Geki Yaba Runner Review
Most runners are built on the premise that you run as far as you can until you die and then you start over. Geki Yaba Runner for the PlayStation Vita does away with the run until you die concept and incorporates a story that takes place over the course of 136 levels.
As the player, you control a gnome who has the task of rescuing a princess. The majority of levels have a minimum amount of socks that you have to collect to progress because well, you're a gnome and that's what you do. This is, of course, easier said than done. Geki Yaba Runner actually touts itself as 'one of the hardest runners out there' and I can't disagree with that. The reason for this is because not only do you have to be extremely precise, you have to remember to use all of your gnomes abilities.
The abilities consist of jumping, floating, falling fast, increased speed, and plowing through objects. If you touch a spike, you die. If you hit a wall, any wall, you die. If you run into a tree, you die. Pretty much everything will kill you, so you need to do everything perfectly and at times you're required to use two abilities or more to get through one tiny section of the game. This requires patience and muscle memory, but thank goodness respawns are instant.
I personally play a lot of runners and I can say that this one is definitely difficult, but thanks to the frequent checkpoints, it's not impossible. Regardless of the frequency, you will most likely die over 1,000 times. It wasn't unusual for me to die around 40 times on one level and in one case I died 133 times. Of course, this sounds like it would be frustrating, right? This actually drove me to play even more because I was determined to advance. There were so many times that I would say "one more level" or "one more attempt" only to find myself playing three to four more levels.
As I mentioned earlier, Geki Yaba Runner features a story, but it's pretty shallow. The story elements only feature a few still images that require you to piece together what's happening. I respect the decision to include a story in a runner, however, because it doesn't add much to the overall game, it wouldn't be missed if it wasn't there. Maybe if there's a Geki Yaba Runner 2, the story will be more developed.
Geki Yaba Runner took me about 3 1/2 to 4 hours to complete. The difficulty progresses nicely and while at times you'll get stuck, the game is addicting enough that you'll want to complete the entire adventure.
4 out of 5 stars
Thank you to QubicGames for providing the code.