Life certainly wouldn’t be entertaining without there being some form of a challenge that awaits us. Had life been a monotonous journey, many of our ambitions would be nothing more than performing simple and primitive tasks, which ultimately would provide no significant reward in the long run. What do we mean by all this? Well, video games are becoming more and more challenging because they instill in us a motivation to constantly strive for better.

Whether it’s collecting trophies or achievements online, or simply perfecting your speedrun results, video games have now become an outlet for us to be mentally stimulated. This brings us to Razed, a neon-based platformer from developer Warpfish and publisher PQube. Anyone who’s familiar with platformers know that there’s always a challenge that awaits you, whether it be small or grandeur. Razed takes everything you love from the genre and allows you to go beyond the norm, rewarding you for quick thinking, creativity, as well as precision. If this sounds like something you’d enjoy, then continue reading because it only gets better!

Razed is all about thinking outside of the box, and once you start to get the hang of everything, the game truly does reward you for it. The game is full of dynamic map layouts, all of which provide some form of challenge and depth. At first, a lot of it is more about helping you better understand the flow and mechanics, but once everything starts to feel more organic, that’s when the game truly starts to shine. What’s great about Razed (and one of its unique features) is that you don’t need to travel down the predetermined path. You’re constantly encouraged to discover new ways to skip certain parts and to uncover new obstacles to overcome. Combine this with really over the top boss battles, cool unlockable abilities along with the option to reset your speedruns on the fly, and Razed will shine as a speedrunning dream in one small yet exciting package.

It looks like the main premise here is promoting Razed’s futuristic neon-esque world, and you’re pretty much the main star in this cool looking universe. While the character designs are very simple and focus mainly on 3D polygons, it stands out beautifully and compliments the level designs well. Everything truly pops on the Nintendo Switch even on handheld mode, but the game really stands out once you play it on a nice monitor. It’s 60 levels of non-stop visual pleasure as each one of them is decorated in its own unique fashion, giving players this truly out of this world experience as they race towards the finish line for the fastest times.

The sound and music in Razed isn’t much to celebrate about to be honest, but it’s by no means terrible. We just felt that the visuals are truly the shining feature of the game and as such, we didn’t really place that much attention towards it. As you run through each stage, the music does provide a nice tempo and flow, but if we had to choose, we’d probably put on our own soundtrack in the background to help us to focus better. That’s of course our perspective, and we still encourage those who pick up this game to judge things for yourself.

This is of course the selling feature of Razed and where we had the most fun overall. As fans of the speedrunning genre and community, playing Razed truly felt like an adventure but also tested us in a variety of ways. Moments where we thought things would start to get easier the game would twist things around, and push us in a different direction. It’s as if the game actually encourages you to think differently every time you attempt a new run, so as to keep things fresh while playing. That in turn really helps with the replay value since you’re able to rewind and reset your speedrun until you’re finally able to perfect it the way you like it. That feature is honestly a lifesaver in many ways because, during an actual speedrun, time is a major factor, and so being able to do a rerun consistently without any load times is a plus. The boss battles are certainly a challenge, as we said earlier, and they too encourage you to truly think outside of the box to achieve the best results.

The tougher maps come with secret locations to discover, and the only way to find them is to tread off the beaten path and seek things by simply taking risks. While taking risks is somewhat counterintuitive when speedrunning, where perfection is paramount, they actually grant you a new direction to explore and can open up a faster path for you to embark on. These risks play a role in the game and so it’s encouraged to at least give it a shot, since in the end, you could always hit the reset button.

Online leaderboards provide even more incentive as you now are pit up against the world in terms of overall time, so it motivates you to really go beyond your limitations to prove just how proficient you are. You can race against friends’ ghosts as well and really show them just how capable you are. With all of these options available at your disposal, Razed is truly a tantalizing experience that we recommend any speedrunning fan to try out!

While platforming may not be for everyone, we can certainly say that Razed is a very fun experience even if you’re just playing it for the overall visual aesthetics and not the competitive aspects that come packaged with it. That being said, having those competitive assets available is a great way to test your own skills and strategies against others, and to see where you stand in terms of where you can improve and how to overcome any obstacles in your way. Pick this game up and you’ll see what we mean!

Be sure to show your support for indie companies and try out their titles! These days it seems like more indie companies are coming up with wonderful ideas such as this one, and the only way to continue seeing more beautifully designed games is to show your love. If you enjoy this kind of games, be sure to like, share, and retweet this review to ensure that Razed gets the recognition it deserves!

As always, for all things sweet, with news straight from Japan, be sure to keep it locked here on Honey’s Anime.