Descenders

Descenders is a solid experience if you're looking for a time waster that you'll return to over and over. While constant screen tearing issues hamper its presentation quite a bit, the game has solid controls, as well as simple though endlessly entertaining mechanics. While the controls aren't the tightest we've seen, they do everything adequately and contribute to the fun. Add in the wide range of biomes to race through, including some more wacky ones towards the end of the game, and it makes for one fun package. And that's to say nothing of the fun little gimmicks, like the first-person mode and the trials-style courses. Descenders has everything you could possibly want in a downhill cycling roguelite.

Descenders is an addictive freeriding roguelite with plenty of content to keep players busy as they get to grips with its unique take on extreme biking action. It may be a little rough around the edges in places and this Switch port has certainly seen a graphical downgrade, but the core riding controls well, the framerate is solid and the procedurally-generated nature of courses keeps things feeling fresh. With a meaty campaign featuring eight diverse biomes, a decent multiplayer component and those all-important online leaderboards, this one's a surprisingly robust package that comes highly recommended.

Descenders is an absolute delight that I can highly recommend to anyone in the mood for a good, silly, arcade-style racer with a significant but optional extreme sports stunt element. It’s a game with potentially limitless replayability, yet one which doesn’t make unreasonable demands of your time; it’s the perfect thing to have on the back-burner when you’re in the mood to just play something which excites and thrills, but which doesn’t demand commitment or too much brainpower.

Despite the problems Descenders has it’s an extreme sports game that, at it’s best, does a great job at getting your heart racing. It’s fun to play, easy to pick up and difficult to master. It turns downhill biking into something accessible for far more people. At its worst, it’s just a bit bland, but it’s never completely flavourless.

Descenders ended up being a really fun, challenging game. Even if you're not great at sports games, or you have young children that might not understand the goal, this is one that the whole family can enjoy

While Descenders offers a fun downhill mountain-biking romp, it's constantly held back by the Switch's lackluster hardware.

Descenders joins the reawakening of the skateboarding and cycling genres by offering a unique take on a specific form of cycling we haven't seen in a long time. While the gameplay is thrilling and does its best to stay interesting, mechanics that are at odds with each other mean you will be forced to choose between having that exciting arcade experience or maintaining the roguelite run through the sometimes intense difficulty. Whether taken seriously or just for fun, Descenders isn't consistent, and considering this specific port has some rough edges graphically, you may just want to focus on using it for its multiplayer.

On a general level I'm a huge fan of procedurally-generated content...

Descenders can be entertaining for a few hours and although some of its mechanics such as controls and physics are sub-par compared to other games in the genre, it still offers enough cool gameplay moments to be considered an okay indie game.

Descenders is a fast, exciting, and ever-changing adrenaline-pumping addictive game which I find hard to put down. The game on the PS4 suffers from some slowdown, jerky moments and unresponsive controls, especially in levels with a lot of assets, but I still found the overall experience fun to play. There’s a bunch of difficult and long-winded trophies which will keep you busy within the procedurally generated main game, plus the multiplayer, Freeride, Daily Challenge, and bonus custom Bike Parks – you’ll never run out of things to do within the game. I play this game daily and every session feels new and exciting.