Ra Ra BOOM review

You know what’s never fun in games? Having your controls suddenly reversed so that pressing left means you move right and vice versa. It’s something that will occasionally happen to you in Ra Ra BOOM, a side-scrolling beat ’em up developed by Gylee Games, but thankfully infrequently enough that it doesn’t cause too much of an annoyance.

It helps that there are a lot of things to like about Ra Ra BOOM. It looks great, for one, with clean and colourful visuals that give the impression of a Saturday morning cartoon. Story scenes accompanied with wonderfully drawn art continue that, too. And like all of the best side-scrolling beat ’em ups, Ra Ra BOOM also has a fantastic soundtrack that will perhaps have you involuntarily tapping your foot as you play.

The best thing about Ra Ra BOOM, though, is how it incorporates shoot ’em up gameplay into its brawling. You see, each of the four cheerleaders that you can play as here, all on a quest to save the world from a rogue A.I., have their own unique ranged weapon with infinite ammo. So, you can get in close and punch and kick your enemies into submission if you wish, or stand back and simply shoot.

You might think that being able to whip out a rocket launcher or fire off an endless stream of shuriken will ruin the game’s balance, but somehow your ranged weapons don’t feel overpowered. Instead, they feel complimentary to your melee abilities. Sometimes it’s better to get in close and wallop an enemy, and sometimes it’s better to shoot them at range, but you rarely feel forced to do either. You will want to move in on powerful enemies when your special meter is charged, however, as your colourful special attack is devastating.

Ra Ra BOOM does have some issues, though. It has RPG elements, for example; using scrap collected by playing, you’re able to develop your stats and purchase a wide range of abilities such as a double jump, and being able to pistol whip your enemies to knock them back. Their inclusion is nice in a way, but they also mean that you don’t get the best impression when you first start the game due to your moveset being limited and being somewhat underpowered.

Still, it means that Ra Ra BOOM does get more fun as you progress, and being able to upgrade your abilities makes some issues you might initially have less problematic, like your heavy attack being so slow to pull off. In any case, you’ll likely have pretty much maxed out your stats and abilities by the time you’ve finished all of the game’s stages for the first time, which takes just a few hours. And you can replay the stages with additional conditions here for extra challenge, such as only using melee attacks or playing it as a full-on shooter.

Something that’s not an issue per se, but might cross your mind as you play alone, is that it’s unfortunate that you can’t switch between characters on the fly. When playing in co-op, which is undoubtedly the best way to experience Ra Ra BOOM, you each choose a character and get a set number of lives. When playing alone, however, you choose your starting character and then switch to another upon their death, essentially giving you four lives. Being able to switch characters to allow those in reserve to restore a little bot of health would have been a nice touch, I feel.

Playing on PS5 Pro for review, it’s clear that Ra Ra BOOM is in need of a patch or two to clear up some performance issues. It never gets so bad that it’s unplayable, but there is some clear slowdown at times, usually during the chaos that unfolds after unleashing a special attack. Hopefully that can be cleared up soon, as some players might find it quite off-putting.

All in all, Ra Ra BOOM undoubtedly has some issues, but it’s certainly worth checking out if you dig its charming visuals or simply love side-scrolling beat ’em ups. Its shooter elements make it stand out from the crowd, and with a patch or two some of its problems could feasibly be ironed out, making it much easier to recommend.