Welcome one and all, to probably the lowest ranked review I'm ever going to give a game. A fighting game about robots and you are a cyborg, half robot yourself. You might look at that score and say, Yeow! Does this game deserve it? Am I being too hard on it, or not understanding in what it was trying to accomplish?
Oh ye of little faith. This game just requires you to play the first stage and see its misery. Go ahead, I'll wait. Haha. Did you notice you have just a kick and punch button? No special robot attacks? Did you like how they have one attack animation frame like a NES game? Maybe you just get beat by a construction robot that the game clearly tells you doesn't know how to fight and is a minimal threat? Don't feel bad. Its likely not your fault. Maybe its the way the BLOCK button doesn't actually block damage in this game. Maybe its the fact all your enemies start with way better stats than you do. It could be the fact you tried to use your clever human brain to plan a strategy -- and all of those are valid reasons. To beat this game, you have to have mindlessly hop or crouch about, kicking constantly. There's no plan other than endless hopping attacks, which sometimes lure the enemy into walking into it. Wait, aren't robots supposed to be smart?

So it seems rough but- this isn't an Atari game making due with limited tech- look at those graphics! This is almost PS1 level graphics on a SNES! The genesis version also looks great! But Rise plays like the game is going to explode if you beat an enemy. And the attacks! Where are they? This isn't some 8-bit port- this released in the middle of the great fighting game revolutionized by Street Fighter II! What the heck?!

I played this and took pictures so you don't have to suffer through this. Read on, and hear its crimes against gaming.


Graphics: 9
This game looks great for SNES graphics. It looks so good, I"d even say its close to next-gen. The light reflecting off metal, the way the robots walk is fairly impressive, the designs are all different as well. The cut-scenes are very short, very small in size, but well done. Not with any particular flair for story mind you - its a lot of scenes of robots walking, posing or breaking down. But the in-game graphics are more like Mortal Kombat, they are digitized and a bit grainy. Also the frame-rate is kind of crazy. Your enemy will attack and suddenly its limb is just right in front of you, warp speed. There's no reading attacks, everything happens instantly. The backgrounds are very drab, and look flat and boring. Unlike Streetfighter or many of its copycat pretenders to the throne - there is no animations or eye-candy in these backgrounds - they might as well be fighting in a white room.
The good: For the time, these graphics were awesome.
The bad: Lame backgrounds, and can't spare a few frames to show the robot is about to start punching?


Sound: 5
I hated the sound to start with, the sound effects are full of CLANGS of you rock-em sock-em robots beating the oil out of each other, and thats about it, but as I suffered through the game, it began to grow on me a bit. Now there is some kerfluffle involving Brian May who is a guitarist for Queen, who apparently made a whole soundtrack for this game - but yet Mirage studio couldn't wait for whatever litigation help it up and proceeded to make their own tracks. Its not particularly great , but it does fit the all-robot theme of the game. The music did seem to get better the further I got, the 4th, 5th and 6th foes having pretty good stage music. Brian May is still listed in the credits (which occur before the titles, ha) but only for one small track - the title music I believe. All things said, I don't know if a guitar heavy soundtrack would have done anything for this game, even if it was epic. its kind of like polishing poo, if it was a great soundtrack, the game still fails on many other levels. 
The good: the music isn't that bad if you can hear it over all the CLANGCLANG of your enemy repeatedly beating you senseless.
The bad: Dat dumb CLANG


Addictiveness: 1
This is one of the most unfun games I've played. Your story sort of makes sense, but you are humiliated to start your quest battling 'worker' drone robots - and even they can kick your butt! You will likely die ALOT. A LOT. And there's no continues. I've already mentioned theres no rhyme or reason to beating these enemies, its just hopping and flitting about like an idiot - hoping to get lucky and have them not decide to attack you. Which laughably they sometimes do! What kind of hero is Cyborg? The first enemy would be like a background droid in Star Wars! Come on! You can't lose to that!
The best way to plow through a dumb fighting game is to go to options and set the rounds down to one - but the game is one-step ahead of you. Has to be 3 rounds, and the timer is set to a lightning-fast 20 seconds, 30 seconds (really?), 60 or no timer. There is NO way you will beat most of the enemy bots down to 0 health in 30 seconds, i dare say 60 is pushing it also. They all have way more life than you. The fastest win to hope for is do 20 seconds, kick them just enough to win by time. If you start engaging in slugfests you will lose. For the most part they are tougher, stronger, have way more reach - and you learn nothing with victory. No Megaman style absorbing your enemy's power, no stats to level up. Beating it, you're still the same shoddy character from the beginning of the game.
And its not like there's a real plot to follow. You have no investment in this, except maybe to see the unique robot designs. Mind you have to suffer through alot just to see them, this game is like watching paint dry.
The good: I have nothing to say here.
The bad: Its all bad design; the choice to copy pedestrian Mortal Kombat moves on your futuristic fighter (even then with no uppercut or roundhouse!), the lack of any special moves to add variety, and the inability to choose a less sucky character. FAIL!

