Reviews

• gamedeal user

  Dec 19, 2022

  Top Run is a fairly standard runner that doesn't really do anything to set itself apart from other runners but is decent fun if you like this type of game. The main selling point is the 80s aesthetic, with lots of neon and cheesy synth rock and pop culture references. For the most part I think the game looks pretty good, although until you get used to it some platforms don't stand out and tend to blend into the background. Also, you occasionally trigger "buddy time" where you control your dog companion for a chance to acquire more pixels (the game's currency) and those scenes are almost offensively ugly. I often found myself getting frustrated at first, such as when "the floor is lava" is triggered while I'm in mid-jump and can't possibly get to safe ground, or when I'm about to kill an enemy that counts towards a mission goal only to have "buddy time" trigger before my projectile hits the enemy. Like most runners, though, I eventually got a "feel" for when these events are likely to be triggered and was able to avoid repeating those scenarios. Speaking of missions, you can get XP and raise your character's level by accomplishing tons of missions with simple goals like "Kill X amount of Y enemy" or "Rescue X friend Y times". I appreciate mission systems like this as they force me to use certain strategies during my runs, and they certainly get more challenging as you progress. They are finite, though, so you will eventually reach your max level with some patience. The pixels you earn during gameplay can be spent on skins for you and your dog (in a nice touch, your skins come with different buffs), extending the effective time of powerups, and allowing you to trigger pixels being worth double (and eventually triple) after a certain distance is run. You also unlock a more difficult mode (where all pixels are worth double), a mode where you get infinite projectiles (that normally recharge very slowly), and a couple of different backgrounds (the vaporware one is the least cluttered and easiest to navigate, in my opinion). To me, a good runner needs to have the following: - A reason to play repeatedly (unlockables, stat boosts, etc). - The sense that it's cheap and unfair at first, until you learn the game's nuances and use its systems to your advantage. Top Run has both of these. I enjoyed the consistent sense of progress I felt as I unlocked features and buffs (and in another nice touch, kept adding stuff to my apartment until it was downright luxurious), and it was satisfying to learn strategies to use against certain enemy types and hold on to certain friends to use against the Prism. It doesn't reinvent the wheel, but I had enough fun with Top Run to stick with it for all the achievements. If you like runners, you can get this one cheap when it's on sale and have some fun with it.
• gamedeal user

  Feb 11, 2020

  After playing for a couple hours, I can tell this is a solid runner game. Especially nice for quick sessions and some cool retrowave music. Fantastic price tag as well - recommended.
• gamedeal user

  Feb 16, 2020

  Too bad the sound track isn't available.