Where’s the Boom? There was supposed to be an Earth-shattering Boom.
I am LOVING this renaissance of the beat-em up genre in video gaming, Streets of Rage 4, TMNT: Shredder’s Revenge, Scott Pilgram and upcoming releases like Marvel’s Cosmic Invasion. Whew, the genre hasn’t been this strong since its heyday of the 90’s. Enter a new challenger with Ra Ra Boom from Gylee Games, the first video game studio in my town of Cincinnati Ohio. The game does a good job of blending together the classic punches and kicks with a run and gun style that mostly works.
MSRP: $19.99
Platforms: PC (reviewed), Xbox, PlayStation
Price I’d Pay: $19.99
Ra Ra BOOM has a story that probably isn’t too crazy given where we are in the real world, but players will take control of 4 cheerleaders who live in space to escape an AI who has taken control of the Earth. I can only assume it’s not the AI bot that can’t even depict the last 12 Presidents of the USA correctly but I digress. The whole of humanity has been on the run and the AI has finally caught up with them, so our squad of cheerleaders take the fight back to Earth to shut the computer down, once and for all.
Listen, the story of Ra Ra Boom can be fun but there really isn’t a lot of meat on the bones here, the game can be completed in a single setting with some friends. The four heroines never really develop over the course of the game AND the fact that they are all cheerleaders never plays into it either. Which is really weird because the visuals would tell you otherwise but there isn’t talk about cheerleading or anything during cutscenes. The visuals here are a treat though, everything is so colorful and vibrant; really exuding that ‘cheerleader’ type energy. The voice acting is actually really good as well, the VO did a great job with some cheesy material and it feels like a really good Saturday morning cartoon.
Sigh, all of the things that I thought were a highlight for this game ending up being the weakest parts. Mixing beat-em up with a shoot-em up style sounds awesome and mostly works but then the game also has a lane-based movement system for some reason. In practice this all just feels clunky, the lane system is more or less window dressing aside from certain boss fights but even then, it doesn’t add much to the overall strategy. The combat tries to offer depth with light and heavy attacks, dodge mechanics but the flow feels disjointed at best. Light combos feel stiff and wooden and it affects the rhythm of battle negatively, it feels like there is some potential buried underneath here.
Ra Ra Boom has style and ambition, but style alone can’t make up for undercooked gameplay that never fully clicks. Combat is rough around the edges, the lane system just feels ‘there’ and the story lacks any real staying power. Ra Ra Boom feels like the type of game that presents well in motion and in screenshots but the fun starts to waiver the more time you spend with it.
Review copy of game provided by publisher.
