Red Ronin is truly a hidden gem. With it's pleasant blending of genre's and tough but fair gameplay mechanics, it's sure to win over some players.

Red Ronin Review:
Finding a game that is both fun to play but also seemingly undiscovered by a wider audience is like finding a unicorn these days. There's so much attention on gaming space that eager players or content creators will almost certainly boost anything that is even remotely entertaining. To my surprise Red Ronin has flown under the radar thus far. This game has some serious Hotline Miami vibes, but uses a completely different gameplay approach and instead has a turn based grid style that makes executing that baddies fun and thought provoking. Each move you make has you slide across a whole set of vertical or horizontal tiles sets, similar to a rook in chess. To eliminate enemies you simply need to run into or through them. For most enemies a single strike will suffice. If you slide within a single square of an enemy, they will move and strike and you will be forced to start the level over again.

The game becomes more complicated over time. There are "memory" levels where you face security obstacles and additional traps, but there are also enemies that take more hits and other challenges as the game progresses. Luckily you get two types of power ups to help mitigate the increasing complexity of the enemies and obstacles. First you get a move that will freeze all the enemies for about a turn. This will allow you to execute an enemy that's in a tricky position. Second, you get a pivot move that allows you to interrupt your otherwise complete vertical/horizontal path and pivot a right angle to make turns. This can be used to kill hard to reach enemies as well, but also can be used to position Red in a more advantageous position for the level.

Personally, I really enjoyed this game. My only real criticism is that I wanted more of it. It's only about 6 hours long and I felt like the depth and length of the game left me wanting more. This could be a good problem to have, but it now has me watching to see if this game succeeds and if the developer is given a chance to either create more content, or develop a sequel.



A copy of this game was provided by the developer.