Coined a ‘sumo-style smash-em-up’, Robo Basho is a multiplayer sumo-fighting game for you to play with your friends!
With up to three of your friends (or AIs — we don’t judge) entering the arena, you must try to outlast your opponents and stay within the ring. You have a variety of abilities to use to take on these opponents. You can smash them out of the arena by ramming into them; slam the ground, knocking them back away from you; and counter them to use their attacks against them. You only have thirty seconds to knock everyone else out, so you’d better move fast.
Smashing the ground is my favorite move, as it destroys the tiles beneath you in a very satisfying manner. In its current, early prototype state, smashing is also the easiest move to pull off. Countering your opponents takes a bit of learning so you can time yourself correctly. Dashing even more so — as you can dash completely across the mat and fall out of bounds if you don’t run into an opponent to stop you. You can build up your charge to push your enemies around more and hopefully push them off the screen.
There are plans to add more complexity to the AIs in the game — as to challenge the player more or to practice out more of your moves, depending on how you want to play. This means that you won’t need to rely on your friends to play the game as well as harness your moves in the arena before taking your friends on. You can also use AIs to round out the arena, filling in for friends you are missing, of course.
I had the chance to play Robo Basho at EGX Rezzed and GAMAYO #14, alongside some friends and strangers. The amount of cheering and intense gameplay that already can be found in the game shows how much potential there is. Though Robo Basho is in a very early stage, I am excited to see where the developers take this already fun concept.
You can follow the development as well by following their Facebook or Twitter @BetaJesterLtd, or by checking out their website.
