1000xRESIST

Sci-fi is not where we escape reality. It is where reality becomes impossible to ignore.

It's sad what passes off as good writing in video game land. Judging by the reviews I thought this was going to be some kind of masterpiece but it's not. Far from it. The story is something a child on DXM could write during a high fever. The characters are just as boring as the writing and the environment they built to display it all is at best basic and at worst extremely confusing. What are the guys over at IGN and Eurogamer smoking?

1000xRESIST starts strong with an engaging and immersive premise, but it unfortunately loses its grip along the way. While I highly appreciated the stunning art direction and the soundtracks, the game’s pacing plummets significantly past the halfway mark. The mid-game introduces tedious backtracking and endless, exhausting dialogues that completely disconnected me from the narrative. Visually, the character animations are extremely minimal. While this might be a deliberate artistic choice, the reality is that you spend most of your time just listening to or reading text, which quickly becomes a major drag. By the finale, the narrative gets so convoluted and sluggish that I completely lost track of what I was even playing. I'd give it a 7/10 solely for the ambition and effort, but honestly, finishing this game was an absolute chore.

i'd have trouble recommending this to most, because of how rough the presentation is. to fully enjoy it, your expectations of what an indie game of this scale can deliver should be in line with reality, and i don't think most who engage with games as a medium understand that as well as i'd like. outside of that, and the fact that the wayfinding can be a bit confusing sometimes, boy does this game have a lot of heart and soul, i am so glad that they decided to make this... a thing, like, at all (maybe i'd have liked it a little more in the form of a book, but the choice to make it a game speaks to the way the creator wanted this story to be experienced). there isn't anything more i can say, i'm just happy that projects of passion like this get to exist, and i get to witness them. hair to hair.

I'm just going to share my opinions about the game which you may aggree or disaggree with. Positives: + fully voice acted (although most of them speak quite slowly, and not the best quality way, but it's way better than having to read all by yourself - you can also click with left mouse button to skip them if you get bored how slow they can be) + Different angles, such as fixed camera, first person, "over the shoulder-like", top-down can help make things a little fresh. Disadvantages: - Underwhelming Endings: The conclusion feels lackluster. There are seven endings total, but five of them are incredibly short (barely a minute without voice acting except one). The two "main" endings feel repetitive, as they both rely on the same structure of navigating to specific points (A, B, C ... Q) just to reach the exact same final cutscene at the end. None of these provide a truly satisfying ending for the characters and for the story. It is simply leaving everything us to the players what will happen to them next. - The Orchard: The main hub area, the Orchard, is frustrating to navigate. The level design is cluttered with confusing paths and staircases, can turn into what should be a simple trip from point A to point B (, because you can use R button to see the map of the two floors) between story segments into a tedious exercise in getting lost (which also makes you waste your time , and can cause you a potential buyer to drop the game and ask for a refund. - The Occupants are the enemies in this game who most of the time don't even show up and we barely interact with them, so it feels like they just exist, because of the game needed enemies in the game, and not because they actually contribute something worthy to the story. - Although it is meant to be story heavy I don't really think the story is that great, which should be great to compensate the lack of actual gameplay. There are moments that can be explained if you connect the dots, but some of them IMO don't have any rational explanation (such as: SPOILER - The nature of the transit system remains a mystery, specifically regarding who or what controls the trains, and how the characters seem entirely oblivious to where these trains are actually taking them. - The fate of the sisters sent to the Allmother is never fully resolved, leaving a void where there should be an explanation how Fixer is alive/not with ALLMOTHER - The overall purpose of the Allmother is unclear. It is never explained what actual purpose she serves in a world devoid of humans, or how they can all live for an eternity. It's up to you to decide: +- Visual novel and first person walking simulator: There is literally no active gameplay, so if you are looking for hack&slash and puzzle heavy game, you will probaby not going to enjoy it, especially it can last for 10 hours even for the first playthrough. +- Choices: There are choices in the game, but you can choose whatever you want since the main plot is already decided and will happen exactly the same no matter what choices you make along the way. And unlike other visual novel or story driven games these choices don't even have a short impact as well nor how each character acts towards you. Only the final choices count at the end of the game, which will determine what kind of ending you will get. However keep in mind that the creators of the game never claims that your choices changes the story in any way. +- The teleport via using orange glyphes minigames IMO are quite boring and just waste of time. +- It's not compulsory to talk to optional NPC characters, but it's advised so you can understand the game's lore better such as what are those cryptic words means (hekki ALLMO, hair to hair, red to blue, sphere to square ... etc). +- Until the game gets a little more interesting, then IMO becomes boring again, then gets exciting again, only to be boring again, rinse and repeat until the last chapters (8, 9) becomes boring as well and it feels like it's just drags on and unnecessarily wastes time. The final chapter is also very boring, not to mention it's way too short and we don't even get final confrontation with the main villain of the game. And the game also wants you to connect the dots to figure out what's really going on and why. +- There are very few but great cutscenes, which is sad, since we are left with character models who most of the time just stand in one place, even if we talk to them, making the experience less enjoyable. +- There are similar things like in Nier Automata, which is not a problem, since they claimed the game was inspired by it (, such as a flying "pod", fake credit early, fighting against aliens who want to conquer the Earth ... etc etc), but it is really up to you to decide if it is just inspired or simply copy pasted the unique ideas from Nier Automata.

Is it good? Yes. Should it be a game? Probably not. This is one of the few instances where game as a medium doesn't really add to the experience. It is a well wowen story, with intriuging world building and visuals, but player agency is near zero. Get from point A to B, talk to people, progress story in effectively cutscenes and no meaningful choices. The presentation also suffers from the apparently low budget - no lip syncing, clumsy animations and models. Since the story and style are exceptional, it just makes me wish this could be a high budget movie or a short series. However, if you can get over this, it really is worth playing for the experience. I commend them for the voice acting (Secretary's voice is refreshingly unique!), creative vision and storyline. Played it on a Steam Deck.

use this game as an "incase of emergency, break glass" for when you are incredibly bored and dont want to commit or put effort into anything, and just let this game absorb you

Don't be offput by how low-budget this game looks and feels, because the story here is truly fantastic. In essence, only one person survives an alien pandemic, and this is a deep dive not only into the society that arises from her clones (similar to The Alters), but also her parents and the Hong Kong revolution they escaped from, generational trauma, Asian culture, how revolutions go awry, and much more.

did the allmother herself require everything to be so hard to navigate some great themes, but most of my memories of this are just being lost

Equally enthralling and frustrating. Just so slightly overstays its welcome, but has so many compelling things to say about generational trauma and cycles. Incredible beginning and end with a weak middle act. Lovely soundtrack. There is the you that remains and remains.