Road Rash is considered to be a classic on the Genesis, for various reasons. Strangely, the motorcycle/combat genre appears to have died out sometime in the 90s and left almost no survivors. Thankfully, Road Redemption has come out and allowed that to continue, at least in spirit. The question that really should be on the mind of everyone is if the title decided to try to reinvent the wheel, or if it had decided to try and stay true its roots and refine what was already there.
You can watch our stream of Road Redemption here:
Happily, Road Redemption, decided to take the path that is rarely seen and refine on ideas that had been laid out before it with the spiritual predecessor and simply refine them for modern tastes, with modern tech. A perfect example is the mixture of RPG elements and rogue-lite level mixing that allows progression in the game, but forces the player to restart and over and over again—with every attempt becoming slightly easier than the one before due to the upgrades.
The game also does a good job with the sense of speed, taking corners and zipping down straightaways simply feel fast—not something that even all core racing games always manage to do. Hitting other bikers with weapons feel like they have weight behind them, as the NPC and the player character both react in different ways to different items. It is a mix that can be seen that the developer actually cared about the game, which is driven home even more since they included their actual phone number as part of one of the loading screens.
Road Redemption isn’t the perfect game for everyone, it isn’t going to convert anyone to a genre that was forgotten in the 90s, but for anyone who remembers playing those games with a fondness is a great game to pick up on a Steam sale. Sessions probably last 30 minutes, if you are generous, but are almost always enjoyable; this makes the game one of the best, “I don’t know what to play, but I want to play something,” games that has come out recently. For anyone looking for some quick and mindless fun, no need to look further than here.
Also available on PS4, Xbox One, and Switch.