What year is it?
Holy crap, am I still doing this? Back in October, I said I would finish this series before the end of November. It’s January. The middle of January. I just released the Red Rope review.
Ah geez.
Go read that review and set a timer for April. If I don’t write something by then, I’m in mortal danger. Mortal danger of becoming a lazy arse.
Ha, funny.
Some players enjoy games like their hot sauce: if you’re not in pain and bleeding from some orifice, it’s not good enough. They want brutally difficult games which mock their skills and steal their lunch money. With genres like bullet hell shooters, roguelikes, Soulslikes, and precision platformers, the video game industry has embraced these thrill-seekers and offered arenas to earn bragging rights. Many of these games, however, lack one of the greatest challenges a player can encounter: basic communication and teamwork skills, the ghost pepper of video games.
Red Rope: Don’t Fall Behind+ provides the punishing difficulty in a couch-cooperative form. You and your gaming partner must become masters of patience and solidarity to succeed, and even then, you’ll die, again and again. Red Rope’s developers, Yonder, have crafted a maze of ruthless monsters and gruesome death traps, all in the effort to destroy relationships and spirits in equal measure. Melodrama aside, this game presents a spicy test to hardcore gamers, and those willing to tackle the labyrinth will discover a smartly-designed game in which hard-fought success is intoxicating.
What is it?
You and your partner (or just you, with a character assigned to each control stick) find yourselves in a labyrinth, bound by the titular red rope. Apart from a few NPCs, everything wants to kill you, from ghosts to minotaurs to self-immolating witches. You must navigate at least six of the 12 houses in order to access and defeat the main baddie at the center of the labyrinth, thus earning your freedom.
You will dispatch most enemies by either passing your rope over them or encircling them with it. The controls are simple enough, with X allowing you to pirouette and shorten your rope while ZL slows you to a walk. Otherwise, you simply move, with the challenge being how you travel in-sync with your partner. Move in opposite directions or after different targets, and you’ll tug each other and go nowhere. Eliminating an enemy will lengthen your rope and provide more freedom to move, but this precious elbow room will disappear each time you die.
And die you will. A single touch from a monster will kill you. Falling down a pit or into spikes will do that as well. If something burns or severs your rope, the two of you will disintegrate, just like babies when the umbilical cord is cut too early. You’ll die so often the game gives you 100 lives to start. Lose them all, and you have to start from the beginning (or reload from a checkpoint, but that sounds much less dire). You can regain lives a few different ways, offering a semblance of hope as the ticker ever decreases.
Despite the number of enemies you’ll fight, Red Rope plays more like a puzzle game than a dungeon crawler. Each house is separated into several single-screen rooms which you cannot leave until all enemies are cleared. Later houses will throw in more obstacle courses and button-based puzzles which often prove just as deadly as the beasties. Careful planning—in addition to quick reflexes and teamwork—will help you figure out how to take out the monsters with the fewest deaths possible. These rooms need not be completed in one go either. Most enemies won’t respawn after you kill them, allowing you to slowly chip away at the numbers over the course of several lives.
What’s good?
What’s bad?
What’s the verdict?
Red Rope: Don’t Fall Behind+ has all the trappings of a cult classic except for the cult following. Not everyone will have a gaming partner who likes aggressively difficult couch co-op indie games, and I imagine fewer still would want to venture into the labyrinth alone. Certain players do meet these criteria, even if they’re all playing Don’t Starve Together instead. For that crew, Red Rope earns a hearty recognition with its intelligent level design and strong core concept. If Red Rope remains in obscurity, it more than earns its distinction as the best hidden gem on the Switch.
Arbitrary Statistics:
Running Down the Clock
Red Rope: Don’t Fall Behind+ came out on the Switch on November 6th, 2020, almost one year ago. I had hoped to finish the Red Rope walkthrough before that date, and theoretically, I still can if I release a video a week. Ultimately, I had wanted to finish by its anniversary in order to launch a contest, challenging people to beat Player 2 and my score. The video walkthrough would make it easier for people to do that and ideally make it so more people play the game.
I will like still hold the contest, but people may have to settle for an incomplete series. I will plan to finish the walkthrough, and my new deadline will be the end of November. At that time, I will welcome a new addition to my household, and it is very unlikely I will have any brain power to finish a series then.
As such, I have editing to do. I hope to release the Red Rope review by this time next week! We will see if that happens, but that’s how it goes.
The Intermediate Bosses
Now that we’ve finished the intermediate houses, let’s take a look at the mini-bosses we fought along the way. Each of them dies just like every other monster: you only need to wrap around them. However, they each have defensive and offensive traits which makes eliminating them difficult. We’ll review them in order of difficulty, and I’ll estimate how many lives you may lose. If you’re still learning how to move with your partner, you may die more often.
4. The Aeromancer – Wind:
With bottomless pits on all sides, the Aeromancer’s room can appear daunting, but you’re going to focus on staying in the middle area. The boss will fly about the stage and land on a random pillar of solid ground. It will then blow in one of the cardinal directions, creating a wind which can push you into the bottomless pits. You only need to run against the wind in order to stay in place, and if you’re in the middle of the room, you’ll have ample space to maneuver. Wait until the Aeromancer lands to the direct left or right of you before you pursue it. This makes it so you need to move across only one set of moving platforms in order to kill it.
Expect to die five or fewer times.
3. The Dowser – Earth:
The Dowser is the only boss who won’t attack you directly. Instead, it summons a massive sand worm to pursue you. Given that the room is mostly made up of sand, you’ll have to evade the sand worm as you chase after the Dowser. The Dowser will teleport around the room at regular intervals or after a few seconds of you chasing it. It is smarter than the average enemy in how it runs away from you, and it will be easier to pincer him if you and your partner are spread apart from each other. When able, move across solid ground to ensure you aren’t too slowed down by the sand. The sand worm may be intimidating, but as long as you keep moving, it won’t be able to kill you. Once you kill the Dowser, the sandworm will die with it. I have not attempted to kill the sand worm, considering it requires a long rope to wrap around it.
Expect to die around five times.
2. The Nereids – Water:
You have two Nereids to kill, and they remain invisible unless they’re using their special ability or are running from you. Their special ability allows them to rain ice chunks from above which will kill on contact. Watch for shadows on the ground to avoid these attacks. The battle, itself, will be more about dealing with the four frogs in the room while dodging the ice attacks. Hit the button in the middle to lower the water levels, kill the frogs, and then go after the Nereids. The Nereids can’t use their abilities if you’re chasing after them, and passing your rope over them will freeze them. Once they’re frozen, you only need to wrap around them to kill them.
Expect to die anywhere between 5 to 10 times.
1. The Pyromancer – Fire:
The Pyromancer will kill you the most easily due to its unpredictability and the instability of the crumbling platforms in the room. This boss will chase after you, pausing every few seconds to chuck two homing fireballs at you. Generally, it will throw two sets of fireballs before it extinguishes its fire armor (although it can also hurl a third set). If you try to kill it beforehand, it will burn through your rope. Once extinguished, you have about 8-10 seconds to rush in and kill it. I recommend you stay on one side of the room, looping around the Pyromancer while dodging its attacks. This way, you have less distance to cover when it does extinguish itself. Just be mindful of the crumbling platforms because they can sink quickly, cutting off your routes or killing you.
Expect to die upwards of 10 times.
The Intermediate Beasties
We’re close to getting through all of the intermediate houses, so let’s review what monsters we find in them. Each house had two new enemies apiece (with the exception of the House of Wind), excluding the mini-bosses.
