Mad Rat Dead

Genre: Platformer / Music-Rhythm

Players: 1

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Review:

Mad Rat Dead is a Platformer with heavy Music-Rhythm elements that has you playing a dissected lab rat who is given the opportunity to relive his last day of life and decides to use that opportunity to get revenge on the human who killed him. This game was released on multiple platforms in 2020, including Nintendo Switch.

The presentation here is decent but not anything special. Characters are depicted with 2D hand-drawn visuals in an exaggerated style, and everything in the game bounces to the beat of the music, which is similarly whimsical but not super-memorable. For a game driven heavily by its music, this is sufficient, but not exactly ideal.

As for the gameplay, if it weren’t for the music-rhythm elements, this would be a sub-standard Platformer without much going for it. Okay, but nothing special. With the added rhythm-based elements it becomes something a bit more interesting, challenging players to do the usual Platformer stuff, but to the beat of the music. This can be a good deal more compelling, though I do wish they found a better way to incorporate this element into the gameplay or at least make the game stand out for more than just this one gimmick.

In the end, the “do stuff to the beat” gimmick is enough to set Mad Rat Dead apart from being just another uninteresting Platformer, but only just. The music and presentation is nothing special, and beyond the one gimmick neither is the gameplay. Certainly nothing here is bad, but very little of it is particularly great. Still, if you’re looking for a simple Platformer and like the idea of playing it to a beat, Mad Rat Dead may be worth a look.

tl;dr – Mad Rat Dead is a Platformer with Music-Rhythm elements that has you playing a dissected lab rat brought back from the dead to get revenge on the human who killed him. This would be a bog-standard Platformer if it wasn’t for the Music-Rhythm elements, which definitely add something interesting to the game, but it still feels like it’s lacking something truly compelling.

Grade: C+

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This game has been nominated for one or more of eShopperReviews 2020 Game Awards:

Runner-Up: Most Overrated

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