One game I’ve been keeping an eye on recently is Retronika. Set in a futuristic world that evokes memories of the 90s science fiction classic Fifth Element, you speed through a floating motorway using your trusty bike whilst completing random odd jobs. It’s sounds horrendously unsafe, but also lots of fun.

Recently, I managed to get my hands on a beta version of the game prior to its release next month. Whilst the full version isn’t far off, it’s worth keeping in mind that many elements of the game may end up changing. I doubt there will be any major alterations to the formula, but it will probably end up getting tightened up a bit.

Many thanks to 4Players-Studio for this early preview opportunity.

MULTIPASS!
As you can imagine, riding a flying motorcycle on a floating motorway is quite dangerous. Despite these roads being completely straight, there’s a hell of a lot of fast moving traffic and you need to try your best to avoid them. Occupying a 3×3 grid, dodging traffic will have you steering left and right as well as move vertically by pushing or pulling in the appropriate direction. It’s super intuitive and the game does a great job at easing you via your helpful robot companion.

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Of course, this isn’t just a simple cruise as the game gradually introduces a lot of new mechanics to make things more complex. As well as your life bar, which will drain when driving outside of the power grid or bumping into vehicles, you’ll also start having to worry about defending yourself too. The problem is that you need both hands to fly vertically, leaving you open to crashing rather easily unless taking care. Eventually both hands will end up getting occupied, thus making the terrible drivers even more of a problem when you can’t turn at all. Managing your vehicle and your weapons is hectic, brutally tough, but most importantly – fun.

The game is divided up into small missions that have you fulfilling some set parameter. Your actual job is of little importance, as typically it’s all about driving fast and/or destroying enemy robots. Upon completing a mission, you’ll earn a star ranking and getting more stars will grant you more money that you can use to upgrade your wheels. Some items (like the gun) don’t need to be purchased, but the rest you need to work hard for.

One thing that the game really deserves to be complemented on is its visual style. Instead of opting for something more realistic, they chose something cel-shaded and it works an absolute treat. The comic-book aesthetic ensures that the game runs silky smooth whilst zooming around fast to the killer soundtrack.

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Admittedly there are some rough edges present in the beta version of the game. Your robot companion currently lacks voice acting, which feels really out of place, and it’s all too easy to inadvertently skip his speech when trying to speed it up. Sometimes it works as intended and displays the entire text box for you to read, but most of the time it’ll just jump to the next one instead. There are also a lot of typos and spelling errors present in the dialogue that really shouldn’t have gone by unnoticed.

Of course though, this still is the beta version and I’m sure I’m not the only one to point all these out. With the full release coming next month, I would hope that most – if not all – of these issues will have been addressed. Whilst these problems don’t exactly ruin the experience, they do give off the impression of being rather unpolished.

VERDICT
Retronika is a lot of fun, and I have high hopes for the final release. There are still some small things they need to iron out, particularly the spelling mistakes, but I can see this one being a classic indie VR title to add to your library.