Retro/Grade asks you to un-fire every shot you already fired. The 2012 release from 24 Caret Games is a shoot ’em up played backward, and that single idea carries the whole game.
Trailer, via 24CaretGames.
Rick Rocket and the Reversed Battle
You play as ace pilot Rick Rocket. He has just fought a space battle, and now he must repeat it in reverse to protect the space time continuum. Every enemy wave you meet has already been beaten. Your job is to undo the damage in the right order, on the beat.
The premise is a joke that the game takes seriously. A temporal anomaly threatens to rip the universe open, and the only fix is precision. Retro/Grade never explains more than it needs to. It hands you a ship, a track, and a countdown running the wrong way.
A Shooter Timed to Skyler McGlothlin
The gameplay is a hybrid. It borrows the side view and the enemy formations of a classic shooter, then ties all of it to music. Skyler McGlothlin wrote the original score, and every attack in the game lands on it.
This is where Retro/Grade earns its place. Most rhythm games ask you to hit notes. This one asks you to catch bullets you supposedly fired a moment ago and send them home. Miss the timing and the shot stays loose in the air. The screen fills with your own mistakes.
Gamepad or Guitar Controller
24 Caret Games built the game to run on two very different inputs. You can play Retro/Grade with a standard game controller, or you can plug in a guitar controller and play it like a track.
- Standard game controller: the default way to fly and un-fire.
- Guitar controller: the same battle, mapped to frets and strumming.
That second option is not a novelty mode bolted on at the end. It changes how the game sits in your hands. A shooter played on a plastic guitar sounds like a gimmick until you try it, and then it reads as the most natural thing the design could have done.
Two Nominations in 2009
The game arrived with a pedigree. In January 2009, Retro/Grade was nominated for two Independent Games Festival awards: Excellence in Audio and Excellence in Design. Both nominations make sense against what shipped. The audio is the spine of the thing, and the reverse-shooter design is the reason anyone remembers it.
In October 2010, it won the Audience Choice Award at IndieCade. That is a crowd prize, not a jury prize, and it says something the other two nods do not. People who picked up the controller liked it.
What the Reverse Gimmick Costs
Here is the trouble. A game built on one inversion has to keep that inversion interesting for its full length, and Retro/Grade leans hard on the same trick.
The single-player structure is the right call. There is no mode here that needs another person, and the music timing would fall apart with one. But a shooter played backward is still a shooter, and the enemy patterns underneath the rhythm layer are familiar. Aegis Wing and its kind got there first. Retro/Grade dresses that inheritance in a clever frame and a strong score, and for a while the frame is enough.
Where the Music Carries It
What holds up is the sound. McGlothlin’s tracks do the work that level design usually does, marking progress and telling you when you are early or late. When the game clicks, you are not reacting to enemies. You are reacting to the song, and the enemies are just where the song put them.
That is a real achievement, and it is why the two nominations were not generous. Excellence in Audio is the category Retro/Grade actually wins.
The Verdict on Retro/Grade
Retro/Grade is a smart, well-scored, slightly thin shooter with one great idea and the discipline to build a whole game around it. The guitar controller support is the detail that keeps it from being a curiosity. The reverse mechanic is the detail that will decide whether you finish it.
KEY FACTS
– Score: 7.9/10
– Developer and publisher: 24 Caret Games
– Release year: 2012
– Platforms: PlayStation 3, PC (Microsoft Windows)
– Genre: Shooter, Music, Indie
– Modes: Single player
– Perspective: Side view
– Awards: two Independent Games Festival nominations (January 2009); Audience Choice Award at IndieCade (October 2010)
7.9 of 10.
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