Ra Ra Boom, the futuristic beat 'em up featuring battle harderned cheerleaders has spirit, how about you?

I'm going to be completely honest. When I was originally approached for this game I almost gave it the old Yikes Hard Pass. The concept of a beat 'em up featuring cheerleaders made me think of some weird cheesecake nonsense. But then I played it. And thank god I did because I almost made a huge mistake.

Beat 'em ups aren't rare. And while new ones come out every single year, there's a reason that people flock back to ones like Turtles in Time, X-Men, Simpsons, or my personal favorite, Ninja Baseball Bat Men (fucking trust me, okay?). It's because these games break the mold and create characters with variety and personality.

There's a reason that we played X-Men to death for decades and were completely fine with the fact that, despite it not being a thing he ever did, a simple button press would make Colossus year every vowel sound at once while exploding in a strobe of flesh and metal. We had characters that we could pick that didn't just mesh with our personalities, but genuinely felt like a choice and not just a palette swap.

Even the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle games, despite being four mostly nude turtle men with only a slight color difference between them, play and sound significantly different. Whether you're showing off how far away you can hit enemies from with Donnie's bo, how good some solid mixed stats are with Leo and Mikey, or stubborn as all hell, insisting on playing Raph because he's your spirit animal despite the fact that his weapons almost feel like they have less range than having no weapon at all, it felt different.

Enter Gylee Games' Ra Ra Boom. While we never fully understand HOW these four are cheerleaders, and what they're cheerleading, we VERY quickly understand two things, they have spirit and this school seems to exclusively taught them how to kick a LOT of ass.

And you'll notice, looking at the picture above, that the four girls are VERY different. You have Aris, the defacto leader of the squad who has a weirdly athletic looking scythe to go with her assortment of powerful kicks. Or Vee, the slower, bulkier, muscle of the group that whoops ass with her powerful riot shield. Saida is the one in the middle of the screenshot above, the mentally haunted and stoic cybernetic warrior of the group who's boots and gauntlets are capable of creating energy blades great for both fighting with and skating above. And then my personal favorite, Ren, the tiny plucky ninja who's all speed.

Not only do they play VERY different in melee combat and movement, but each one is also equipped with a ranged weapon that also feels different depending on who you pick. Aris busts out some little assault rifles good for pushing the enemy back, Vee and Saida launch heavy projectiles, and Ren, my favorite again, throws a ton of shurikens ahead of themselves that do surprising amounts of damage when compared to that of their munition heavy squad mates.

And to make ranged attacks easier to hit, if you look in the image above or the one above that, you'll notice the game uses lanes instead of fully free vertical movement. At first I kind of hates it because it's a little off looking, but I came to love it because it gave me a lot of confidence at range and with taller enemies to let me know I was going to hit my intended target.

Those tall guys with the holographic legs in the image above, for example, can only get damaged in the green robotic head meaning you have to jump and hit them, and let me tell you, being able to use the lanes was a GODSEND.

The other thing I really liked about this is that it felt like this game came from a universe in which Ra Ra Boom is a very popular Saturday Morning Cartoon. I immediately had a favorite character and was engrossed in their personal stories as if I'd known these characters all the time.

I went in knowing fuck all about these characters and after a few stages I was worried about Aris's self doubt as a leader mixed and Saida's fears that she's losing her humanity to her augmentations. And I immediately latched on to Ren and her habit of using humor to mask her worry and fear. Have I mentioned I love Ren?

Sure, there are moments in which the game can be a little frustrating. Especially when these bulky enemies with energy packs enter the fights later and knock you about like a cat with a feather, but most of the time, especially if you're playing with a buddy, the game is an absolute blast.

Ra Ra Boom brings back all the joy of playing one of those great 90's cartoon tie-in brawlers only without having to have a pocket full of tokens, waking up early on Saturday, or trying to look like a mad man explaining Pryde of the X-Men to your friends who don't believe it's real because the internet wasn't a thing then and I swear it was real. ANYways...

Ra Ra Boom is available now on Steam, the Epic Game Store, Playstation and XBox! Get to it!