Robo Revenge Squad - Switch Review
"A decent, if not flawed, game."
Robo Revenge Squad is about a robot with an attitude and a mission to destroy other robots that are ruining his day. Deploy yourself into the combat arena and lay waste to your enemies with a plethora of normal, and not so normal, weaponry, such as baseball bats, disco balls, lawn mowers and chainsaws to make them bleed shards of metal and oil. Complete a series of objectives during each mission, such as clearing out enemy robots, destroying generators with an abundance of coal, escorting a minecart to its destination, robbing an alien bank vault or even destroying an entire factory with C4. There's never a dull moment and to increase the carnage, throw three of your mates into the fray for a four-player online game of mayhem!
The Good
In Robo Revenge Squad, you will appear in your home base which has a few interactive elements, such as a mission desk which lets you select your current mission and a chalk-board that allows you to upgrade your robot with different weapons, ranging from your head, each arm, torso and feet. Unlocking one upgrade unlocks the next one and each has its own stats and abilities. Your secondary weapon consumes your yellow energy every time you use it and it can only be replenished if you use your main weapon, meaning you’ll have to balance weapon use during heated battles, otherwise you might end up being outgunned.
There are also other pick-ups that you can find in stages that can increase your damage or give you other useful abilities. Lucky for you, each weapon can be upgraded multiple times to increase its effectiveness on the battlefield. You can also change up each weapon with different skins which require gold screws that can be earned during play or from loot boxes that can also be earned from levelling up. In addition, there is some light base customisation, allowing you to change up the interactive items in your base to something else like a military desk, cinema screen or even rubber ducky; these skins can be purchased with in-game currency or won after opening a loot box.
Once you’re finished tinkering around, you can select a mission and proceed to the rocket to launch your mission. This is where things become interesting as each mission has a main objective to complete but each one is so varied from the next; my favourites were robbing an alien bank or planting explosives in a massive factory, all the while fighting a constant stream of enemies coming out of the wood-work to kill you.
The gameplay isn't too shabby either with lots of shooting fun; if you destroy a certain amount of enemies, you’ll earn a revenge status, earning you a three-star rating at the end of a stage which you can use to unlock later stages and chapters.
TL;DR
- Solo/online play
- Robot upgrades, weapons and customisation
- Rewards, loot boxes and base customization
- Variety of missions/objectives
The Bad
When I first booted up Robo Revenge Squad, I started online as I thought it would be a great place to start due to the game’s focus on multitasking. While it can be played solo, I thought it would be far more enjoyable online with real people. However at the time of writing, I still can't get access to the server. As soon as I highlight the menu, the game instantly crashes and I need to reboot the game. Thankfully, it doesn't seem to affect my save data and I haven't lost any progress due to this bug, however not being able to play an integral feature of the game has soured my experience.
The gameplay, such as the hacking mini game which is prevalent throughout the game, is a bit too simple to complete, requiring the player to tap the button when a marker lands in the green space. While simple, it’s also frustrating as you generally have to do it four or five times in a row and if you miss it once, you have to start all over again. This is especially annoying when you have to stop every few minutes because a horde of enemies has appeared right behind you.
While not terrible, I found the environments and enemy designs to be terribly bland and repetitive, lacking attention-to-detail. This is in addition to the lag and frame rate issues, making the presentation entirely lacklustre.
TL;DR
- Online issues
- Annoying hacking games
- Enemies and environments lack attention-to-detail
- Performance issues
Final Score: 6/10
Robo Revenge Squad is a decent, if not flawed, game on the Nintendo Switch. I enjoyed the twin-stick shooting and varied missions but its bland stages and online issues really soured the overall experience. There is some fun to be had here but expect some malfunctions along the way.
Thank you for checking out our Robo Revenge Squad Switch review, thank you to Mill Games for providing the review code and thank you to our Patreon Backers for their ongoing support:
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- Bel Cubitt
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