Speedrunners [Review by Uzzbuzz]Speedrunners is a 2d fast paced competitive platforming game where each player’s goal is to outrun all the others on a looping level. There is a heavy focus on online multiplayer and streaming, though the game offers a single player mode and local play with bots.
Mechanics/Gameplay - The mechanics are so fluid and smooth with such a high skill ceiling that you could play this game for hundreds of hours competitively, as many people do. If you’re just starting off now, you’ll have a lot of tough competition, but that helps in learning strategies faster. The core mechanic of Speedrunners is going as fast as you can in order to get far enough ahead of the other runners that they are pushed off-screen and lose. Each game goes until someone wins three rounds.
The level design, which I will talk about later, completely complements this core mechanic, as one of the main ways you can gain speed quickly is by translating vertical drops into horizontal speed. Coupling this with angled surfaces can have you flying through the maps after some serious practice.
One of the tools you can use in going fast is the grappling hook, which you can use for grappling onto certain marked ceilings to propel yourself, as air travel has a higher top speed than just running. This is a necessary tool in navigating the maps quickly as a lot of shortcuts require it.
Not only is there grappling, but wall jumping too! Many sections in levels are vertical and will require a fair bit of practice with this mechanic as well. This is nothing too fancy, but it is executed superbly.
Since speed is the core of the game, and I’ve only talked about how you can speed yourself up, you may know what’s coming. Yes, a major mechanic of the game is in slowing down your opponents. This is done through the use of an item system which works much in the way of Mario Kart, but in what I would consider a much fairer way. All of the items have a counter and can be overcome by advanced players, and are randomly distributed regardless of the current standings since the standings change so often in a single match anyways.
I have experienced nothing but smooth, bug-free gameplay. It has mechanics beautifully tuned and polished to the main theme. Many people use controllers of some sort, but with custom key arrangements on keyboard, using the keyboard is a viable option, even for competitive play. 9/10
Fun Factor - As a platformer enthusiast, I really enjoyed this game. At first, it was a bit annoying when I would go online and there would always be one person in the game that won almost every round, miles ahead of everyone. But as I got more competitive, the matches went on for far longer, and many lasted long enough for the play size to start shrinking, decreasing the distance the leader has to be ahead of the competition to win the round.
I first played this game as a casual experience with a group of friends. We played it a few times and enjoyed it for a bit, but it is the competitive side that really shines. However, there is still a high level of skill involved in beating the story mode on the hardest difficulty, but of course it doesn’t compare to the level you will find online. You would think the story is lacking because of the multiplayer focus. In terms of actual story, it is lacking. But, it does offer a few more hours of playtime which I found enjoyable, often even more so than the online multiplayer.
Overall I enjoyed it, but due to stiff competition in this review category, I would give it a 7/10
Graphics/Animation - The whole artstyle and feel of the game is a parody of superheroes. Everything is drawn in a comic book style, which is quite well done. There are cheesy one-liners galore, and all of the ‘superheroes’ are designed to look fast, with all of them wearing some sort of speed suit.
As for the animation: simple but effective. With so much going on at once, and going quickly too, it must have been difficult to get the animations looking as smooth as they are. Each player has a trail behind them which can be customized with DLC, that emphasizes the speed of the players without bogging down your computer, as many particle effects can do.
Points for style, but the graphical polish is not completely there. The style really does suit the theme though. 6.5/10
Music/Sound - All of the music is very big band styled and quite powerful and fast-paced. Suits the game, eh? Really helps elevate your heartbeat when you’re in an intense race fighting for the victory. They sure do love their saxophones in the soundtrack.
As for sound effects, there is always something going on, so it is recommended to play with volume as every item has a distinct sound. The transition between rounds builds into the music really well, as every time someone wins a round, the game counts down from three before you can start running again. No matter how many times this happens, even when the music ends abruptly, which is often, it still fits together really well. 7/10
Replayability - Tons of replayability here, yup! You would have to put in hundreds of hours to even get to the skill level of the bulk of the pro players. There is also a leveling system in which you gain small amounts of experience per race which goes towards unlocking new skins and characters. It is pretty much only cosmetic, aside from the golden characters, which are handicapped. Reaching the max level at 99,999 exp will take around 20-30 hours of constant play, and that would be if you won every race as a handicapped character (which gives approximately double exp). Through normal play, it could take over 70 hours even. It only feels like a grind if you actually try to grind it, otherwise you’ll get to it eventually through normal play. It keeps you playing as you will unlock many many different skins and characters, and although it’s cosmetic, it is nice to keep unlocking along the way to max level.
Online play is broken up into a ranking matchmaking system that is ELO based, where your rank goes up considerably if you win against higher tier players, but goes down if you lose matches. It is quite difficult to rank up, with the ranking system going entry -> beginner -> advanced -> expert -> bronze -> silver -> gold -> platinum -> diamond. As of this review, there are only a handful of players in the diamond category, with all of them having hundreds of hours, some over a thousand. Currently there is only an achievement for reaching the bronze rank, which is no easy feat despite being ‘bronze’. Note that it is one of the least earned achievements in the game, and yet it is only about 5% of the way to diamond rank. 9/10
Level Design - As I mentioned before, speed is crucial in Speedrunners (duh). That’s why every level is carefully created to have multiple paths. Some of these paths are for beginners, but there are many other paths for advanced speedrunners that keep old levels fresh. As converting vertical height to horizontal speed is one of the better ways to gain speed, most levels are filled with inclined surfaces that you can rebound off of to maintain very high momentum. Blocks and boosts are strategically placed so some dodging and energy conservation is necessary in order to keep going quickly through the map.
Not only are there a fair few well made maps to play, but Speedrunners is open to the Steam Workshop and players can play hundreds of user created maps. Many of these have even been approved for ranked play, effectively increasing the amount of levels by a lot. 8/10
Achievements - The achievements so far have come in two waves. At first, the game had 15 or so achievements, all of which were reasonably obtainable in a couple of hours. Then came the second set of achievements through an update, making a full completion take another 60-100+ hours. I’ll talk about the first set of achievements first:
There are three achievements for staying off the ground for various lengths of time. One of the easier achievements is a cumulative overtake 1000 opponents one. Aside from that, the other involve using items a certain number of times or in certain ways. Oh, and there’s one for doing the speed roulette, which I believe only appears in unranked games.
Now for the second set...wow. These achievements take ages to earn. Around this time, a story mode was added with achievements for beating each of the four chapters, and one for completing them all on unfair difficulty, which will take a bit of practice to complete. There are more achievements now related to items which are in general more difficult, such as hitting everyone in the race with a single fireball. There is but one achievement related to experience and that is for hitting the max experience at 99,999. This will take a lot of time as I mentioned in the replayability section. Finally, there are two achievements for ranked play: one for making it out of the entry league into beginner, and one for getting bronze. The bronze rank achievement was the last one I earned, and it took many hours during the beta season to push my rank there. If you’re planning on picking this up, do not expect easy or short achievements.
The variety of achievements cover all the modes very well, but some can be a bit on the grindy side. Really, the only super grindy achievement is the max experience one, and if you’re having fun just playing ranked games, you may get it without even noticing. 7.5/10
Pros:
+ Fast paced, well tuned mechanics
+ Solid but hard to break into competitive community
Cons:
- If you find it boring, you’ll be bored quickly
- Less balanced gameplay for beginners
Overall Score: 7.7/10
4.0