Rotastic is quirky romp full of gems, silly characters and all sorts of challenges. The manner in which you procure victory is by swinging on a rope from a hook point. Holding on to the point swings you in a circle in one direction. This both charges a force field, and builds speed as you spin. You can change direction with the trigger buttons, but it will start both your charge and acceleration over. Releasing the hook will launch your character into the ether, allowing you grab another. Where and when to grab factors in, when you catch just inside or outside of your reach of your goal, leaving you to try again, and waste precious time.
When, first starting out, your objective is gem collecting. While this seems to be the core of the game, it is in fact, a tutorial of what is to come. All the acrobatics and combos that you’ll need to know for later, encouraging you to make max scores in the least time. As you are rewarded for artistry as you progress, the difficulty ramps up when obstacles are added to the mix.
Obstacles may add to the frustration, but offer great challenges for you to build on what you have learned from before. With burning walls, weighted switches, slime and even black holes, learning how physics behaves in each environment is a must. Simple objectives become complicated once you realize a timed stage is fraught by battering rams flying across the screen!
While playing alone can be fun, replays can devolve into drudgery as you find that regardless of the obstacle, you develop ways to deal with them. This is when you call up some friends and take on the multiplayer options. Multiplayer offers the more addictive gameplay element, ranging from easy to hard, as you are not just collecting gems, but actively thwarting your opponents from doing so. Players compete in either timed or goal specific challenges.
You may be pitted against four other players, but your tactics to deal with them will be dependent on if the goal is to be the first to collect 100 gems or a five minute”Deathmatch” to eliminate as many opponents as you can. You can kill an opponent by slashing their line – causing them to fall to their doom, or giving them a little bump into instant death offered by interactive obstacles.
Rotastic serves up quite a bit of fun. There was a chuckle or two from some of the antics and jokes. Wildly complex stage design that I found it joy in completing. Watching your opponent fall from your attack to be crushed underfoot of a patrolling army. With this sort of broad appeal, I’m sure most will enjoy giving this a whirl.
