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1 Ever wanted to live your life on the edge? Have a cool robot sidekick while making amazing graffiti? Well, I have news for you! You too can do all this, but you’ll need to have short hair, one thigh high sock. Spray Paint not yet rated.
RKGK/Rakugaki is an Action, Adventure game with an amazing Anime style and theme to it. Sprayed on the side of the building by Wabisabi Games. Thanks to their publisher Gearbox Publishing, developing the game went smoothly. Wabisabi Games made their debut in the gaming industry by adorning the town with graffiti.
Gameplay
Let me set the stage for everyone, the world allows everyone to be as expressive as they want. But one day, a scientist by the name of Buff comes in and takes the spark from everyone with monitors. Valah comes in with the aid of her robot companion Ayo to help those who lost their creative will. By spray painting the ever living daylight on those monitors and freeing the people from Buff’s evil grasps. Fight agonist Buff’s gallery of robots as you literally paint the town red…and purple…and blue.
The whole game feels like Jet Set Radio without the skates. Getting to whiz through each level and living a literal trail of where I’ve gone. I feel like this is great since it helps me with backtracking. During the first stages, you’ll be getting the hang of the controls and mechanics to become a Valah-kyrie. The clean movement when going around the map and the swift transitions between attacks feel so amazing to me.
When you boot up the game, and start a new game file, you’re given two options. Modern which gives you five health, respawning to the nearest platform when falling and faster Defacer Gauge. While Retro offers three lives, respawn at the last checkpoint and slower Defacer Gauge. While I advise playing on Modern, I actually enjoyed playing on Retro for that nice added difficulty.
Graphics & Audio
I played RKGK/Rakugaki on PC through Steam with a controller and my headphones on. The reason I used both these peripherals is because I was instructed by the game itself to do so. Playing on the controller did make movement and doing crazy moves a lot easier. While on keyboard I feel like my fingers are playing twisters by itself. While with the headphones just gave a better experience to enjoying their soundtrack while breaking bots.
Thankfully, RKGK/Rakugaki already has both Xbox and Playstation controllers mapped out to allow us to use something we’re used to. Now that you have something you’re familiar with when it comes to control, our eyes can feast on the art. From the futuristic environment to the graffiti itself, it felt like my inner soul was screaming “Thank you for the food!” Seeing the creative designs for each piece used to tag the monitors seem like something I’d get tattooed on me. I would definitely either get wise neko or daruma on me, with the artist’s consent to put such beauty on me.
Normally when you have a 2-D cutscene with 3-D gameplay it would usually throw people off, but RKGK/Rakuga makes it work. Watching the still frame scenes with the 3-D model is gorgeous and great screenshot material. The added brush strokes and spray paint graphics to those images makes it feel a bit more alive to me. It gave each scene the personality it needed and ignited my imagination of that part moving on its own.
Let’s get to the techno beats that have my heart racing with each beat down and Defacer mode. When I’m going along the stages, the game starts you with some good beats to bob your head to. But, the moment you enter into Defacer mode, the whole thing is given pure mocha and has me wired. Creatively, the sound you get when you get knocked out of Defacer mode, sounds like someone just ripped away the good times. Though there are times that when the music loops, it doesn’t do it perfectly, yet it doesn’t knock me out of the groove of playing the game.
Longevity
The time spent playing RKGK/Rakugaki was enjoyable and extremely fun. Even after beating the game and currently attempting to get gold on each stage in the time trials. For the speed running community, this game will have quite a few eyes on it to see who can beat each stage faster than the other. While others who are completionist or those curious will enjoy wandering around the map looking for ghosts. Or collecting coins. Or even finding that last monitor you need to tag for that stage.
If you’re great at platformers and love testing what can be done, you can be playing for about four to five hours.
Final Thoughts
KGK/Rakugaki characters, art, and music gave me the chance to discover the majesty of graffiti and love techno again. It brought back memories of why Jet Set Radio was great and that I miss the graffiti I saw in New York a lot more. I hope Wabisabi Games are well rewarded by Gearbox to hopefully encourage them to make another game. The formula they have here is great and their mechanics are both unique and breath-taking. Also, I feel like Daniel Alexis Ortiz Rodriguez’s work should be used in a few other games…or I hope there’s an Instagram.
Disclaimer: A code was received in order to write this review.
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