Redeemer is trying to be old school.
It takes direct inspiration from PC and console games from the late 90s, thriving on over the top action and a fairly nonexistent story. It feels like an arcade game, with loud explosions, tons of enemies, and melee fighting. In broadest terms, the words “video game” are probably the most accurate description of the project.
Redeemer is as video game as they get.
The PAX East demo reveals that the game takes place at some point in the future, where science and war seems to have run amok. We control Vasily, a former mercenary who has been in hiding for years, forced out after the monastery he’s been residing in is attacked and the other monks murdered. Vasily looks a lot like God of War‘s Kratos, and his world is divided into “jungle,” “war scene,” and “laboratory,” a pure sign that the game takes no qualms about borrowing from other well worn aspects of the action genre.
It’s a top-down brawler, focused on hand-to-hand combos and a variety of weapons. Weapons can be light or heavy, can be picked up from throughout the environment or dropped by enemies, and have durability that never seems to last beyond a few swings. Durability is represented by an HP-like meter on the lower left of the screen, so it’s easy to get into the habit of grabbing new weapons as soon as we see them, often dropping stronger weapons because they’re not going to last as long.
In the opening scenes of the demo we discover that we can sneak up on enemy soldiers for stealth kills, ranging from one-hit physical kills to pushing them off of cliffs. Depending on where we are in the environment, we can even perform special kills that act sort of like Mortal Kombat finishers. Hanging enemies on hooks or impaling them on trees seemed commonplace, and became helpful since the only way to replenish health is to commit environment kills.
Enemies have unique attack styles. The soldiers in the opening scene rely on one-on-one battles, yet their strength means they can take and give a lot of damage. In a later laboratory area, we are overrun by hordes of mutants who, even though they’re much weaker, can encumber us with their numbers. This can lead to some fairly chaotic moments, especially since the game levels are essentially set up like series of tight rooms that we need to clear.
Redeemer doesn’t feel like a bad game, just a dated concept. It’s actually designed well and comes off solid, but it’s not memorable. It’s a game from a bygone era, but it’s not trying to be anything more than that. At least we get to sneak up on a mutant and throw it into a giant table saw, exploding in a shower of body parts. In a medical lab. Because video games.
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