Part visual novel, part sports management game, Roller Drama is full of fun and interesting ideas. Unfortunately, very few concepts can reach their full potential.
Visually, the game starts off brilliantly. It has a unique art style that fits the topic of the game. The character designs all have their own personality, offering a variety of body types, backgrounds, and aesthetic styles across the team. Each character looks equally powerful in their triumphant poses and displays a convincing dejection when they lose a match.
The roller drama begins with a lighthearted warning that you’re likely to run into some dark humor in this game. This is just a little preparation for the story that awaits you.
The gameplay mostly takes the form of a visual novel. You are the coach of a roller derby team and you live in a big shared house with the girls on your team. You begin by exploring the house, checking in with each one, learning a little about them, and building the beginnings of your relationship. You can also create a connection between girls by effectively promoting your bond as friends.
The story is punctuated by a roller derby match against another local team. Start at the bottom of the leaderboard and work your way up with each win.
These mini-games require you to strategize, but are not fully understood. You have the option to tell the girls how much energy to use, direct them to certain moves, or use the boosts you’ve accumulated throughout the story. But the actual gameplay doesn’t have the speed and aggression you’d expect from a game designed to emulate roller derby. Instead, movements feel slow and clumsy. A bird’s eye view of the game doesn’t necessarily put you in a coach’s shoes, it takes you out of the action.
During each round, choose words of encouragement to motivate the girl. That’s about the extent of the sports management element of the game, and the options for what you might say are the same every time. As long as you are likely to use the same approach frequently.
Similarly, after the game, we will return home and hold a debriefing session. Here the dialog options are the same each time. Some dynamic options generated by the choices made earlier in the story make this element more effective. In particular, other features of sports management games (such as managing team training, meals, travel, etc.) are not considered at all.
Chapters between each match create another aspect of the game. It builds on a great idea beneath the surface, but feels incomplete.The chapters seem separate from each other, mixing different elements of the world together.
They tease a far more interesting story than you’re getting into.Including supernatural elements in a mysterious dystopian world that sits behind the roller derby mini-game.Stealing and jailbreaking from police officers. Many of the most exciting actions take place off-screen, such as the implementation of Navigate through the dialogue needed to plan the heist, and the next conversation after the match is about how it went off without a hitch. I feel like I’m missing the best part.
The real shame is that I really like this concept. The idea that there are exciting, scary, and exhilarating things happening in the world around you, but your priority is your sports game, is really fun and can even provide sharp social commentary. , built from clues you find while you’re busy training for a match. But for it to be truly effective, the narrative and sports elements need to gel much more smoothly than roller drama.
A lot of imagination, humor and creativity have been put into the concept behind this game. Unfortunately, I don’t think the final product lives up to that potential. I love the diverse characters named after Shakespearean heroines, but I want to be more involved in their stories than this game allows.
