The humble scrolling beat ‘em up has been experiencing something of a golden age in recent years, with the indie-scene enjoying a resurgence in the old-school coin-fed darling. We’ve seen modern reimagining’s of arcade classics, beat ‘em ups with roguelite elements, and even attack inputs controlled with a thumb-stick. Now, with Ra Ra BOOM, we’re witnessing a scrolling beat ‘em up combined with a scrolling shoot ‘em up. Oh, and it includes space cheer leaders.
A rogue AI has taken over the world. We’re not told why, but maybe it got fed up with answering inane questions about Roman sanitary systems, or perhaps that’s just me? Either way, humanity has fled to a space colony to survive, but doesn’t give up hopes of fighting back. No, we’ve actually been preparing for counter AI’s aggression by… training up a group of cheerleading heroes – Saida, Aris, Vee, and Ren – to take the fight back Earth and free the world from its oppressive digital overlord.
What follows is a bold, bright, Saturday-morning cartoon inspired adventure in which you and up to three friends get to beat seven shades of oil out of hordes of despotic, yet oddly charming, robots. Visually Ra Ra Boom stands out with it over-the-top characters designs and a punchy colour palette. Animation is slick and smooth, our heroes cartwheeling, sliding, and double jumping around the environment with stylish abandon. Combat is strong too, made up of accessible combos and easy to implement dodges. Chargeable special attacks are suitably bombastic, laying waste to swarms of foes in blooming patters of blue fire.
Entire sections of the game transform into something akin to a scrolling shoot ‘em up, in which the speed of the player characters’ increase, enemies spawn in greater numbers, and you are encouraged to squeeze the trigger to unleash a delicious spray of machine gun fire, cavalcade of rockets, or a smattering of ninja throwing stars. Thanks to clear horizontal pathways mowed into the ground like the level is a fancy lawn, it’s easy to tell if you are on the same attack plane as your enemy, removing the common frustration of not being able to hit your foe as you are slightly in the wrong position.
It’s all eminently enjoyable silly stuff, particularly in local co-op. The problem comes with how slight the game is, perhaps even being unfinished. For example, early on in the game you’re encouraged to choose between two paths, with the tutorial informing you that this will be a regular occurrence. However, no further path choosing occurs – it’s like the devs ran out of time to actually include the feature. There are also lengthy expanses of level where nothing much happens, you just walk from left to right; no dialogue, no enemies, no nothing. The final two levels also feel rather cheap, one seeing you fight evil versions of yourselves again and again, the other featuring a supremely underwhelming final boss that is an unexpected doddle to defeat.
Upon completion, there’s little reason to return. Sure, you can play through each level to tick off certain challenges, but these activities are exactly the same on each stage. After being forced to shoot every enemy rather than engage in close combat five times in a row, things get pretty boring. In short, there’s a distinct vibe of this not being fully fleshed out.
