerups from the stages and just had you start with a specific amount each screen, or you simply got them for performing combos or something similar. If you haven't checked out the game Keen, and you are interested in this gameplay concept, I would recommend that game instead. The aesthetic is kind of goofy and childish, but the gameplay and level design feels much "tighter" and less chaotic/lucky IMO. Though this makes the game a bit "easier" overall, I found it much more enjoyable.
• gamedeal user

  Apr 24, 2022

  [h1]Red Ronin Review[/h1] [i]**Spoilers are censored**[/i] [u]Quick Review:[/u] Red Ronin is a turn-based puzzle game with a Kill Bill aesthetic, and manages to bring a visceral and action pace to a typically slow medium. And while cutting through enemies feels like solid fun, the game seriously suffers from real-time elements that do not fit the gameplay and bogs down the experience with frustrating and lagging reaction times. Although it’s a game I overall recommend, the real time mechanics in this package is a reason for me to advise caution. [u]Gameplay:[/u] You play as Red, who’s out for revenge, and slaughters her fair share of pixelated goons along the way. You move on a turn-based grid, zooming all the way to the end of a row or column until you hit an obstacle, at which point all enemies take their collective turn. Dashing through an enemy will slice them in half, and bolting around a puzzle cutting enemies up is a blast. In addition to your basic move-slash actions, you will also get access to two different powers which are essential to solving each puzzle. One power slows time and gives you a quick action — an action where no other enemies or traps move or react. The second power is accessed through a tactical mode, where the game pauses, and allows you to place an arrow booster that changes your direction mid-dash. These powers are collected in levels with a max capacity of 4 for each power. Each puzzle provides you with the minimum collectible powers necessary in each map to make each level possible. Unused powers can be carried over to the next puzzles to give you an advantage. Some puzzles seem to have only solution, but because of the powers you collect, and their rollover to subsequent puzzles, there ends up being multiple ways to get through many of the puzzles. There are a few types of enemies, and you will have to plan and execute your moves in a way that avoids ending your turn in enemy range, or boxing yourself into inevitable death. The variety of enemies isn’t very diverse. You also have to learn their behaviors through trail and error because there is no tutorial on enemies. This is not a roguelike, so you can die as many times as you want, all it does it restart the puzzle, and count against your total score for that chapter. The game is divided up into chapters, and each chapter has multiple puzzles to solve. (I didn’t keep track, but probably like 10-15 puzzles per chapter or so). Each chapter also introduces some kind of new obstacle. The main story chapters end with boss fights. Most of the game isn’t as hard as other puzzle games I’ve played. It’s not a mind-bending type of puzzler. But the real difficulty, unfortunately, comes from a frustrating implementation of real-time mechanics. [u]The bad:[/u] There are about 2 chapters and 2 bosses that use real-time mechanics, and they do a disservice to the experience. They vary in their negative impact, which I’ll list further below. Obviously one problem is the inconsistency of gameplay and style. Most of the game is turn-based, with enemies moving only when you move. Even certain laser bullets only move through the air when you move. So to suddenly have this contrasted by real-time obstacles coming for you seriously clashes with the game’s vocabulary and doesn’t feel good to deal with. But the main issue I have is how the timing of the real-time mechanics frustratingly clashes with the timing of the turn-based mechanics at your disposal. When you move, you do move quickly, but there is some kind of delay or lag before you are able to move again. This is sometimes exacerbated during kill animations, where the animation slows down for a slow-motion effect, but doesn’t