While the fine folks at Rooster Teeth may be fine with 343 Industries making its Red vs Blue games, for the adaptation of one of their newer shows they decided to take the in-house approach. RWBY: Grimm Eclipse is the first game based off of the online show of the same name, and the first console game by Rooster Teeth Games. This hack and slash has you playing as the titular team, experiencing a brand new side-story that takes place somewhere within the show’s timeline. RWBY is an action-packed anime that seems like it would translate perfectly into a video game, but unfortunately, everything doesn’t come up roses.
Here’s what I liked:
Everyone’s still alive – While it’s unsurprising for a company to know their own source material well, Grimm Eclipse recreates the world of RWBY perfectly. It has the entire cast reprising the roles and a new story written by the same team. The world of Remnant, from its various locales to its characters, look not only eye-popping but are practically exact replicas from the series. If it wasn’t for the camera always following behind your character, you’d swear this game was just another episode of the show.
Go team RWBY! – The game prominently features online multiplayer, allowing you to play through the story with up to three friends. This is certainly the way to go, as the game is at its best when you have a full four-person team. Endless hordes of Grimm will swiftly fall before a cooperating team, and conquering difficult encounters with others is rather rewarding. The matchmaking works really well, and the only issue I’ve experienced while playing online was some lag when killing enemies.
Here’s what I didn’t like:
Dust to dust – RWBY runs itself into the ground rather quickly. The combat isn’t bad, but it lacks any significant depth. The move set you start with is the one you finish with, and the skill trees only exist to make those moves stronger. Level design is extremely poor; most of the time you’re just walking down long, empty paths or defending a point from multiple waves of enemies. Almost every level has at least one wave-based arena, though some have multiple. These lengthy, repetitive scenarios make the whole game feel like a slog with little forward momentum. I got bored only a few levels in, and while there was occasionally a new kind of objective thrown in, the game only got duller as it went on.
Alone in the woods – Perhaps fitting for a multiplayer-focused game based on an anime that heavily emphasizes friendship, playing single player isn’t ideal. It’s mostly due to the poor design elements – everything just takes longer and feels more grating when you’re doing it alone. You’re also going to die a lot more, and due to so-so hit feedback, you may not see it coming. Dying in single player throws you back to the character select screen, which was really confusing at first. You can still continue from your last checkpoint, but the interface doesn’t make that clear.
It’s also a gun – The game lets you play as any of the four members of RWBY (or team JNPR, if you buy the DLC). In the show, each one has an incredibly unique fighting style, but that doesn’t translate to the game. Everyone’s combos feel similar and their ultimate moves are the same, the only major difference being the animations are unique to the character. There are some small variations, usually elemental effects, which differentiate everyone a bit but not nearly enough. There’s also the lackluster skill trees, which are the same for everyone, save your projectile and team attack upgrades.
Wrap-up:
As a fan of the show, I’m disappointed I didn’t like the RWBY: Grimm Eclipse more. I did have fun playing it online and mindlessly mashing buttons, but that thrill didn’t last. The carnage onscreen may look colorful and cool, everything else about it just feels uninspired or undercooked. I’d only recommend this game to an extremely curious RWBY fan, specifically one that also has friends willing to join them.
Score: Limited Appeal
RWBY: Grimm Eclipse was developed and published on Xbox One by Rooster Teeth Games. It was released January 17, 2017, for $19.99. A copy was provided by the publisher for review purposes.
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