okay, i played it for my stream. prob like 4 hours into the game now.
observations:
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the UI is fucking awesome but a little confusing and dense. i found myself screwing around and going to the wrong menu constantly. maybe this is just a problem i have with a lot of games, but something about the way this game did it confused me more than usual.
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it is basically a Resident Evil clone. i.e. pretty much all the design tricks are things that are done in the first Resident Evil, other than like… having limited saves (thank goodness they didn’t carry that over).
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unlike a lot of other retro-inspired indie horror games, it doesn’t feel entirely derivative of the games it’s obviously cribbing from. the top-down perspective is the most obvious thing that distinguishes it. the very specific/technical/detail fixations of the main designers is very apparent to, and feels kinda different tonally than Resident Evil.
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the plot and esp the writing you encounter in various notes feel a lot like a Phillip K D short story. even tho it kinda is on the more basic cliche 101 “repressive authoritarian environment” end.
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this game’s two creators are German. this didn’t occur to me until i realized basically all the environmental details/textures are in German, which are then translated to English in the text boxes you read. it does kinda add a slightly different feeling to the environments.
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this game has random plot-related bits where you wander around environments in first person that kind of randomly pop up from time to time. the atmosphere is really cool in these segments but a lot of them are very short but i honestly wish they were longer and there were more of them. they help break up the monotony of the usual Resident evil style of running thru hallways/ managing inventory/solving puzzles/running from enemies thing.
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for a game that has this hyper-dense, technical sensibility and feels a bit PKD-influenced it’s kind of funny that it’s all about anime robot girls. the cutscenes are extremely anime. maybe not exactly what i expected but it works well enough in the game. it does make it hard to take the horror element seriously at times tho.
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the combat is easily my least favorite part of this game because the aiming is really screwy/not great. it’s also not a game that makes you want to fight enemies either, since dodging them isn’t that hard most of the time. which leads me to…
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i fought one boss so far and the encounter was really stressful and monotonous and just boringly/badly designed. it’s just running around a big heavy dude in a room waiting until you can fire at him. the janky aiming and limited ammo really made it not fun. i don’t know why this game needs boss fights like this to begin with!!
overall, my impressions so far - fun game, cool and very unique aesthetic, maybe doesn’t exactly transcend its inspirations tho… but it is a really great clone.