1000xresist

2024-07-14

Review

Holy, what a game. Seemingly developed by a team of 8, voiced over by so many different people however. Never in my life have I played something that has such a stark difference between quality of writing and quality of game.

In terms of gameplay, there isn't much. You mostly walk around and talk to characters and right-click to sling yourself over to floating nodes in certain sequences. There are some parts where your movement is somehow restrained or restricted a la nier automata, and there are some parts where the game switches over to a first person view (as opposed to a 3rd person view by default). The gameplay design is stark but is overall enough to serve the story. I didn't run into any particurlarly major bugs during my first playthrough, and I can't really identify any technical faults in how the game ran and performed, with my only real complaint being that the game was suprisingly heavy on my computer, despite how it looked.

In terms of graphics, they aren't good. The assets in-use are best described as indie-tier, with a fair bunch of them being seemingly bought straight from an asset store. The texture quality is equally as basic. There is heavy reliance on upscaled normal maps to attempt to cover for the low quality environment. Assets are heavily re-used with some things just shuffled around, Though, I will note, that the amount of repeated scenes I saw did not deter from the game, because every time it happened it was well-written-in. I.e. it made sense to re-use a place, a model, a character, I never once questioned it, but now I realize that you see every level within the game twice on average. This will be covered later but the game takes place in a somewhat small set of mediocre quality levels, considering the length of the game.

In terms of environments, they are also stark and inconsistent. Some were reasonably detailed, others have sections that are nothing more than an empty box. You don't get to directly see those parts during a base playthrough, but I would advise against letting your inner explorer go nuts here. You will be dissapointed by what you find.

And now.. to get to the meat of the game, and by extension, this review. The story.

It is good. Holy smokes it is good.

The story manages to carry the whole game almost by itself. I forgot about the stark, mis-textured levels. I forgot about the mediocre models. I forgot about the complete lack of lip-syncing, I forgot about the stark UI, the lack of key-rebinds, the non-existent graphics settings, I forgot about the unity store assets.

That's how gripping the story is. I will note that the first couple of hours or so are going to be a bit slow, and there was a bit of an adjustment period for me to get used to the looks and levels but by then, I was hooked.

(SPOILERS PAST THIS POINT)

There's drama, betrayal, uneasy alliances, terrorism, matricide, philosophy, twists and turns and reveals like no other. there's an awesome world built all around it, there's a good cast of characters, there's believable heroes, villains, antiheroes. Heck, there's even a fakeout ending in the middle, and, importantly, there are nine hours of it, fully voiced. This is an interactive visual novel, first and foremost. It's graphics and gameplay won't win awards, but you let yourself see past that and you will find one of the best game stories released in 2024. Enough to be on par with something like Signalis.

This game is.. an uncut diamond. It's rough. It's not pretty. But beyond the surface lies a gemstone.

Which is testament to the talent behind this game. 1000xRESIST has been made seemingly with an amateur texture artist, an amateur environment designer and an amateur 3d modeler on the team, presumably on a rather low budget. This game is the result of a team that knows how to play to their strengths and how to play the best possible hand with the cards that they have been dealt. And if that is not extreme talent, I don't know what is.

1000xRESIST has a story you think about for a week after experiencing it. I highly reccomend this game if you enjoy a good narrative, no matter the medium.