seem to slow down the Real-Time obstacle coming for you. The game doesn’t queue up your movement commands, so in order to make your next move quick enough you have to wait and hit the button at the right time. This leads to button smashing, and a generally slow reaction time from your character. It’s super frustrating when you feel like a fast dashing samurai, and yet you feel lethargic and slow when these real-time threats are moving for you uninterrupted. It’s almost like one of those bad dreams where you’re trying to run away but your body won’t listen to you. I found these moments to be very frustrating. You can try pausing the game with your tactical mode ability, but it’s still sluggish toggling in and out of that too. There are 2 chapters and 2 bosses that use these real time mechanics: 1) [spoiler]Chapter where a sniper laser moves horizontally across the screen. You need to hide behind certain pillars and time your moves to get from pillar to pillar.[/spoiler] This one wasn’t so bad. 2) [spoiler]Chapter where your Yellow character needs to complete a puzzle in time before a laser swipes across the screen killing you on impact.[/spoiler] This was very frustrating. 3) [spoiler]Boss that blows up bombs on grid spaces.[/spoiler] This wasn’t too bad. 4) [spoiler]Boss that uses a rifle to shoot you, by sweeping over the whole puzzle and firing a round while he continues to drag the crosshairs around.[/spoiler] This was definitely the most frustrating. The real-time mechanics felt very unfair and inconsistent with the style of the game. [spoiler]You would expect him to lock into a space before he shoots. Instead he follows you around constantly while shooting. This means if you dash across his line of fire and he happens to shoot, you’ll die.[/spoiler] I also felt like sometimes the hit detection was unfairly skewed in the bosses favor. The basic takeaway is that it’s a fun turn-based game, but the experience is really hurt by the real-time mechanics contrasting the sluggish navigation. [u]Controls:[/u] Controls are simple. WASD to move, Q/E to rotate arrow booster power, X for tactical mode, Spacebar to place arrow booster, Z for quick turn. There’s also a way to play with the mouse, but I ignored that. [u]Atmosphere:[/u] Red Ronin is engaging until it’s frustrating with the real-time mechanics. I’ve already said my piece about that above, so I’ll move on from that complaint. The revenge plot is pretty basic, and never really makes you feel that bad for the “plight” of the protagonist. Her motivation felt a little weak and, honestly, made me feel a little bad for her targets. It almost felt like some of them didn’t deserve it. However, the visceral dashing and slashing through enemies definitely gives you a satisfying power trip, and does well to sell the “Kill Bill revenge” vibe. The art style is very pixelated, and can make it hard to read the room. Sometimes you’re unaware that there’s actually a wall/obstacle in your way. But generally it’s fine. And on the plus side, the pixel art style really helps to sell the exaggerated gory kills with a simplistic punctuation. Overall, the locations are all fairly similar, usually in a building of some kind. I don't know if I can say I ever felt immersed in the world itself, but I was immersed enough in the gameplay. The music usually has a techno beat that drives your engagement. It helps give the game a faster pace than a typical puzzle game. And that’s the big takeaway: this turn-based puzzle game feels like a fast-paced action slashing game. The ironic part is that it feels the most action-solid during the turn-based portions, but then feels the most action-weak during the real-time portions. [u]Conclusion:[/u] Red Ronin is a mixed bag. The base game is done very well, especially by a single developer. It feels fast for a slow genre, and feels viscerally satisfying to dash and slash. But the real-time elements are implemented in a way that is frustrating to play through, especially with the sluggish response time of your character. If you want to play out a "Kill Bill fantasy" in puzzle format, this is your game. Just beware of its frustrating moments. I give it a tentative recommend.
• gamedeal user

