Ratcheteer DX Review: A Playdate Classic Gets a Colorful Upgrade
- Antal Bokor
- 4 minutes ago
- 3 min read
Originally released along with Season 1 of the Playdate, Ratcheteer has been sitting on my device, mostly unplayed, for the last couple of years. You can’t blame me. Despite the Playdate being a fantastic portable device, I don’t always have time to indulge myself in every game that piques my interest—even if it’s a Playdate Community Game of the Year award winner for 2022. I’m glad, then, that Ratcheteer DX is releasing for Steam, which gave me a chance to play through the game for the first time. And I can see why it won community favorite.
Ratcheteer DX is an adventure game that is sure to remind some of classic Zelda games, especially early handheld titles like Link’s Awakening. The title itself is an homage to Link’s Awakening DX and its leap to color. But instead of being a chosen hero wielding a legendary sword, you’re a lowly mechanic with a wrench. Mankind has been forced into hibernation underground, and when the cryo-colony suffers a catastrophe, it’s up to you to save the day.
In a way, you can describe Ratcheteer DX as a bite-sized game. You can probably play through it in a few hours. That doesn’t mean it’s light on content, however. According to the Steam store page, there are 250 rooms across 6 regions and 6 dungeons, each with its own boss. Each boss encounter is unique and usually requires a trick to defeat—often utilizing your most recently acquired tool or ability.
As someone who spends a lot of time collecting and playing retro games, Ratcheteer DX is a faithful approximation of one. That could be because it was originally made with some genuine hardware limitations in mind. Because of this, there is little hand-holding, with only vague instructions given by NPCs to guide you to your next objective. Fortunately, the map never feels overly sprawling—especially since you spend a lot of time in caves and tunnels—so finding where to go next can be figured out just by exploring.
There are a fair amount of obstacles in Ratcheteer DX that can be considered puzzles. However, most are of a more lock-and-key variety: find an item that opens up the next area, rinse and repeat. One of the places I looked for my childhood dopamine hits was finally seeing what can break a certain type of unbreakable rock, or figuring out what those weird floor pads are for. Ratcheteer DX expertly taps into that exact sort of discovery.
It is also a genuinely fun game to play, though its controls can be an acquired taste. If you aren’t fully sold on the retro feel, the movement can feel a bit floaty and sluggish at first. But since Ratcheteer DX is a combat-lite experience, it’s easy to get used to and never becomes frustrating.
Because Ratcheteer was originally designed for the Playdate’s tiny screen with a 400x240 resolution, it makes for an excellent portable game. I mostly played it on my Steam Deck, and even there the Deck’s screen felt massive by comparison. But don’t fret about playing on a larger monitor or TV—I just as often played Ratcheteer DX docked on my 60” TV as I did in handheld mode. In other words: play it on your couch, at your desk, or on the go.
Leaning hard into that retro feel, the game offers a few graphical options to change your visual experience. You can swap the color palette to black-and-white, full color, Playdate gray, or a Game Boy-inspired pea soup green. You can also add a line, grid, or dot overlay to give your display a CRT-like texture.
Ratcheteer DX is a solid game worthy of your attention. I’m glad I finally played through it after letting it languish for years on my Playdate. It might not be a game for the widest possible audience, but if you fall into the niche it's aiming for, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.