Introduction
Robolt is a frantic run and gun side scrolling platformer. It was released on June 20th on Nintendo Switch, PS4 and PS5. You can purchase the version I am reviewing on the Nintendo E-Shop. It has been published by Eastasiasoft, and developed by Gamelike Games.
Overview
In this game you play a robot named Robbie who is trying to escape the lab that they find themselves in. In order to escape the lab you have to clear 16 levels across 4 worlds. Each world has a distinct look about it.
Gameplay
You have a laser gun that you will use to destroy any obstacle in your path. In the beginning, seeing all of the enemies that are coming after you is very overwhelming. This is especially overwhelming because there isn’t much in the way of hand-holding. When I first started to play the game I didn’t know how to use the gun. Eventually I went to the help menu. There was the list of controls as well as the credits.
Armed with this knowledge I restarted my journey to liberate our robot friend Robbie! Each level will have a variety of obstacles that you must shoot, hop on, or navigate through. At the end of each of the first three levels you will find a door to go on to the next level. On the fourth level in each world you will encounter a big boss.
Prepare to die…a lot. Each time you die you have to start from the beginning of the level. Luckily you start to learn the best way through the level as you replay it. Also you will be collecting little microchips. You will use these from the level select screen to upgrade your character.
This is the point where the game felt a bit unbalanced. By the end of the second world all of my different attributes were maxed out. So the rest of the game I was collecting more microchips, but had nothing to spend them on. On one hand this was good that I was able to power up my character as fast as I did, since it made the levels much easier. But on the other hand it kind of took some of the fun out of the remaining levels.
Graphics
The graphics in this game are pretty standard pixel style graphics and look nice overall. The only complaint I have is that your character is a little hard to see. In general the enemies and your character are small on the screen. You get used to it. I would have liked them to pick a different color for Robbie the robot. Sometimes I lost him during some of the more frantic scenes.
Performance wise Robolt has problems. There should be no reason why there would be any slowdowns. But for no apparent reason the game slows down for a second, and then returns to normal. I hope that the publisher Eastasiasoft who did the porting for the Nintendo Switch version will release an update to smooth out those issues. They were in no way game breaking, but just seems unnecessary.
Sound
The sound in the game sounds good, and it blends into the background. This is a perfect game to play while watching TV at the end of the day.
Story
The story is very basic, but does let you know at the beginning of each world why you need to keep going. You need to get Robbie out of the lab and to freedom!
Value
Robolt for the Nintendo Switch is $4.99 on the US e-Shop. I think it is worth picking up, so long as you are fine with experiencing the 16 levels, and likely not going back to it for a while. I think this game would be perfect for those players who have a big game like Tears of the Kingdom to play and need a palate cleanser.
Conclusion
Robolt is a fun, frantic run and gun platformer created by a very small development team. The game could use some performance tweaks to smooth out some of the random slowdowns. It could also could use some balancing so that you had upgrades to purchase through the games short run. But the bottom line is the game is enjoyable, not too stressful. I would like to thank the developer Gamelike Games, and the publisher Eastasiasoft for the review code.