RIVE is, unfortunately, the final title to be developed by Two Tribes as a studio, as the team who also worked on also the wonderful and cute Tiki Tori series have decided to disband and move on to new projects. What did we think of their swan song? Check our RIVE review to find out!
The founding members of Two tribes are, apparently, staying within the games industry but in different capacities outside of games development. The team wanted to ‘go out with a bang,’ and they tried to archive that with RIVE. On that note, I would like to wish the team all the best in the next chapter of their careers – reviewing their games has been a pleasure. As expected, I have had a lot of fun writing this RIVE review, but the burning question is, it worthy of your time and money? Let’s find out!
So you play as a protagonist who rides a spider-like vehicle called a Roughshot – it can float and fly depending on the gravity. He is all out of gas and finds an abandoned facility while searching for fuel to get back home, where he meets an interesting AI. The AI has an agenda of its own, as you’ll soon find out. The dialogue and personalities of the two characters is certainly enough to keep you entertained throughout the main campaign.
RIVE is a challenging sidescrolling shooter – hard mode is the default difficulty setting! You can change that later if Hard mode is too much of a challenge for you, but to be honest Hard mode wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle. You should expect to die a lot since you’ll need to learn what you can and can’t do, but the difficulty of the mode is not as crushing as I expected. But the boss fights are a serious challenge on Hard mode, and they can get a overwhelming at times.
You will always find yourself in tough situations. You will usually be surrounded by enemies, and if they don’t finish you then the environment surely will. Yes, you guessed it: there are plenty of hazards to avoid! RIVE may be primarily a shooter, but there are some platforming and puzzle elements to spice things up and make it more challenging.
To make things easier, you can equip your little robot with upgrades, new weapons and abilities thanks to the nuts and bolts you earn from defeating enemies. Remember, the game is meant to be hard, and you are expected to practice more and more so that you can get better at the game.
The controls are very easy to use, and any upgrades you purchase are automatically set into place so that you can get back into the action. As you explore, you’ll find plenty of ammo scattered around each level. You can also find health bots that you can hack to follow you around giving you a health top up every time you get hit which is an awesome mechanic. And that is not the only thing you can hack! You can also hack into enemy turrets, hack doors open, and more. Just hit the R1 button to scan and hack away!
As for the game’s graphics, they’re top-notch, and the sheer fire power of you and your enemies just illuminates the whole screen like a fireworks show. Two Tribes have definitely achieved their goal of ‘going out with a bang.’
RIVE offers two extra game modes: Speedrun and Single Credit mode – both these modes can only be unlocked after completing the campaign. Speedrun mode allows you to try and complete the game in one sitting, while Single Credit mode is even harder than hard mode, only for the sadistic players!
I had a ton of fun with the game as I wrote my RIVE review. The campaing is roughly 6-8 hours long and is very dependant on skill – if you choose to drop down to Soft mode you can complete the game a little faster. The game is fun, fast-paced and looks great, and you should all go out and add it to your collection to reward Two Tribes for all of their hard work.
Disclaimer
This RIVE review is based on a PS4 copy provided by Two Tribes.
