Meet Mr. Robot, a 2D square, and the star of Don't Die Mr Robot! DX. He lives in a 2D, single-screen grid where he moves around freely eating exploding fruit. Life would be pretty sweet if not for the number of increasing waves of enemies out to touch you and, yes indeed, contact is lethal. It's from this simplest gameplay mechanic that a ridiculously additive concept is born.

Although unharmed, Mr. Robot is not completely defenceless against said enemies since the fruit explosions will destroy whatever baddies get caught on their blast radius. Begin chaining these together and the multipliers kick in, severely increasing your score. A clever addition of a risk/reward mechanic will also gift you for rubbing enemies danger-close. However, that greed might prove fatal so you should probably prioritise empty space management to ensure a longer play session. The game offers the standard ‘Arcade’ and ‘Time Attack’ modes while ‘Remix Mode’, taking cues from NES Remix, offers diversity with several unlockable levels where the gameplay is slightly altered to create new ways to play. All the modes feature rave style visuals on the grid accompanied by some acid style electronic music that successfully enforces the arcade salon feeling of the 90’s.

Then there is ‘Chill Out’ mode which effectively turns Don’t Die, Mr. Robot! DX into 'Vaporwave: The Video Game'. Both the music and the enemies get slowed down to a near halt, while the titular Mr. Robot retains his regular speed. It is true that the mode lives up to its name, but we were often so used to the regular game speed we actually found it difficult not to die accidentally while trying to slide off enemies.

Replay value is encouraged by in-game currency rewards that you can spend at the shop to buy customisation items for Mr. Robot, Power-Ups that let you get that little extra bit further and even unlock five special guests. It is a shame, however, that the experience remains a solo one, especially on Switch. It would surely be interesting to see more players on the field trying to survive on the ever shorter safe space among them, but alas this was not to be. Despite inspired by old arcade games the characters charming graphics are very mobile/cartonish like and that might prove to be a turn off for some people.

Don’t Die, Mr. Robot! DX is truly the finest version released of this game. You can drop five minutes into it or spend hours playing this pacifist twin-stick shooter without any shooting (or even the second stick!) without feeling cheated price/content ratio wise. A simple but terribly addictive little game that goes very well side-by-side with other trippy digital Switch arcade offers such as Namco’s Pac-Man Championship Edition 2 Plus. If you happen to be having a stressful day, nothing better than pumping up the volume and just play Chill Out mode to eventual bliss.

Great 8/10

Scoring Policy
Review copy provided by Digerati Safe to say I wasn't expecting this positive of a review It's a very fun arcade game. I sank about 10 hours into it on PS4/Vita and still didn't finish all of the Remixes. And curse that Strawberry Remix ... it is very tough to get a Platinum medal on. Played this on the ps4 when it was free with ps plus.I d/l it expecting it to be deleted after 5 mins but...this review..spot on!Simple but most addictive game i have played. Looking forward to getting this again This looks like a straight up cell phone game lol While we're talking grammar, there's a typo in the review. Unharmed should be unarmed. @Scrummer I got it free on PlayStation Plus, and I was kind of surprised by how much fun it was. The score makes sense. Read the review, but still have no idea what the game is about...

There have been a couple of reviews lately where I think the reviewer assumes prior knowledge of the game. It was the same with the Donkey Kong review, which seemed to cover the differences from the Wii version (which I know nothing about). E.g. are there levels to be cleared? How many? Do you power-up? How long does it take to play through the game? Is there any replayability? Or if you don't want to include that information in the review, then put up a video showing the game in action. @justin233 school has gotton me really stressed these couple months and your comment kind of pushed me over and i took it out on you Sorry @PaulDuran Thank you. I’m sorry too. I really was just joking about the grammar and everything. I was bullied a lot in school and never really had close friends so I’m a little touchy about that. That’s no excuse for me to be a jerk though and I’m sorry. @Bondi_Surfer Enjoy. @Shiryu thanks! Looks fun, and I can sense how addictive it would be. Appreciate you posting the video - I’ll grab the game now! Just got the game, and, no leaderboards! Anyone know if they will be coming? Thanks for the review! Since DDMR DX is currently on sale and I had enough gold points to cover it, I picked it up free this morning. Really looking forward to trying it out soon! This game is $1.34 on the e-shop right now.... picking it up because, why not for that price?
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