Robothorium

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Title: Robothorium
Developer: Goblinz Studio
Publisher: Goblinz Studio- Whisper Interactive (China)
Website: https://goblinzstudio.com/website/
Genre: RPG / Strategy
Platforms: PC, Mac, Linux and Switch
Audience: 16
Release date: 31/01/19
Price: £13.99 – Rapid Reviews UK was very kindly provided with a review code for this title.

What the Developers say

Robothorium is a cyberpunk dungeon crawler with turn-based fights, where all your choices will have a direct impact on your revolution against Humankind. Deep Strategy & Crafting mixed with roguelike!

Lead your own robotic revolution

Your uprising will be unique! Each of your choices will impact random generation and the next missions! They will also change your relations with the 5 different factions present in the game.

Turn-based fights

Develop your strategy with 8 classes of robots, each one having its own synergies. Face plenty of enemies designed with unique mechanics and defeat the BreakTech enterprise!

Manage your troop of robots

Choose your allies and manage your reserve of robots. Craft and gather powerful items, upgrade your talents and give your support to demonstrations all around the world!

https://goblinzstudio.com/website/

Introduction

Only in the last year have I developed an interest in games with a turn-based combat style, specifically within the Indie genre. Robothorium drew me in with its simplistic gameplay and easily accessible upgrade system, as well as its ultramodern art style and interesting character design.

The story takes place in 2052, revolving around the successful robotic manufacturing enterprise known as BreakTech, and their exploitation of robots through their use of Thorium, an innovative new power source.

After many years the robots are rising up and protesting for their basic rights. However, human repression has turned their peaceful movement to violence; and robots are now ordered to be hunted and slaughtered worldwide.

Your duty as S.A.I.A, an enhanced A.I. is to end this chaos and build a safe future for your robots through uprising.

Looks and Sounds

The overall look of this game is very clean and minimal, with the main focus being on the character appearance. The enemy factions all have this authoritative, cybercop style to them, varying in styles of body armour and weaponry which is something I appreciate. At least with the different appearances, it makes it easier to determine how to best approach attacking each enemy. Each of your available allies has to been designed uniquely, representing which battle class they each belong too, from healers to all-out aggression.

One thing I do have to give this game credit for is its fantastic score. The music is this retro wave style that feels like it’s ripped from a classic 80’s sci-fi flick and it’s one of the first things I noticed within the opening cutscene. I think it’s essential for a soundtrack to harmonise and flow with the gameplay, and this did it so so well.

Gameplay and Replayability

Robothorium is your typical turn-based strategical RPG. Starting with a basic arsenal of robots, you build up your army with eight different classes, mixing and matching building a five-person team that best suits your attack style. With this team you explore separate sectors of the BreakTech facility worldwide, hacking internal security and disabling reinforcements to obtain crucial research details and upgrades to get you closer to your goal of resolve. Each class has its four basic combat moves, as well as a more powerful super move that recharges over 12 turns.

The upgrade system is easily navigated through weapons you have obtained in your inventory and the talent trees for each robot. Your new items are easily compared with what you currently have equipped, and whichever items give you a substantial upgrade are highlighted in your inventory.

I feel the combat is a little basic, press a button and go, and there isn’t a lot of variety in each encounter. I feel like if you want a game, you don’t have to think about too much or you want a quick half hour of play to pass the time, it’s fine. To me, it’s very similar to popular mobile turn-based games, although I will say I prefer having it on a bigger screen. The story is a little slow as well, and I found myself not caring for it after the first maybe 4 hours of playing. I am unsure of the completion time as I am still partway through the story. However, the replayability I imagine would be there for some players: specifically, people who would want to customise their loadout on multiple playthroughs.

Conclusion

Overall, this game has an enjoyable aspect to it, and the soundtrack and character design are two positives I can take from it. However, I feel the game could get repetitive after a while and lose its momentum in the narrative. As well as this I did encounter the game freezing intermittently and crashing a couple of times when specific settings were enabled, which did annoy me slightly and slowed down the pace of progress for me.

Rapid Reviews UK Rating

You can purchase Robothorium on the Nintendo eShop at the following link, https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Games/Nintendo-Switch-download-software/Robothorium-1505725.html#Overview