Originally planned as a homebrew NES game based on Grand Theft Auto III entitled Grand Theft Endo, Retro City Rampage‘s developer VBlank Entertainment more recently decided to bring it to nearly all current-gen systems, allowing a much wider audience to experience this retro styled open world game. In development since 2002, it’s finally arrived, and it was certainly the wait, as this retro filled nostalgia trip is one you should experience.
From the off, Retro City will throw you into a world of references, be it stealing Bill and Ted’s time machine, seeing “feel asleep” on the back of a truck, or just having encounters with your favourite characters from the good old days. What Retro sets out to do with references seems to be “let’s throw out two jokes a minute and see what sticks“, and from a gamer perspective this can cause you to gloss over jokes you’re not aware of and cheer at the sight of the ones you are. Thankfully a lot of these references can go from massively obscure one liners to in your face “HEY THAT’S THE ENDING TO MARIO BROS 2” style. This system of dishing jokes out keeps things lighthearted and fun, something that keeps it standing strong to people that may not be as quick on the uptake with the more obscure references, but I may be underselling it as I honestly had a lot of fun with the game outside of all the in jokes. Just be aware that this may be the Scott Pilgrim of video games, and you should let some things fly over your head for the sake of pace and fun gameplay.
Retro City Rampage has you take the role of “Player”, a hero who is sent forward in time after stealing the phone booth from the Bill and Ted movies and running into Doc from Back to the Future. Your goal is to collect a bunch of pieces to fix up the DeLorean in a GTA style sandbox world with a heavy NES visual style. By the time you finish the game you will have met your future self, ran through the city with Sonic’s speed boots and played through a variation of the opening area of Metal Gear for the NES. If this sounds all too confusing to you, don’t worry, this is only the first hour of the game. Every detail of the city and its mechanics are lifted right out of your favourite gaming memories, and even some nods to newer indie releases such as retro versions of Bit.Trip Runner, Super Meat Boy and more, which can be played in the city’s Arcades. It even throws some humour into the typical ‘open world missions’, for example where you have to tail a car, but your character keeps stopping for coffee breaks to stay awake. Almost every flaw and thought you have had on a mechanic that this game utilises has been turned into a joke and is much better off because of it.
The gameplay is lifted right from GTA but many levels pay homage to classic titles, changing the pace enough to keep you wanting more. Missions are placed as markers on your map as a big “M”, and there are many side missions and challenges to experiment with. The soundtrack is something I overlooked at first but over time I found my favourite radio station to listen to while driving around and realised I was having as much fun with this game’s music as I did when driving around in any normal GTA title. Every character I ran into seemed to have a distinct personality despite it all being presented via simple one liners, Retro even throws in a few mechanics from newer games such as a cover system, although that was highly underlooked in my play through.
There’s not a lot I can really say about Retro City Rampage that isn’t praise, I was pleasantly surprised by the finished product. As a collector of NES games I’m rather happy that they decided to make the move to digital distribution as I feel that a homebrew version of this would have to come with some sacrifices and I can’t imagine the game being anything less than what we have here. If you have any love for cinema or games (and I’m assuming you do, as you’re here) then I strongly suggest that you move this up on your list of titles to purchase as, it’s rather brilliant.