Run, Roll, Rumble is a platformer brawler by Matthew Marcellino, published by Benua Softworks

Story

As a platformer brawler game, RRR really doesn’t have much of a story, the stages you can select tell a story of an apocalyptic storm that destroyed an ordinary neighbourhood, albeit one filled with violent sociopaths.

Other than stage continuity, there is at this stage, no story to speak of.

Gameplay

Gameplay in RRR is simple, you have a character, you can run, roll and rumble. You can also jump, pick up and use skills and wield a guitar as a weapon, although honestly, the guitar is too slow to use as your opponent will most likely launch a regular attack before you can. Throwing the guitar seems to work a lot better. You can only single jump when holding the guitar as opposed to the double jump when your hands are empty, which is far more advantageous as most rounds will come down to whoever stayed on the stage the most.

The object of the game is to defeat your opponent via either exhausting their health or knocking them off the platforms. The second mechanic might sound familiar to anybody that has paid attention to gaming since 1999 onwards, because it is heavily inspired by the Super Smash Bros franchise, I’d go as far as calling it a Smashclone.

The skills you can pick up in the game are fire, ice and lightning. The fire pushes your enemy away, ice freezes them in place for a moment, although when frozen you can’t push them away and lightning shocks your opponent for a moment. I found the lightning to be the most useful as you don’t have to aim, it will just hit the closest enemy and if you time it right you can interrupt an enemy or even have them fall through a gap in the stage.

You can also collect Potions to recover your health, and shoes to increase your speed and jump temporarily.

Graphics

The art in RRR is cartoony, the characters have no real detail to them, and the same goes for the scenery. There are a lot of things in each level, except After Life. The art style seems to be going for something akin to the game Shelter.

There really isn’t that much more to say, the level After Life that I mentioned before is completely white which is interesting.

Over all, the graphics are acceptable, as it is stylised.

Sound

The sound effects in RRR, are acceptable, pretty standard stuff, nothing to note really.

There are screams, applause, stock punch sounds, nothing like the satisfying sound that comes from the homerun bat in the actual Smash Bros.

The music is again acceptable, but nothing to note, better than the sound effects, but still nothing to really talk about.

Characters

For a Smashclone game the character roster is important, just like any fighting game really.

So which characters does RRR have? Business man, Business Lady, Police man, Police Lady, Casual Guy, Casual Girl.

Literally the definition of stock characters, they don’t even get names, those are just descriptions so you can imagine what I’m talking about.

All characters play exactly the same so they are just cosmetic changes really. You can also swap between skin colors, but again this is just a cosmetic change.

Conclusion

With a group of friends there is some fun that can be squeezed out of RRR. However the game needs a ton of work before I would recommend it to anyone. as the cost of the game is more than a few other Smashclones that far exceed it in quality (Brawlhalla and Slap City to name two).

Cons

• No recovery moves
• No skillsets (or non cosmetic differences between characters)
• Small stage variety
• Unresponsive controls
• Frequent bugs (invisible walls mostly)
• No AI control (all are called ‘Stupid computers’ and live up to the title)
• Roll is fairly useless (can only be used to dodge around an enemy, who can then just turn around)
• Block is useless
• Lack of items
• Boring HUD design
• No respawn invulnerability (you can die as soon as you respawn, even before you can move)
• Camera follows enemies so you lose track of your location

Pros

• Feels like a genuine attempt at making a game, not just a cash grab
• Can be fun with friends (if you don’t have one of the other Smashclones already, and for some reason don’t want to buy the cheaper better ones)

Rating: 3/10 – Would not recommend in a world where better and cheaper games of the same style exist.

Title: Run, Roll, Rumble
Genre: Platform brawler
Developer: Matthew Marcellino
Publisher: Benua Softworks
Release Date: 7 Aug, 2019