Rooftop Renegade is a runner game. It’s not infinite like Temple Run and Subway Surfers, it has a definite end. Each run will take around two minutes so it goes by fairly quickly.
The game has three main modes: arcade, generator, and party. Arcade mode features twenty four premade levels. As you clear levels, you will gain experience and level up. Leveling up will unlock new upgrades for your hoverblades.
There are eight upgrades in total. The first upgrade is the Urban Kicks, which will unlock the Boost ability. Boost gives you a temporary speed boost. The second upgrade is Launch Prototypes, which will unlock the Launch ability. Launch will throw you into the air, letting you reach platforms far above you. This is very handy for when you fall down to a suboptimal path and want to recover. The third upgrade is Chrono-Kicks, which will unlock the Blink ability. Blink will let you teleport a short distance forward. This is very useful for avoiding obstacles that will slow you down as well as covering distances more quickly so you can finish your run with a faster time.
The fourth upgrade is Updrafts. It doesn’t unlock any new abilities but it will let you recharge the launch ability twice as fast. The fifth upgrade is PhaseWalkers, which will unlock the Phase ability. Phase will let you skate through hazards for a short time and each time you go through a hazard, it will give you a slight boost in speed. This is the last ability unlocked, the rest of the upgrades tweak the recharge rates of the abilities.
The sixth upgrade is Chrono-Wraiths. These hoverblades will increase the recharge rate of blink and phase. The seventh upgrade is TurboKicks. This one will only let you use the Boost ability in exchange for the ability recharging fairly quickly. I did not find this one to be as useful because using other hoverblades that let you use both Boost and Blink usually resulted in faster times. The final upgrade is the Ult Chrono Kicks and this one increases the recharge rate of all skills. The Ult Chrono Kicks are definitely the best overall one to use.
It didn’t take too long to unlock all the upgrades. I unlocked the final upgrade in roughly three hours. The later arcade levels do get more difficult. In addition to more obstacles, an enemy unit will destroy platforms and trigger traps to make your run more difficult. You can temporarily disable the enemy by grinding on specific purple rails spread throughout the levels. Even without disabling the enemy, you can get fairly decent scores for your run.
Each run is scored with a score of four thousand points or higher earning you a S rank. Completing the run will earn you two thousand, and the rest are determined by your time taken and crystals collected during the run. It’s fairly simple to get an A rank on all the arcade levels but getting a S rank seems to be fairly difficult for some of them. Some levels seem to have an error in scoring making it almost impossible to earn a S rank. The generated levels on the other hand seem pretty easy to get a S rank almost every time.
The generator mode will let you create levels based on a seed. Some levels definitely feel longer than others. While the generated levels do add a bit of variety, they end up feeling the same after enough runs.
For party mode, up to four players can play locally. There is no online co-op as of now. I have no friends so I can’t speak to how party mode plays.
As for how the game feels, it is definitely a competent runner. The levels feel fast paced and you have to stay on your toes. The abilities, once unlocked, really do add a level of fluidity to the movement. Even if you mess up, you can recover quite quickly if you manage your ability cooldowns well. It does start to get a bit repetitive after playing for an hour though. Personally speaking, I’d rather play the game in short bursts.
For full transparency, I received a free key for review purposes. I have played the game for 3.9 hours as of writing this article and have unlocked 17 out of 25 achievements. Some achievements seemed bugged as of the moment and will not unlock. If they were working properly, it would probably take around 5 hours or so to get all the achievements.
Thanks for reading guys! I appreciate it.
Steam Store Page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1378200/Rooftop_Renegade/
Ducky Obrien 