Ra Ra BOOM is a four-player couch co-op beat-’em-up with four unlikely protagonists: a group of futuristic ninja-cheerleaders who trade in their pom-poms for melee weapons and high-powered firearms. After a surprise attack, Aris (a scythe-wielding redhead), Saida (a cyborg on rollerblades), Ren (an agile martial artist with a katana), and Vee (the squad’s heavily shielded tank) team up in the hopes of avenging a fallen friend and saving Earth from the threat of an evil AI.
There’s a lot to like about Ra Ra BOOM, which is out now on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, and PC. Its character designs are unique, with each character’s appearance representing their playstyle. The game’s environments are striking and colorful, its soundtrack is catchy, and it allows for a variety of gameplay styles. Unfortunately, the game is held back by a number of shortcomings.
Ra Ra BOOM’s environments are stunning, but gameplay is a bit lacking.
Ra Ra BOOM‘s premise is interesting on the surface (and frankly, most folks are into beat-’em-ups for the gameplay, not the story), but it falls apart upon closer inspection. Text dialogue is fairly generic, and there’s no way to increase the speed of the text in dialogue boxes, so any NPC encounters that happen outside of cutscenes seem to go on forever. Cutscenes themselves are fully voiced (and voiced well!) but they’re not fully animated, which is also a bit of a bore.
“Sci-fi cheerleaders” sounds like a cool character design concept, but in practice, it doesn’t work — mainly because, based on their outfits, you’d have no idea the Ra Ra BOOM girls are cheerleaders if the game itself didn’t inform you of this. Aris is the only character who looks remotely like a cheerleader, and the game begins with the girls in a classroom (not a gym) with nary a pom-pom in sight. You won’t see the girls doing back hand-springs in combat or forming a human pyramid in co-op mode. They’re cheerleaders because the game says they are, but if it didn’t, the only hint at the girls’ extracurricular-of-choice would be the “Ra ra BOOM!” cheer they shout in unison one or two times throughout the course of the game.
Nothing about these character designs says “cheerleader.”
But incoherent design choices can usually be offset by excellent gameplay. Unfortunately, developer and publisher Gylee Games didn’t quite manage that either. Don’t get me wrong, the game has its fun moments, but the game’s overall quality is diminished by one major issue: Ra Ra BOOM‘s characters feel paper-thin, making it extremely difficult to actually land a hit on your enemies. It’s equally hard for enemies to hit you (with the exception of a few bosses that can reach across the screen to knock you down), which makes for an extremely frustrating gameplay experience in which fights seem to go on forever, because everyone’s hitbox is so thin that even when you appear to be standing right next to an enemy, your attacks will likely land in front of or behind them, and they’ll have an equally difficult time hitting you. Using firearms can help — each character has the ability to use a gun — but even lining up shots can be difficult. Additionally, moves (even light attacks) can’t be canceled, which is extremely frustrating, especially when it’s so hard to hit enemies in the first place.
Another major issue is keeping track of your character. It’s not too bad when playing alone, but in co-op mode, it’s a nightmare. When a player dies, they can choose to respawn (provided they have an extra life) as any character that isn’t currently being played. This is a fun mechanic that prevents players from getting stuck with the same character for an entire level, but because Ra Ra BOOM has no player markers floating over the characters, it can be extremely difficult to remember who’s who, especially when your co-op partner respawns as the character you were just playing. I can’t imagine how hard it would be to play a full four-player co-op campaign with no visual aid to designate who’s who.
The ability to swap characters when you respawn is nice, but it’s hard to tell who’s who in co-op mode without a floating “Player 1” tag.
As you make your way through the game and defeat enemies, you’ll pick up bits of Scrap Metal, which can be used to upgrade abilities and purchase new ones from the Scrap Shop. The Scrap Shop features three skill trees: Stunts, Melee, and Ranged. The Stunt tree allows you to increase your health, luck (which increases the frequency of Health and Scrap Metal drops), and run speed. You can also purchase a variety of new abilities from the Stunt tree, like the ability to dodge, dash, and double jump. The Melee tree features upgrades for melee attack damage, attack speed, and how far enemies can be knocked back when hit. Players can also purchase new moves like aerial attacks, an uppercut that sends enemies flying skyward, and the ability to pistol-whip enemies while shooting. The Ranged tree offers upgrades for firearm damage, rate of fire, and recoil dampening, and also allows players to purchase special ammo types.
These Scrap Shop upgrades and abilities sound like fun, and they would be if landing a hit on an enemy weren’t so difficult, but given Ra Ra BOOM‘s razor-thin character sprites, most fights seem to go on forever. It’s also incredibly easy to unlock everything in the Scrap Shop — so easy, in fact, that I’d purchased all upgrades and skills before I’d even reached the game’s halfway point, which was a bit disappointing, as I felt that I no longer had anything to work towards.
The Scrap Metal bonus seems a bit more balanced when playing alone, and Gylee Games is working to balance it in co-op mode.
Scrap Metal is still worth picking up, however — even if you’ve already completed the Scrap Shop — because the amount of Scrap Metal collected during each level provides a hefty boost to your final “grade” at the end of the level. Despite the fact that combat felt like engaging in a boxing tournament using only one’s elbows, I still managed to get an A+ on every end-of-level Report Card. In one instance, my final score was 404,450. Which sounds pretty good, until you look at the score breakdown. 61,000 points came from damage done to enemies. 0 points came from the Time Bonus (kind of hard to end fights quickly when both the player and NPC enemies are struggling to land a hit). 0 points came from the Lives Bonus, which provides a score boost if you make it through a level with a few lives intact. A whopping 343,450 points came from the Scrap Bonus, which you get for collecting Scrap Metal. Gylee Games says changes are being made so that Scrap will be balanced depending on the number of players, which is good, because otherwise you’ll be able to maintain a 4.0 GPA in Ra Ra BOOM as long as you’re capable of picking up Scrap.
For players who want a challenge, each level has a Homework Assignment that must be completed. The first time you play a level, the Homework Assignment is simple: Beat the level. But once you’ve done that, you can replay the level with a different goal. One Homework Assignment required that I beat a level using melee attacks only — no ranged weapons allowed. But this is about as far as Ra Ra BOOM goes in terms of challenging the player. There are no settings to increase (or decrease) the game’s difficulty, and the game’s final boss fight is surprisingly underwhelming, as is the game’s main villain.
Ra Ra BOOM has a cute premise and a lot of potential, but its pep squad desperately needs a pep talk (and a bit more practice), because it never quite manages to stick the landing.