  May 22, 2022

  Bad? no. Good? also no.
• gamedeal user

  Jul 7, 2022

  I would like to say that the game offers mechanics which can help very adept players to simply overcome whatever problems I describe below, so take this as a review for those who consider themselves the "average" player. Please be aware, before reading this review, that Red Ronin IS a good game. It is put together beautifully, the narrative is quite compelling even though it's short, it's aesthetically pleasing and the gameplay can feel rewarding. So, although there are some localization issues (at least in the English translation), I would say overall Red Ronin is a GOOD game. However, the game, or at least the tags on Steam, market it as a sokoban puzzle game, but this is quite disingenuous. For those unaware sokoban is a genre in which you usually move in the X and Y axis colliding on the levels' obstacles and objects in order to complete a goal. Red Ronin mixes this formula with combat, and in some levels it feels tight knit and it works really well. But, from expecting a game which leaves the player the time to think through how to make each move, the game has some instances of constant real time threats to the player, forcing them to bypass the planning and tactical aspect for a more "move quick, die, repeat until the level is completed" approach. This would not necessarily be a bad thing, but considering the game introduces the player on the more slow, planning based levels, and ups the difficulty on that format itself, introducing real time threats can make for a quite aberrant experience if one's not ready for it. The game also offers mechanics based on allowing the player to break the usual sokoban formula, such as allowing them to change direction mid-movement or move twice in one turn, which feel extremely good once how enemies and the map operates are understood. However, these turn into a huge reason for cognitive overload once the game starts adding real time threats to the player. Since the game doesn't really allow the player to input buffer, I found myself spamming the keys for this powers before movements ended just so I could have access to them as fast as possible in my next turn. The following section will explain more in detail this problem, but will also contain spoilers for quite a few sections of the game, so read at you own discretion. The first instance of problems appear at the second boss in the game (found in Level 3), which is actually the first boss in which the players encounter comfrontation. This boss marks certain areas within the map in which bombs will explode, killing the player if they are on a tile marked when they explode. The problem comes in when you realise the explosion is on a timer, instead on a turn counter. This makes the player have to find a secure location before the time explodes, instead of allowing them the possibility of thinking a way out, and then the next move against the boss themselves. If I had to say, this is the least agregious of the cases, since it's usually easy to find places to take refuge in. The next instance appears in the third boss (found in Level 5). This boss is a sniper which requires to be hit three times to be defeated, and can only be hit once the enemies in it's arena are killed and he has run out of bullets, of which he has five if I remember properly. The problem here is that the boss, when he has rounds to fire, will constantly cast a mark on the map which will follow the player in a relatively close manner. This mark will turn from yellow to red as he is ready to fire. The totality of this mechanic works outside of player movements, so you could be thinking your next move, and, if you're too slow, you would simply be killed. This by itself would not pose much of a problem, since in the last boss we had a similar mechanic, but the problem comes in when you add other enemies to the mix. These other enemies function by turns, meaning they will only move when you do. The problem is that, by mixing real time with turn based threats, the player is forced to put themselves in positions which are undesired, and will make them die in ways which feel frustrating or undeserved, only because trying to avoid the boss' shots will shift the position of enemies into unfavorable ones. It is also worth noting that, in the rooms building up to this boss, some rooms have a constant laser which pans from side to side and will instantly kill the player if hit. This puts the player in situations where sometimes they have to act fast, but this is a minor offender since, similar to the first boss mentioned, cover is easy to find, and once you figure out how to move as the laser is covered it becomes quite fun. There are still instances however where the player is given no time to breathe so I thought this would be an important mention. Next comes level 6, and to me this was the most grave offender of all the instances. I have no shame in saying that the totality of this review was inspired by that level alone, and how frustrated I felt in some instances as I played it. Level 6 follows level 5 in that, rooms showcase a laser which the player has to avoid in order to not die. Once again, said laser pans the room horizontally and kills the player on impact. However, this level offers no cover to the player where the laser doesn't hit, taking from them the capacity to take a respite, see where the laser is positioned and when they should move, or assess how many enemies they have to kill before being able to progress. Instead, the laser is on a timer, which gives the player some time to complete each room before activating. The laser activating usually means certain death, unless the player has already killed all enemies and is on route to the exit. This completely enhances that idea of dying and repeating which we mentioned before, which completely kills any tactical aspect the game could offer only because the player is forced to move fast each time. In fact, the laser activates before the player has even moved so you can't even take your time when you respawn to think on your course of action. There are some other instances, mainly at the end of Level 8 with the reappareance of the enemy sniper archetype we first saw in the third boss, but to be fair what's described above is almost the totality of my gripes with the game. Maybe it's also worth mentioning how the last boss (found in Level 7), can feel quite frustrating due to how, after every hit they take from the player, they are allowed extra moves. This means that, while the player moves once, the boss can move multiple times, leading to sometimes dying in ways which feel undeserving. Please remember, this game is not necessarily what you might think at first, and that is what made me want to write this review, but I also believe it is quite a good game. Hope this review proves useful to some.
• gamedeal user

  Nov 23, 2022

  Into the Breach turned the boundaries between puzzle and tactical games into an inhabitable territory, one where Red Ronin settled nicely. More puzzle than tactical, RR solid presentation abandons the abstract in favor of the visceral. Recommended.
• [insert name]

  Jan 23, 2023

  it's really fun, try it. although you have to use that tiny brain a lil bit. edit: despite what it says in the desc and tags it also has real time action to it; you'll see it in later levels. but it's still a pretty cool game.
• gamedeal user

  Feb 19, 2023

  Seemed like a cool game and demo. About three levels in, there's a bait and switch in the gameplay. It's not even well explained and I had to leave the game to seek an explanation (cardinal sin in game design to me).
• gamedeal user

  Feb 28, 2023

  A sweet puzzle game with action/cyberpunk aesthetics. Its smart and fun. Has a couple of great songs. Red is quite a waifu. Well not as much as Akane but heck. 7/10 Cheap fun action puzzle with a revenge plot.
• Dilly

  Jun 4, 2023

  WORKS GREAT ON STEAMDECK! Wonderful tactical puzzler, you can feel the Hotline Miami influences. Great game to play in "small bites".