Review of Retronika: An Effortless Drive

Retronika offers an experience that’s both thrilling and incredibly frustrating. While poor design isn’t its biggest pitfall, the game desperately requires significant tweaking and balancing in its early access phase to truly shine.

The initial anticipation built from its trailer was palpable, and that excitement lingered when first starting the game months later. It promised the exhilaration of a single-player, VR racing adventure on a hoverbike, complete with free movement to dodge, weave, and eliminate foes with laser guns. You’re cast as an alien, stranded on Earth after a wormhole mishap, trying to navigate through a future filled with airborne traffic.

The game ambitiously eases players into its universe. The Dutch developers at 4Players-Studio designed the controls to mimic real motorbiking, albeit with an airborne twist. You clutch the virtual handlebars, pushing the analog stick forward to accelerate and pulling back to brake.

One-handed handling restricts you to horizontal maneuvering, while two hands on the virtual handlebars allow for full vertical maneuvering—enabling you to dodge urban flying traffic by tilting up or down. Mastering this is a hurdle, but early missions wisely limit you to horizontal motion till you get the hang of it, introducing vertical movement and weaponry only gradually.

Your guns automatically switch to the hand not grasping the handlebars, letting you shoot at pesky drones blocking your path. The core objective revolves around moving through a 3×3 lane, filled with flying vehicles, challenging you to complete tasks like destroying drones or finishing within a set time.

The game impresses visually, offering a minimalist, yet vibrant cel-shaded cityscape that comes alive through your VR headset. While early levels permit uninterrupted exploration of this world, allowing you to soak in the scenery, the truth eventually unfolds: things are soon to get bumpy.

After several missions, the experience sours into pure frustration. Your health depletes from drone attacks, collisions, and even stray bullets. Stray from the narrow 3×3 grid and watch your health plummet rapidly, often leaving you desperately clawing back from an overall health loss of more than half.

Retronika’s balance issues are glaring. Though populating environments with life is commendable, the sheer volume of vehicles in your racing lane is overwhelming. It feels like rush hour, with cars unpredictably converging on your path, making navigation and survival a nerve-wracking endeavor.

Drone enemies compound these woes. They tail you and fire immediately, landing shots on your health before you can react. They rarely miss, and given the clunky speed of your weapon, you’re left exposed, unable to fend off attacks without significant health penalties. Your best defense? Stop entirely to dual-wield, making you vulnerable to everything else.

Multiple drones spell certain damage. Encountering tougher drones is like tossing a coin, with success hinging more on luck than skill. Levels are lengthy, and losing means starting again, painfully retracing large chunks of progress. It’s demoralizing—a true test of patience as you replay frustrating sections.

In theory, vehicle and weapon upgrades should alleviate these challenges. Complete missions and you earn currency to enhance your bike’s specs. These upgrades—ostensibly improving various attributes like speed and steering—offer negligible differences unless heavily stacked, and they don’t address urgent needs like health and defense. Shields do exist, as teased in trailers, but are locked away behind inaccessible upgrades early on.

Grinding for upgrades is a joyless slog. I couldn’t afford a single upgrade during the natural course of play, forcing runs through earlier missions to gather currency. This repetitive grind stripped away the initial joy I felt returning to the game for review.

So, where does Retronika stand now? It’s not beyond saving. The gameplay foundation is solid, and with vibrant visuals and responsive controls, it offers a robust framework for enjoyable play. But rebalancing is crucial. Adjustments to vehicle patterns, drone precision, health recovery, and defenses could transform Retronika from punishingly difficult to delightfully challenging. Without these, the game starts strong but devolves into an irritating grind across mere ten missions.

Will these issues be resolved? The developers have hinted on Discord that early access is wrapping up, suggesting that drastic changes might not be on the horizon. It’s a shame, as there’s an exciting game hidden here, lacking only the critical balance adjustments to unlock its full potential.

Although Retronika holds the promise of riding a hoverbike through a bustling virtual metropolis, the execution doesn’t quite capture the fun. And that’s really unfortunate.