Game Review: Ratyrinth

By Al

Players: 1
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, XBox, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, PC

Even though precision platformers aren't something I normally play, I figured that one that featured a rat would surely be what got me back into the swing of things! Ratyrinth is that game, and it's out now on all major platforms by way of EastAsiaSoft. We're going to be taking a look at the Nintendo Switch version today, and seeing as our rodent friend is already hopping with excitement to get this review going, we're going to dive right in!

Even though I'm not going to bother judging Ratyrinth on its story, I felt I should point out that it technically does have one. You play as a rat who is separated from his family and sets off to find them. That's it, that's the story. It's told to you in the briefest of cutscenes, and I actually had to go back to the start of the game to verify that said story wasn't something created for the eShop description. Our rodent friend of course decided that he was going to take the deadliest path possible in order to rescue his family, and we're all along for the ride. There are 80 levels to go through, and they all vary in difficulty from "kind of hard" to "I don't want to play this anymore". While you'd think I'd say that the levels get progressively harder as you go, I don't think that's the case here. Perhaps in a move to keep players invested, each extremely difficult stage seems to be followed by 3-4 that are relatively easy when compared to it. I guess that could just be something that only I noticed due to my platforming skills (or lack thereof), but I'm fairly positive that it was an intentional move on the part of the developers. With that story talk out of the way, let's move on and discuss gameplay.

Ratyrinth is a brutally tough platformer, but your rat avatar is quite nimble. Our rodent hero can run, jump, duck, cling to walls, and perform a wall jump. It only takes one hit to take out our spunky rodent, though he does have the ability to jump on certain enemies. Jumping on enemies won't kill them, but the ones you can jump on can be used as additional platforms. Most of your enemies come in the form of other animals, but you're just as likely to die from the ever-present bottomless pits and spikes scattered throughout each stage. You'll be doing a lot of dying over the course of the game, but you never have to worry about something as archaic as lives, and you respawn at the start of the stage instantly. Most stages can be completed in a very short time, but they all have a couple tough sections that make getting to the exit far more than a chore than it needs to be. That's actually one of the big issues I had with Ratyrinth, the fact that there are no mid-level checkpoints that allow you to skip sections you've already cleared. Each level has to be completed in a single go, and that can lead to lots of frustration when you struggle just to get back to the section that killed you in the first place. Despite the instant respawns, I found that it often took several minutes to get to the final impossible challenge in those very hard levels. More often than not minutes would be spent getting to a tough section, a spike gets our rat friend, and the cycle starts anew. This quirk of gameplay is ultimately was why I never bothered to beat the game. At around level 50 or so, I just lost all patience and gave up. I promise I won't give up on this review though.

Since Ratyrinth styles itself as a precision platformer, you'd assume that means that it has tight controls. While I'll admit that most actions, like running and jumping, are very tight and responsive, there are others that don't operate nearly as well. While there are a few tiny things I can point out, I think that the biggest culprit in the wonky controls department has to be the wall slide and the wall jump. I've never encountered a more inaccurate wall jump in my life, and the amount of times you're required to use it in-game is simply insane. In order to perform a wall jump, you must first grab onto a wall. I say "grab", but you latch onto it for a second before you start to slide down. You then have to jump away from the wall, but you have to do so at the right time or the slide will negate any upward movement you may have made. You then have to do this back and forth repeatedly until you clear the section. This is all really hard to explain in writing, but you'll more than likely find that jumping up spiked walls, or avoiding enemies and projectiles placed in alcoves, is near impossible thanks to that annoying slide. Every section that required wall jumping were ones that I only cleared by sheer luck. Not once did I feel I grasped the wall jump mechanic, and it too was a reason why I ultimately gave up on the game.

Even though I just laid out two big reasons why Ratyrinth doesn't exactly hit it out of the park when it comes to gameplay, I have to say that it's a great-looking game in spite of those flaws. The graphics are all displayed in a monochrome style, and there's a certain beauty in that simplicity that's hard to describe if you haven't seen the game in action. It almost feels like a manga come to life, and there's even lots of smooth animation that adds to that aesthetic. Since it's not exactly a graphically intense game, it probably comes as no surprise that Ratyrinth runs perfectly no matter what nonsense may be happening on screen. Honestly, it's the graphics that kept me around for the most part, though they weren't enough to get me through to the end. Oh, and if you're not a fan of spiders, there's an arachnophobia box you can check in the options menu to not see them at all in the game. Even though I didn't bother with this myself, I appreciate that it's an included option. Unfortunately, the rest of the presentation doesn't fare nearly as well as the graphics. The music and sound effects are fine, but they're largely forgettable, and there isn't much in the way of menus or a title screen. Hell, I wasn't even sure I saw that opening cutscene the first time through and had to restart the game to confirm it actually had one. Still, the graphics do make up for a lot of the game's shortcomings, and most of the stuff I just mentioned were things I barely noticed while actually playing the game.

I gave Ratyrinth about three hours before I threw in the towel, and who knows how long it would've taken me to clear the entire game. I know that sounds like far too little time for me to write a review, but I'm not exaggerating when I say that at least two of those three hours were spent trying to clear only 2 or 3 levels. I even had a friend who was over help me clear one of them, and that "help" turned into an hour session of us going back and forth until we somehow got through it. With all that in mind, I'm positive that the game can be cleared in well under an hour if you have the skill to just run through it. Obviously most people will need far more time than that, but this isn't exactly a long game if you take away the difficulty. I'm not proud that I ultimately gave up, but I had to do it for the sake of my sanity. Despite the fact that I walked away from it prematurely, I must say that I didn't hate my time with Ratyrinth. There were plenty of times where I was simply having fun, and I'm sure that fans of these types of games will find even more to enjoy here than I did. Also, the game only costs $4.99. At that price, I wouldn't even care if I had bought it outright. It was worth it for the couple hours of distraction, and for me and my friend to have an old school, controller-sharing gaming session.

While I can't give Ratyrinth a full must-buy recommendation, I do think that it's a game that fans of precision platformers will enjoy. That wall jump is wonky as all hell, but maybe others can get the hang of it better than I did. At less than five bucks, it's worth picking up just to see what I'm talking about. If you do choose to get it, be sure to let me know if our rodent friend ever gets to see his family again. I need that closure in my life, because I know that my rat will never see his family ever again. See you in the next one!

Check Out Ratyrinth on Nintendo Switch:
https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/ratyrinth-switch/

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Story: N/A
Gameplay: C
Graphics: A
Music/Sound: B
Value: A

Overall: B-

Pros:
+ A challenging platformer for those who enjoy such things.
+ The monochrome graphic style looks great, as do the enemy designs and animation.
+ With the exception of the wall-jump, all the controls feel tight and responsive.
+ Quick respawns mean you get back into the action quickly after death.
+ Very affordable at just $4.99

Cons:
- The wall-jump mechanic seems near broken and makes many challenges harder than they need to be.
- Much of the difficulty comes from the lack of mid-level checkpoints rather than challenging platforming.
- There isn't much in the way of presentation, and there's no story to speak of at all.

A copy of this game was provided to us free-of-charge by the publisher for the purpose of this review. This did not affect our review in any way.

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