Retro/Grade Review

Retro/Grade is a rhythm game, that looks like a shoot'em up going backwards on the time continuum. Created by 24 Caret Games, the music featured in this indie game is all completely hand-crafted for Retro/Grade. It's an interesting idea for a rhythm game, but how does it play out?


At first, if you just look at it, it seems complicated. Traveling in reverse, un-firing shots and dodging bullets backwards. Seems like a terribly difficult thing to do. And yet, this game makes it fairly easy for you, allowing you to move with the rhythm through levels with 6 difficulties for those ranging from beginners with no rhythm to experts with a groove. This large range of difficulties opens this game up to a wider audience, letting players of all skill levels enjoy it. Retro/Grade is also compatible with guitar controllers! Playing the game with a guitar controller, the way you play the game does feel different, in that rather than flicking back and forth across the lanes using keys, you're holding a fret down to warp into place. This makes transitioning between the two controller styles a little difficult to grasp when you're accustomed to one method already.

While playing this game, I felt very concentrated, more focused in comparison to other rhythm games. Usually, I'll sort of drift off and start putting my fingers on auto-play at times. When it came to Retro/Grade, I had to watch for each note, take care to watch my back, and remember to use my power-ups for a better score, and using up precious retro fuel to activate my time-fowarding ability when I screwed up. It could get quite chaotic with all of these things happening. It's a change from the usual rhythm game, a different feel to Retro/Grade compared to any other musical game.

What I liked about the campaign was the attention to detail and to the theme. Your score gets lower as you do better, resulting in you getting new low scores! It's a little quirk that adds to the game, a neat little touch. The time-continuum health bar doubles as a visualizer for the music, as does the retro fuel bar. As you unfire shots, enemies unexplode, all these little details add to the game's experience. Even after you finish your playthrough, in the background of your results screen you can see your run going the proper way, forwards in time. It's interesting to see it.

The challenge mode is significantly longer than the 10 levels of the campaign, and there unlockables to be had from this mode. The levels are laid out in a galaxy map, with branching paths allowing you to take your own route to the goal line. The stages in challenge mode are essentially parts of the campaign levels, with a twist on them. Some of them are sped up, or require you to reach a certain multiplier, and so on. It's worth taking some time to check it out. The good part of this, is that if you find yourself wanting to skip easier levels because they're too simple for your mad skills, all you have to do is ace the first level of the difficulty, and you'll open up a path to a Einstein-Rosen bridge, or black hole as I'll call it. This will allow you to skip right to the levels of the next difficulty. You'll probably want to go back every now and then to do the easier levels though, to unlock everything there is.

Retro/Grade has a campaign mode, a challenge mode with many different challenges, and unlockable ships. There's a lot to do, and there's a leaderboard for you to try and climb and become #1! There's also an unlockable DJ mode where you can mix the tracks in the game. Retro/Grade has an original soundtrack, and it's pretty well done, something we don't see very much of lately.

8/10

This review was done on a PC Download of Retro/Grade, provided by 24 Caret Games.