Rebel Transmute

I won't give it a Not Recommended because I can see so much love put in this game. This is indeed a very beautiful game and, as others have already stated, it could be an awesome metroidvania. First of all...the Augment System. As a metroidvania, I don't think it's a good idea to limit the character like that on which upgrades he/she can use. Even worse...the "size" of the some upgrades are too big for their utility and some shouldn't even be an augment. The jet, blaster range upgrade, injector, blaster over walls etc...shouldn't even be Augments. Imo I actually think there shouldn't be a limit to equip these items, but some of them really need the ability to disable them, as they can be a disadvantage in some places. The backtracking is really not well worked in this game, as other people have already stated as well. The thing that annoyed me the most was the lack of explanation (in the equipment menu) of some items on how to use them or even worse...their total lack of existence inside the menu. So if you didn't memorize the command to trigger the item the npc just gave you, you are condemned to look after it on guides over the internet. That's just unbelievable for a metoridvania released in 2024. So unbelievable that it looks like it was intentional by the devs. Other bad design is in some parts that requires you to perform some tricky moves to get there just to see it was all for those red flux blue flowers. I really don't want them to give up on making games because of the mistakes they did on this game so I'm interested in what they would come up with in the future. I also hope they will REALLY take all these criticisms from the community into consideration and really learn how to make a better game.

Неплохая игра в разумных средствах. Брал дешевле 200 р, сейчас она стоит 700 р - это дорого. Понравилось что куча механик, которые неплохо адаптированы. Несложное прохождение, более-менее равномерное открытие локаций. Простота в понимание - не нужно голову ломать над чем-то. Красивый пиксель-дизайн. Минусы: банальщина, списали всё под чистую с ХК, Ахио Вёрж и что-то ещё. Некоторые комнаты прям подбешивают тем, что ты проходишь ради очередного бесполезного амулета (коих очень много, часть как полезных, так большая часть нах.не нужные - в принципе, как это и везде, чисто для контента накидать до кучи - зачем?) или ещё хуже ради живокрови (валюта игры), которой ппц как до хера, и ты не знаешь куда всё это девать. Непонятные телепорты, лишь только в конце тебе даётся награда, если ты победишь грёзных боссов (ага, как в ХК), в виде 8 телепорты на те точки, где есть респы, что уже нахрен не надо. Ещё какие-то капли эхо - ну это вообще зашквар, ты собираешь их по всей здоровенной карте, так сказать, общаясь в труднодоступных местах с MPS около 20 персонажей, а награда, за это всё, плюс там ещё и место конченное, чтоб её забрать по платформингу, один кристал Карллллл, это как? Один кристалл, это часть маски как в ХК, коих в конце и так дохерище. Не, ну это просто унижение игроков ))) Ах да, нет русского перевода - позор и только! Ладно, что-то разошёлся. В целом, ещё раз, за скоромные деньги - продукт простой и годный, но 700 р - это не тянет и на 10% от полого.

