RUBATO

“Rubato was an amazing 2D platformer adventure with gorgeous graphics, amazing music, fun and emotional story/lore to follow, top-notch unique creative level design, and fast-paced gameplay; just an amazing experience of a video game!”

“The platforming mechanics are actually very fun and polished feeling, and I enjoyed going back to levels with new upgrades to find remaining collectibles.”

“Rubato rapid fires gameplay styles and unique gimmicks at you non-stop while having a solid foundation as a 2D collect-a-thon.”

“Multiple times I was audibly laughing out loud at the positively great stupid rooms, enemies, and sound effects I came across. My favorite gag was the dog exploding chamber, where I blew up a PNG of a dog, it screamed loudly, and then was swarmed by more PNGs of the same dog. I had to pause the game for a minute to process what had just happened and was absolutely losing it laughing.”

“There’s also a ton of funny jokes that genuinely made me chuckle!”

“The game keeps a rather serious tone and emotional core to its story—this sometimes clashes with the game’s humor (which is perhaps the most Gen Z internet humor ever put to words—there were multiple times I was dumbfounded that this level of posting could even be put in a video game). It really hits for me, but your mileage may vary. It comes off as so genuine that in a backwards sort of way it ends up selling Rubato's world for me—yeah, this is a wacky game with talking toilets and Guy Craft, but that's just the world they live in.”

“The art is consistently delicious to look at, the music is a new S-tier soundtrack throughout, especially all the main area themes, and the narrative is both fun and engaging, with wonderfully surprising reveals.”

“Rubato is an experimental, 2D physics-based take on the collect-a-thon genre... and it also includes probably one of my favorite video game soundtracks in recent memory, seriously amazing stuff.”

“The chaotic nature of the game, the soundtrack, the unique gameplay, and the lovable characters all worked to make it such a memorable experience that I will not forget for a long time.”

“I found myself resonating with the story and adventure in a much more personal way than I was expecting going into it, and honestly I think it really pulls off such a great heartwarming message of self-encouragement and legacy while also being a really goofy and fun to play platformer.”

“I laughed, I cried, I cried from laughter, but most notable of all, I cried with a smile on my face; I smiled as tears streamed down my face because I was witnessing the ending to a game that expressed a love of creation and of life in a way that hit me particularly hard; a silly way, expressing an honest joy for being what it is.”

“Rubato is a gem of a collectathon with one of the most touching stories of this decade, on top of good level design, characters, art, among other things.”

“The game's strongest positive is its art style and character design, particularly the character sprites and some of the low-poly-esque 3D model work. It certainly fits the advertised DS sprites and GameCube-esque time period.”

“This has quickly become one of my all-time favorite games, with gorgeous art style, great gameplay, amazing art, amazing soundtrack, and a story that actually had me speechless while being so beautiful and able to make me laugh very hard at the same time.”

“The watercolor style of the official art, to the kinda-jpeg-ish style of the portraits and kinda-16-bit-ish graphics are beautifully woven together with the color choices, atmosphere, and design choices; it’s just so good.”

“There's a heavy story sequence later in the game that changed my opinion from negative to somewhat positive because of the art and character development.”

“The game's strongest positive is its art style and character design, particularly the character sprites and some of the low-poly-esque 3D model work, it certainly fits the advertised DS sprites and GameCube-esque time period.”

“I suppose the 'funniest' it gets is that some of it has the stock visual novel UI, but it doesn’t lampshade it or call too much attention to it, allowing the game to keep up the atmosphere for a bit.”

“The watercolor style of the official art, combined with the somewhat JPEG-like style of the portraits and the 16-bit inspired graphics, are beautifully woven together with the color choices, atmosphere, and design choices. It's just so good.”