Sumo Run

Although sumo fighters are pretty famous around the world, they enjoy that kind of popularity due to the fact that they are quite the imposing figures, not to mention powerful. Certainly, the one thing that doesn’t go through your head when you envision a game of sumo is grace, because the matches usually involve a lot of shoving and pushing.

Sumo Run is a simple platformer in which your sole purpose is to keep running at all costs, while avoiding the various obstacles that try to put an end to your journey. To make matters a bit more unusual, your character is a sumo fighter and he is as flexible as a ballerina when it comes to jumping over the gaps, or even performing a flip in mid-air.

It must be stated from the beginning that the game can become repetitive and boring in a matter of minutes, mainly because there are only three types of obstacles, and nothing else ever happens. The challenge of performing perfectly-timed jumps every time might get stale after a while, even if the speed increases steadily as you manage to get further and further.

Beside the gaps you must avoid, the obstacles themselves have different effects on your character if you happen to run into them. As such, puddles only cause him to slip for a split second, which impedes your ability to jump. Rocks are there to trip the fighter, but it’s by no means a game over-causing trap. However, Buddha statues stand tall and they halt your character entirely if you happen to run into them, which basically ends your run.

Thankfully, the controls are responsive and you can at least not worry about dealing with stutters or delays. The graphics are actually gorgeous and very colorful, not to mention the fact that they are somehow representative for the Asian continent. The backgrounds get repetitive quickly, on the other hand, so the joy doesn’t last for too long.

While Sumo Run can be very fun and enjoyable in the beginning, the novelty dissipates in a rush and you are left with a repetitive platformer with no real replay value. Hence, the game is then quickly forgotten, and it may only be useful to keep you company for a couple of minutes.