I've got mixed feelings about this game as far as recommending it or not. But I did in fact play it all the way through to 103% completion, I had fun, and most of my complaints I think are setting very high expectations against what is basically a solo dev indie game project. So with that in mind, this game's pretty good. I'll divide this review into segments. First, the early game. It starts very slow, you're very weak and have no abilities for a good 1-2 hours. This phase is mainly simple platforming and meticulous combat with enemies, dodging and sniping with your blaster that only shoots 3 meters in any direction. You find a boss or two and get new powerups, all good. The mid-game is... "broad". You are given 3 destination markers in the very corners of your map, and you have basically 2-3 huge areas to explore trying to get to one of them. The markers are actually kind of a lie since you can't actually reach them immediately without a bunch of other augments, and they have a fairly clear intended order even though the game presents it like they're all equal. So there is a weird couple of hours in the midgame where 1) you have this huge area to explore and wander around trying to get to these beacons 2) you need to sort of stumble upon the correct rooms to reach bosses to unlock augments to actually make progress, and 3) once you have those right augments (there's no telling what the "right" ones are) then you can try for one of the beacons, but only one or two of them are actually accessible at this stage. The midgame is mainly defined by the sticky bomb and then learning to use these rather awkward bomb jumps to get around. There were so many times I did a sketchy bomb jump to cross a gap and then said "there's no way this is the actually intended move" and then just... never being sure. The exploring and getting lost feeling is kinda fun, but I can also see lots of players just giving up around here. The late game seems to quickly unlock a whole ton of movement options all at once, starting with the air booster. It feels cool to start going fast everywhere, but the total number of movement options starts to feel pretty jank the more of them you have. Soon you have a slide, air dash, drop + spin chained to bomb jump and/or bounces, air booster chained to diagonal boosts, a midair hover augment, midair booster augment, wall grip, water dash and speedy swim, water "shinespark"..... In particular the midair booster seems to be the least reliable. You're supposed to be able to stop in midair and charge a boost (with the right augment) but even though it's a single button press it seems to just ignore the input 20% of the time and I just fall to my death. Again, a couple rooms where I thought "there's no way this is intended" and just brute forced my way through it (mostly shinespark stuff which is kind of interesting in its implementation but very frustrating to actually use). Boss fights also become trivialized once you find the Violent Injector. Fast travel becomes more of a pain when tracking down the last few powerups, and while there is a teleport mechanic, it isn't actually unlocked until you're at like 90% completion. There is a huge difficulty spike in platforming right at the end (Sparkblood mines... the vertical conveyor belt segment combined with all those spikes + lava). Then you just go to the last room and fight a boss and the game just kinda.... ends! It's very abrupt and leaves a ton of questions and is not really satisfying at all which is why I haven't mentioned the story here. All in all, that's about 17 hours of gameplay, which is way more than I was expecting. I probably won't do it again, but this was an overall fairly good experience and pretty well polished for a solo dev project. So I gotta respect that.

Jogo incrível. Eu demorei para adquirir, mas quando comecei a jogar me diverti bastante. As habilidades foram bem divertidas de aprender também. A habilidade que tive mais dificuldade de me adaptar foi a do peixe. Muito complexa e houveram locais que não consegui acessar devido a não ter o controle correto dela. No geral, foi um jogo muito bom.

if anyone complains about silksong taking forever I'm going to tell them to play this game. Because this is hollow knight without the polish.

[h1] A nice little throwback [/h1] Rebel Transmute is a nice little throwback Metroidvania harkening back to the more classic Metroid days. In the game, you play as Moon, an explorer searching for her mother when she encounters rogue planetoid. Crashing and going into a coma, she awakens inside the planet and must traverse it to discover it's secrets and to find her mother. Frankly, the plot is pretty barebones with very little in the way of development. That isn't to say that the plot isn't good, it's serviceable enough, and the conclusion did give me the feels. But, it's really not the main focal point and that's fine. Moon herself doesn't say much during the story, she is talkative when she meets some of the various robots and what not on the planet but otherwise she is mainly silent. Gameplay wise, this is as good of a Metroidvania that you can get. Moon starts with a blaster, able to shoot in each cardinal direction (only able to shoot down when she jumps), she can jump and do a dash on the ground which is good for avoiding enemies and what not. Throughout the course of the game Moon will be able to air-dash, climb walls, and all kinds of fun stuff. The "Mutations" are what the game calls a lot of abilities but the thing that changes the most are the augmentations. The augments can change the gameplay up a bit. You will get such things in your augments as more control over the bombs you get, increasing the distance of you blaster, many such things. You can even remove some, even removing items from your HUD for more battery. I didn't get every augment in the game, but the ones I did get made the game rather neat, as I could tailor my play style to how I want to play. I am a very defensive player by nature so I wanted to get movement options to better avoid damage. Combat is rather simple but still enjoyable, shoot stuff and it dies. The blaster Moon has can be upgraded, via a robot and collectibles, and it is satisfying to use. My biggest issue is the blaster is rather short range, and initially hitting an enemy with it causes Moon to be pushed back (luckily an augment can negate this effect). And you get the aforementioned bombs. There is also an unlockable laser that takes up your energy to heal. Other than those, your options for offense are rather limited and I found myself wishing I had a rocket launcher or different lasers or such to make the game just a bit different. Exploration is the name of this game though and I can say that the game delivers. Each of the areas are super interesting to explore, and they are rather varied; the Sunken Basin (the obligatory Water zone) looks and traverses differently than the Mines (which are more lava-y). Moon can jump, dash, climb walls, bounce on enemies, do a ton of stuff to move through the game. There are also different fast travel options so you don't have to actually run everywhere. As mentioned, each zone is varied, so you shouldn't get too lost. Enemy variety is a nice surprise too, although the number of enemies that fly and that could shoot through walls did annoy me a ton. The biggest complain I have is that Moon only starts with 3 health and each enemy deals 1 hit of damage. You can increase this, but I didn't find a way to negate damage in anyway, thus making the first few sections very challenging since I couldn't get hit that much. Moon also can't move when she is healing, but she does get energy back when she deals damage to an enemy so you technically have infinite healing if you stay undamaged. Bosses are all pretty good, no stand outs really, some are more frustrating, I noticed a lot of them have rush attacks where they just rush at Moon and deal damage that way. I hate that type of enemy, since the hit box gets huge and you can get hit multiple times. All in all, I would definitely recommend Rebel Transmute. It's a fun little adventure, runs great on the Steam deck and is good for a solid 20ish hours. 8/10

