We Played the New Retro Rocky Horror Show Game; Here's What it's Like

The antici…. pation can finally be over if you've been waiting for the Rocky Horror Show game adaptation. Announced early this month, The Rocky Horror Show Video Game is a retro-styled 2D side-scrolling platform game with chiptune versions of well-known songs from the show including The Time Warp and Dammit Janet. It's been released for Nintendo Switch and for PC on Steam, with Xbox and PlayStation versions due later this month ahead of Halloween.

The game is $10 on the Nintendo Store, and until Oct. 27, it's promotionally priced at $9 on Steam. It's rated T for teen. It was developed by FreakZone Games. For the PC version, the game recommends using a game controller.

We got some hands-on time with the title, which faithfully follows the plot of the stage musical. The game begins with a long text crawl quoting what the narrator says at the beginning of Rocky Horror, with the song Science Fiction/Double Feature playing in the background. Soon we're following recently married couple Brad Majors and Janet Weiss as they deal with a flat tire in the rain and arrive at a mysterious castle where their lives will change.

The adaptation, based on the cult classic musical, is out for Nintendo Switch and PC with other console releases to come. BYO toast.

FreakZone Games

Brad becomes one of the game's playable characters as he tries to get to the castle entrance. He can walk, jump over obstacles and pick up objects to use as steps to get over areas. He can throw those objects to defeat enemies in his way. That's pretty much the gameplay. There's no inventory system or any weapons, and the game itself suggests it knows its limitations when the castle's caretaker Riff Raff warns Brad, "Watch out for the traps and mediocre level design."

A boss fight with Frank-N-Furter amounts to throwing objects at the character until they lose parts of their costume. Whenever Brad takes damage, he's stripped down to his tighty-whitey underwear.

While the game is very limited in its design and gameplay, it may still be worth checking out for hardcore Rocky Horror fans for its retro aesthetic and enjoyable 8-bit soundtrack. For everyone else, even at about $10, it might be a time warp best left to Rocky Horror completists.