Starting this in the hope more people check this one out. Fairly light on a mechanical front, but heck, it is one of the most narratively ambitious things I've played in a while.
Just as in the trailer above, things begin in very dramatic, very context-light fashion, as we watch one character stab another in the back with furious conviction. We go back in time from here, though still in the distant future, exploring this very bright, very artificial, and fairly sterile-looking environment, populated entirely by clones. A small, core group of this society are 'sisters'; brightly coloured, with special talents and granted quite hilariously candid role-related names. Would you believe "Bang Bang Fire" is not the medic?
So, as Watcher, one of the gifts you're given is that of communion - of diving into and experiencing your creator's memories with others as if they were your own. You can roam about in a lot of these, and there's sections too where you can zip about a la Gravity Rush, just... via waypoints rather than with total freedom. Often you're required to move forwards or back in time too, and while this has to be used to strategically to navigate and progress through some areas, I think calling these puzzles is perhaps over-egging the pudding - it feels much more natural treating it as a narrative adventure.
Crucially it's in these communions where you start to learn of the creator's life in the before times - from the relationship with her parents fraught with their background in political protest and the diaspora issues they face having left, to classroom drama experienced with friends, all the way through to the events that have lead to the current situation where a society of clones lives in fear and servitude. These aren't always as direct or realistic as you might want, jumping about in both time and place, and getting quite metaphorical with their imagery - but to be clear, this is one of its strengths! They're interesting, and wrangle with some big subjects in a creative and frequently quite beautiful way.
The biggest compliment that I can pay it is that even after I've finished it (about 12 hours), I've been continuing to think about it - including some really solid, pivotal moments in the story that I'm wanting to revisit. As ever, this caught my eye by way recommendation and name drops, and I think this quote directly from the Publisher's website tells you quite a lot -
(I'd also throw Evangelion and Venba into the mix too)
Just as in the trailer above, things begin in very dramatic, very context-light fashion, as we watch one character stab another in the back with furious conviction. We go back in time from here, though still in the distant future, exploring this very bright, very artificial, and fairly sterile-looking environment, populated entirely by clones. A small, core group of this society are 'sisters'; brightly coloured, with special talents and granted quite hilariously candid role-related names. Would you believe "Bang Bang Fire" is not the medic?
So, as Watcher, one of the gifts you're given is that of communion - of diving into and experiencing your creator's memories with others as if they were your own. You can roam about in a lot of these, and there's sections too where you can zip about a la Gravity Rush, just... via waypoints rather than with total freedom. Often you're required to move forwards or back in time too, and while this has to be used to strategically to navigate and progress through some areas, I think calling these puzzles is perhaps over-egging the pudding - it feels much more natural treating it as a narrative adventure.
Crucially it's in these communions where you start to learn of the creator's life in the before times - from the relationship with her parents fraught with their background in political protest and the diaspora issues they face having left, to classroom drama experienced with friends, all the way through to the events that have lead to the current situation where a society of clones lives in fear and servitude. These aren't always as direct or realistic as you might want, jumping about in both time and place, and getting quite metaphorical with their imagery - but to be clear, this is one of its strengths! They're interesting, and wrangle with some big subjects in a creative and frequently quite beautiful way.
The biggest compliment that I can pay it is that even after I've finished it (about 12 hours), I've been continuing to think about it - including some really solid, pivotal moments in the story that I'm wanting to revisit. As ever, this caught my eye by way recommendation and name drops, and I think this quote directly from the Publisher's website tells you quite a lot -
Born from an eclectic set of inspirations, including the games of Yoko Taro (NieR:Automata), the anime of Satoshi Kon (Perfect Blue) and Naoko Yamada (A Silent Voice), and even the theatre of Robert Wilson (Einstein on the Beach), 1000xRESIST tells a story in ways only a game can while simultaneously bringing fresh ideas to interactive storytelling from theatre, dance, performance art, and cinema.