RAD Critic Reviews

RAD is a gorgeous and addictive entry into the Roguelite genre with creative powerups and a groovy soundtrack.

Rad delivers a superbly addictive and frequently harsh roguelike experience that stands among the best of them, though you'll sometimes curse the game's randomness for ruining your run.

For children of the 80’s there’s a lot of familiarity here and that does mean there’s a lot to love. It is a roguelike so if you get frustrated by dying and having to restart at the beginning, it’s likely not for you. If you like a challenge and your retinas can stand an onslaught of bright neon colours with 80’s references and an environmental message then this might just be your can of 7up… so don your powerglove, put on your acid wash jeans and get ready for some new retro gaming.

RAD is a fun, weird, rogue-like game that is incredibly approachable for all players. Whether you love the challenge of sudden death or you just want to branch out, Double Fine has made a game that caters to both sides and has fun doing it. The heavily 80’s inspired content is refreshing and quite enjoyable from the soundtrack and over-saturated colors to cassette tapes and floppy disks as currency. Every death is met with joy and curiosity as to what horrible cartoonish monstrous limbs I’ll mutate in my next run and I could easily play for hours on end.

Double Fine delivers a great roguelike with old school elements and a well-designed difficultly that is hard, and sometimes fair. While it is not perfect in some regards, RAD will keep you engaged in this post-apocalyptic post-world with his well-designed ‘80s theme.

If you are a fan of top-down roguelike dungeon crawlers, keep RAD on your radar. Bonus points if you like this kind of 80s neon aesthetic and the world-building it provides. It’s a good choice for those who just want a quick gaming session—or a long one if you really want it.

Beautiful, bold and a lot of fun. RAD is a great game and a great roguelike. There is a lot of variety and every run is truly unique. There are some good persistent upgrade features that make every run feel like you're edging towards eventual victory. You could play this game for a very long time until you see everything and I really want to see everything. If you like roguelikes or a great deal of variation in your gameplay, you'll not be disappointed spending your cash on this quirky title.

I've had a lot of fun with RAD, even though I can tell I've really only scratched the surface. Trying to work with suboptimal body modifications is pretty funny in and of itself, and discovering new mutations and lore has been intriguing. I don't think any studio other than Double Fine could have made the post-apocalypse this entertaining.

With its twisted style and humour, RAD offers a fresh take on the roguelike, proving there’s plenty of life in the genre.

Overall, RAD is a great time. A simplistic roguelike with a humble, yet ingenious mechanic. Its biggest downfall is a lack of multiplayer, which is disappointing, as teams of different mutants roaming the Fallow would’ve provided a new level of fun and extended replay value. That said, for what it is, it’s well done. The variety in its power-ups, map generation, and character selection keep things fresh, and the gameplay evolves alongside the mutating characters to remain entertaining and addictive. Throw in witty dialogue, a super-looking dystopia, and a wonderfully thought out soundtrack, and you have a roguelike that is truly rad.

Roguelikes don't get much more bodacious than RAD. If you take a trip into the Fallow, good luck making it out. You're going to need it.

You can’t go wrong with RAD and experiencing yet another imaginative title from Double Fine.

And that's the key to RAD: the unknown. The player's powers are randomly-generated, and so is the world they step in to. But each is beautifully animated and exciting to use and explore. You'll die A LOT, but the game gives you so much each playthrough that you can feel forward progress. Your bank account will grow, allowing you to purchase new items. You'll get stronger, more aware of enemy attacks. You'll get radder.

Rad is about what you expect from the modern rogue-like game in terms of features and structure. If you dig the 80's aesthetic, or rogue-likes in general, there's a game that you can sink many hours into here.

Rad is a great roguelike that constantly evolves to give you plenty of options the more you play, with unique mutations and a different world to explore on each playthrough.

Double Fine has done it again. They've chosen a crowded genre like de roguelike games and gave it a spin to offer something new and interesting with RAD. It's a shame it fall too short on contents despite its good manners.

Conceptually it’s quite familiar, but the game injects a lot of bizarre fun and skill-based gameplay into what can otherwise be a very serious, numbers-based genre.

An engaging 80's world is the playground for a romp through a procedurally generated dungeon crawl. But it's not really the changing landscape that spices up the experience, its the wildly shifting abilities earned via in-game mutations that drastically alter one run to the next. The package oozes style and has enough substance to back it up. I just find it lacking that last little bit of polish to help me decide how I want to play, not how the random number generator is going to direct me.

RAD is a lot deeper than it looks at first glance, and a lot more challenging too. Both are good things, and the procedurally generated layouts and mutations guarantee that variety will always be served. Sometimes you’ll play for minutes and other times for hours – I’m about eight hours deep so far – but the more time you spend with RAD, the more likely you are to click “New Run” when you finally die.

RAD doesn’t really bring anything new to the table, although if you like the genre, we’re sure you’ll enjoy its sense of humor, its gameplay and its visual style.