Quadropus Rampage Review

I love a good Roguelike. More than that, I enjoy a good game that makes excellent use of Roguelike design elements. Enter Quadropus Rampage: an "Endless Roguelike Brawler" starring an incredibly angry four-legged octopus and his almost equally miffed starfish companion. It's a weird concept, certainly, however Butterscotch Shenanigans knows exactly what they're doing.

The mad mollusk is on a quest to rid the oceans of the evil sea god, Pete, and his army of nasties. This means fighting lots and lots of enemies while descending further and further into the depths; gaining strength and acquiring more powerful weapons along the way. Once a floor has been cleared out players can move on to the next, although it's also possible to leap straight down to the floor below (intentionally or not) by simply walking off the edge. The toss up is this causes damage. A large grub will intermittently show up to offer rare items, but most of the time all the orbs (i.e. cash) gained along the way is best spent on upgrading the Quadropus' abilities.

Despite all the weirdness, Quadropus Rampage is actually a very clever game. The action is fast and furious, but not totally out of control. There are quite a few skills and abilities to earn and enhance. Random weapon drops are easy to compare and swap. And while death means restarting from the very beginning, all orbs and stat increases remain. It can certainly be a shame to lose a powerful weapon (guitar/stick/whatever), but each replay offers the opportunity to incrementally increase the Quadropus' power. That and it's just plain goofy fun to rush in and smash up a bunch of hopping sharks with whatever ridiculous item the current in-hand weapon might be.

Knowing that Quadropus Rampage is a Roguelike is very important. Anyone trying to play it without that expectation or knowledge of what that means might be put off by the permadeath and constantly resetting level progress. Of course if they're into that kind of thing it's not really a problem. However I did find the Quadropus' tendency to fall off of a level to be rather irritating. I'll acknowledge that sometimes it was my own fault, but when I have to aim by moving the Quadropus (there are no twin-stick controls) it starts to feel like the level design and controls are both out to get me.

Slightly irritating plunges between levels aside, Quadropus Rampage is a fantastic combination of gameplay elements that needs to be played over and over again. Not because that's the whole point, but because it's extremely fun. And also because that's the whole point, yes.