We’ve been playing the anthropomorphic creatures jumping from one platform to another, gathering things that earns you coins, points or whatnot. That trend apparently continues to dominate our smartphones even though it’s been revised and tweaked in a variety of confusing and even remarkable ways.

In line with this, a furry mammal (who knows a bit of kung fu) courageously takes a leap to join in the popular genre.

is a Physics-based ascension platforming game from Romper Games that is about the adventure of a lazy raccoon that can do some mad hops, striving to survive when his refuge was assaulted by a wave of evil lumber gathering robots.

You might assume that it’s one of those endless running or jumping game, but actually it’s more like a vertical platform game. In here, you’re not consistently leaping because it has some sort of stopovers where you can plan your approach as you ascend through the hurdles. This app is level based, so you don’t always restart from the beginning.

Features

• Over 60 challenging gates – Master over 60 gates in four worlds each with unique obstacles, enemies and helpers. Compete against your friends in world based time trials.
• Lead the animals of the woods- Help the raccoon in his journey to protect Tanuki Forest and find out who is behind the legion of robots invading their home.
• Revolutionary controls – platformers will never be the same!- Tired of over simplified one click games? Or virtual controls hogging up your screen? Raccoon Rising introduces a completely new way to jump, attack, and dodge your way through vertical worlds that makes it is easy to learn but hard to master.
• Collect credits and earn achievements- Bank as many as you can … you will need them someday soon.
• Console-quality graphics – Advanced lighting effects, beautiful parallax-ing environments, and high fidelity characters make Raccoon Rising one of the best looking games available for your iOS device.

 

The Leaping Coon

The little raccoon’s story is presented through comic-strip cut-scenes as he journeys through four different worlds— the temple, Tanuki forest, the pirate ship called the ‘Salty Sprocket’ and lastly, the highly advanced city. There are about 60 short segments over each world with dizzying heights to play with in the game.

The objective of this app like any other games is to reach the top of each level without dying. You play the role of Rocky Raccoon who is rigorously trained to become a ninja. The whole concept of this is a vertical climbing platformer, and you do this by jumping off of the walls diagonally up until you reach a gate which shuts behind you signifying a new level. The real challenge here is to carefully calculate and aim your jumps very well, as you’ll frequently land mostly in tight spaces, wedged in the middle of death-causing obstacles that are sometimes moving.

But before you go through the real challenges of the game, you must practice first by playing in the prologue world in the Dojo. It is a section of the app with a multitude of levels introduced to you to get you familiarized with its acrobatic mechanics and gameplay concepts. One of the first things you’ll learn is how to control your mammalian friend.

You maneuver the agile ninja raccoon by tapping anywhere on the screen, meaning if you tap on the left, then he will jump off to the left side and vice versa. He can also dash to the side while in mid-air. At the first levels, you’ll have to hoard computer chips floating in the air (referred to by your sensei/master as “credits”) . Collecting chips are equivalent to points, of course. As you go through the next stages, you’ll encounter stuff that will put your life in peril such as spikes, logs, and spring buttons. Spikes are just spikes on the walls which kill you if you touch them, logs are large shards of wood which you can cut through by holding the jump button to get a speed boost, spring buttons on the other hand, are large yellow buttons which, when touched, makes you bounce to the opposite wall. However, these spring buttons can be troublesome at times when there are spikes on the opposite side. You may also hold down your finger for a power-jump, which come into slow-mo mode for aiming and smashing obstacles that come your way with flying kicks.  Once you’re done with the practice game, then you’ll  immediately proceed to the first real world: Tanuki Forest.

In Tanuki Forest, you get to execute what you’ve learned from the practice stage. With this level, you are also introduced to your first boss fight. Each world features an array of enemies and hazards including spikes, tree-crushers, band-saws and cannons, but the goal remains the same—progress upwards until you reach the finish line at the end each level.

Robots have deployed a range of deforestation machinery like punching cushions that repels you, hovering platforms, gun powder-barrels to blow up and helicopter drones to jump on for a hasty ride upwards. You must overcome all of these and once you reach the end of a world, a boss fight is awaiting you. Each time you reach a gate, you’re rewarded with a three-star rating for your performance on that particular section. Checkpoints are also available as a re-spawn point when you die. There are approximately over 60 gates (or sections) and as you unlock them, you’ll eventually be able to access the Time Trial mode for some extra challenge.

Pros and Cons

While the story of the game is nothing impressive, it gets the job done. It makes it more enticing since you have some sort of a backbone of what the game’s going to offer you plus it has well-thought-out level design. Unlike other apps, this one has varied music wherein each area is accompanied by its own soundtrack. It is also a creative and stylish platforming game– definitely not one of those usual jumping games– for the reason that you have to go through and dodge some tricky obstacles. I liked how the deceptively simple ones actually get you, making it more exciting. This app does not disappoint as well, although the only nuisance is the credit-card chips (or the so-called “credits”) that has no purpose to them yet, perhaps in their future update? But they should’ve done that before releasing the game. Apart from that, it tends to chug along in other areas specifically during loading sequences, and also experiences a few glitches which can instantly kill a short game session. Anyway, personally, this “revised” game can be aligned to the crowded genre; I mean it falls short of what it needs to deviate from the norm.

Final Verdict

isn’t a breath of fresh air at some point, however this raccoon, I mean freemium app can keep you company on your long trip and keep you entertained for a while. It’s physics-based, yet the buzzword doesn’t appeal anymore since most of the apps now incorporates such.  At least there is no limit to the number of lives you have here, hence, it gets a bit repetitive at times. Overall, it isn’t a bad game though it starts to feel bland as you carry on. Anyway, if this style of platformer hasn’t outgrown you, then try this app.

Forget the overrated endless runner games, !

Catch the trailer of the app below:

You may also want to fly downwards with Captain Antarctica.