Controls: 3
While continuing by reign of conquering foes by either jumping and kicking over and over (or for some - ducking and kicking over and over), I noticed some odd issues. I was holding back and up, but sometimes the game would make me duck a second and then start jumping again. A few times the enemy animations are so fast, you're taking hits on top of hits before you can really react. The game is set up to momentarily cause knock-back if you are struck, and getting stuck in a corner is almost fatal against some of the opponents. However, if you trap your opponent in a corner, you will hit them maybe twice before the game bounces you a good foot away so they can escape. Yeah, thats nice. The controls at least work, and hit detection is not terrible.

Maybe if you could pressure the enemy, shoot a fireball or something to get them off your back. No such luck. Oh man, these moves are terribly DULL. I would think having an all robot cast - you would look for ways to capitalize on the chance to do something different. Buzz-saws flying out, a hydraulic compressor bear-hug, a laser gun! Nope. You just punch and kick. Most of your enemies just punch and kick. There's no special attacks. You heard me. No missile attacks, no spinning kick, not even a headbutt. You have only 6 moves, kicking and punching, there's no heavy punch or light kick, you get standing attacks, crouching attacks and jumping attacks. That's your move set! The last boss might have some special moves, but then again they could be part of her regular moves with just wild animations. Dunno, but you can't play as her in single player, so no help there.

But serious hate must be set aside for the design decision of the block button. The game is quite difficult, so one might play it on easy. Honestly, the block only works in HARD. Does that make sense? You take a lot of damage from attacks if you block on easy. So in some ways, HARD might be easy for you. Its insane. To make matters worse, the last boss, if she gets her claws into you, she'll go combo-crazy if you aren't persistent. You need to block - but alas, on easy you're gonna die.?


Story: 3
You are Cyborg, who you assume is a human hybrid, although you never see anything human unless you lose. He's covered in a hard candy-coated blue shell from head to toe. Apparently full-bodied robots are taking over, and you're one person who doesn't want that. So you start your war on oppression by beating up.. some Constructacons. The builder, the loader, the welder - seriously its pretty stupid. The supervisor is whom you are looking to beat, and honestly, shes so tough you might as well just start the game with her - you are hardly a threat to her. I guess that's why shes the supervisor and you're just "the Cyborg". Are there other Cyborgs? Maybe you should get like an army. There's not much to this story, but it doesn't even seem like a fighting game since the game only considers the last 3 enemies threats to be concerned about. Man, this robot rebellion is really, really small.


Depth: 1
Well you don't pick your fighter. 2 player lets the 2nd player pick - but not first player. Someone must be this lame Cyborg, sorry.
You also don't have a stable of moves more complicated than the moves you, the player can physically do right now. Way to let us down on the future and all those bionic super-abilities, future!
Jumpkick! Sometimes you can just stand in place kicking and win the battle. You can't think defensively, winning is just like playing with your little brother - who just leg-sweeps all the time.
Let me tell you how I beat the enemies:

1st guy: jump and kick.
2nd guy: duck and kick. Hopping up and down also confuses it to copy me, from across the screen.
3rd guy: duck and kick.
4th guy: jump and kick.
5th and 6th: jump kick then run away. Sometimes hopping up and down would make them stop moving until timer went down.

There is no depth to this game. Its horrible.


Difficulty: 9
This game would almost be a 9 if you couldn't resort to childish repetitious attacks to beat it. It doesn't reward thinking. Some enemies might get hurt faster than you, but all outclass you in some way. The first guy has a lot of life, reach AND power. The third guy has little life, but reach for days AND a punch that can take off 1/3 of your life. The 5th guy is big as a van, super tough and lightning fast. The 6th enemy can just chain a combo punches and some strange hopping-spider attack until you're dead. Cyborg has no advantages, and frankly, sucks.
The good: well, there's only 6 enemies?
The bad: Wait, I have to be this guy? And I'm not better than any of the opponents?

Overall: 2
Youre limited to a crappy character and the fighting is not entertaining at all. Even the ending mocks you, as its just the cut-scenes you've seen throughout the game replayed endlessly. This is one of the dullest fighting games made. It doesn't matter that this is SNES, all version of this game (and there were many) are just as bad if not worse. The game actually sold decently enough to get a sequel (which presumably waits at the games of the underworld). You had to understand when this game was released, there was no internet, you were gonna find out about games from the press. And video game magazines were all you had. A static picture. Which would get people to buy it on looks - not showing the grainy movements, lifeless backgrounds, HORRIBLE HORRIBLE AI, and lack of story and moves that this game suffers from.
Again, if you're looking for a horrible game, this is one of those. If I could bury any game in a landfill, it would be this one. I tried looking for good, but there's just nothing to offer other than the shallow enjoyment of graphics, and a somewhat good musical score.

Another well done review by you. 

But I honestly doubt I would actually play this game. Just doesn't seem like my kind of thing, especially if there is no addictiveness to it. 

thing1 : RotR for me, is worse than street fighter II ripoff games that are just mediocre. At least the imitators tried copying the winning formula!

Lovely review here. You were extremely descriptive and you did a great job of splitting up the review. Nice work.
I can remember playing this game a long time ago. I couldn't comprehend it, let alone play it, it was so broken. It's always good to see a bad game put in its place.