Um jogo com mais representatividade do que identidade, mecânicas e temáticas "inspiradas" em grandes obras, o que mais me incomodou foi a trilha sonora enjoativa e um enredo ruim. Resumo: jogo sem identidade, só representatividade.

Awesome Metroidlike. Exploration is fun and rewarding. Loved everything about it.

地圖的設計太差。廣大的地圖但傳送點太少。有的地方怪很多，還沒有重生點。很容易被卡在某一個區域。然後花了31小時通關了，還是不懂它的結局是三小，所以這個故事要講啥?遊戲體驗真的不好，完全不推。

[i]My playtime at finishing the game at 56% was ~12 hours and ~16 hours at 80%. [/i] [b][i]Rebel Transmute[/i][/b] is a Metroidvania in a sci-fi setting. The protagonist arrives at an abandoned colony and research facility to find her mother and discovers what happened there. The game briefly mentions unrestrained capitalism, workers’ rights, and transhumanism. There are relatively few story cut-scenes and side quests. [h2]It is a challenging and demanding Metroidvania with some accessibility options.[/h2] The exploration is satisfying, though the semi-ranged combat is somehow less appealing than the usual for the genre melee. The variety of the regular foes and the challenging bosses is quite decent, while each new traversal ability feels like a significant improvement. There are also passive abilities, providing range for the character builds. All character upgrades are found (including purchasing from the vendors) and there is no level up screen as such. The abilities can have synergies and not all of it is explained or obvious upon unlocking the respective transmutation (e.g. the Water Spark or the diagonal dash). While there is contact damage from foes and it is not possible to disable, there are also a few late-game abilities which make the MC cause a high amount of damage to the opponents upon contact and pet-like creatures who can attack the nearby foes, including the ones behind walls or platforms. So, it somehow evens out. To add to the exploration part, quite early, several main objectives appear on the map. However, I was unable to reach them when first entering the respective biome, as abilities from the other biomes were required. The map, while generally quite helpful, rarely indicates that there is a specific ability-related environmental element to interact with, such as a purple plant to bounce from or a wall to break. Thus, I got lost several times trying to check all unfinished rooms and find the path forward. The pixel art visual style is expressive and fitting, providing a decent visibility for the foes and interactive objects. The soundtrack is present and the game is VA-free. The controls are mostly rebindable, the game saves the exact progress on exit, though Windows Explorer is still required to have several manual hard saves. I would like to point out that having quick-saving in a game with platforming elements is most welcome and it makes missing jumps and falling to the bottom of the rooms significantly less enraging. There are a few places where falling would lead to long and unpleasant backtracking. There are accessibility options, such as a visual indicator for jumping, removing damage from the environmental hazards, and increasing health, but there are also timed gameplay sequences on the critical path which require some level of precision. I have encountered one bug during my playthrough - an optional boss battle did not count as completed.