Bang Bang Fire: Cannot intuit the mechanics of the Death Note/Could not solve the Kira case.

Fixer: Cannot intuit the mechanics of the Death Note/Could solve the Kira case.

Healer: Can intuit the mechanics of the Death Note/Could not solve the Kira case.

Knower: Can intuit the mechanics of the Death Note/Could solve the Kira case.

Watcher: Probably would be manipulated and killed by kira.

at some point you gotta stop saying vaguely evocative shit and making me rorschach test it into something of value

and actually show me something of value

barring a few sleights of hand in the presentation, this is almost entirely a waste of time. and if you're interested in said sleights of hand, you would probably be better off making ur way through satoshi kon's actual oeuvre. or anything by yuasa. the only thing this gains out of being a videogame is... weirdly long chunks of time getting lost in a huge archvis greybox doing random fetch quests with minimally helpful markers and no map?

I absolutely love walking simulators and adventure games. Any day, I will choose a game with a fantastic story over anything else. The complex story and moral choices in 1000xResist initially drew my attention, but ultimately, it left me with a walking simulator filled with anime tropes and more questions than answers. This game swiftly teaches you that there are no definitive answers or absolutes. The game begins with a reasonable number of questions, but towards the end, only a few remain. What remained for me was a game I will soon forget.

You play a character named Watcher. She is one of the Six Sisters, who are part of some sort of post-apocalyptic society or group. The environment is very sterile and too perfect. It almost feels like a starship or something else. The game thrusts you into an unknown part of this timeline. It is up to you to unravel and follow the linear path that the game leads you on. There are a few instances where you have more control over Watcher, specifically when you explore the "center" and engage in conversations with people. This ends up feeling like a chore because you have to do it multiple times, and only yesterday (as of this writing) did the developers patch in a map. There is almost no gameplay. If you consider zipping around the sky on some flying orbs as gameplay, you shouldn't expect much more. You will likely navigate through thousands of lines of spoken dialogue. The voice-over is decent, if mundane. Even side characters and NPCs speak in every scene.

The pacing is the only thing the game has going for it. While the first few chapters feel repetitive, as you commune with various sisters, you go from location to location, simply walking around in small rooms and engaging in dialogue. This will bore anyone who isn't an adventure game fan. The story is hard enough to follow, and when you try to make sense of it all, you get more characters to trust you. The game advances when you talk to the correct person. At times, the game presents this as a task, while at others, it becomes more evident.

This game defies easy description or explanation. At times, the dialogue and story can be quite poignant, touching on topics such as adolescence and parental conflict and separation. Additionally, the game heavily references the COVID-19 pandemic, with characters donning masks and discussing a disease that could potentially wipe out humanity. Honestly. I can't even tell you if that's exactly what the story is about, as it's so vague all the time. We don't get any true, hard facts on what's going on in this world. The "Allmother" named Iris serves as the foundation for these Six Sisters, who have the ability to replicate themselves. It's just a bunch of confusing threads that don't really lead anywhere.

I had a strong desire to enjoy this game. The narrative exhibits promise, featuring numerous characters on the verge of likability or memorability, yet it succumbs to the anime conventions of guiding you through a perpetually perplexing plot, only to leave you feeling let down at the conclusion. At times, the narrative excels, presenting you with a flurry of answers towards the conclusion. This can be satisfying and memorable, but 1000xResist just refuses to give in. I just wanted the game to end, but it goes on for 10–12 hours even if you read all of the dialog and skip most of the voice lines. The choices don't really matter until the very end of the game, and even then, you aren't sure if there were choices earlier that mattered. 

1000xResist is hard to recommend, even to anime lovers. The animations, visuals, and everything else are fairly generic, forgettable, and mostly dull. The game's overuse of bloom and lack of lip-syncing during dialog gives it a cheap, low-budget feel, which is normally acceptable if executed well. The game drags the player along for so long that, in the end, you expect a massive pay-off but end up with a fizzle and sputter. I can't really recommend this game to anyone outside of die-hard adventure game fans.

Uh, wow. So heavy are this game's themes (though, I stress, not heavy-handed) that I could only really bear playing a chapter a day. But at no point did I consider stopping; the writing and performances were just that... well, 'good' undersells them but I can't really speak to the sheer breadth of their quality without writing a full essay. In any case, don't let the simplistic graphics lull you into a false set of low expectations. 1000xResist will be your Best Narrative pick for GOTY, if you see it through.

Another piece of art that uses its absurd, whiplashing setting to explore deeply cultural, philosophical and psychological themes.

The good thing is, it’s empathetic, it’s emotional, it’s deep and it works. This is one of those games that want you to think, and think it makes you do.

It is recent and thus it’s relevant, but its themes transcend time. It touches on themes like the cycle of oppression, revolution and forgiveness; striving to make its own point about how we should approach our everlasting societal problems.

It’s deeply political whilst maintaining an absurd science fiction post-apocalyptic setting. It shows the grand scheme of things, while focusing on its own major players, fleshing out their human aspects.

It’s a time-bending journey that creates parallels between generations; between real life and fiction. And it does so using very much familiar ingredients; yet it is thought-provoking in a way I’ve never witnessed before.

I lived in this game; the 12 hours it took to get through it felt like 100, and I mean that in a good way. The way it was able to explore so much in such a short amount of time is nothing short of a narrative masterpiece.

It really came out of nowhere, and hit me like a truck. I hope people are able to go past looks and lack of action gameplay and let themselves experience this. It really is deserving of a spot among the best of the best.

I’m going to have to accept that avoiding hyperbole here is probably not possible, because, man…this is just the kind of transcendent game that only comes every once in a while and reminds me why I love this medium so deeply. It’s easily one of the most powerful gaming experiences I’ve ever had, and I strongly suspect that it will eventually become one of my all time favorite games once it’s fully settled itself into my brain.

It’s astounding that this is the first game by the small team at Sunset Visitor. It’s a wildly ambitious project. A nearly 15-hour narrative focused adventure, thoughtfully written and fully voiced, with gorgeous art and genuine cinematography. It’s packed with inspired ideas - part high-concept sci-fi apocalypse story, part immigrant family drama, part psychological mystery, that spans many years and multiple main characters. The plot twists and reveals reshape and reinvent the narrative focus and scope multiple times over, multiplying the themes without managing to drop any of them.

Where to even begin in unraveling these themes? It’s obviously a post-pandemic story, offering reflections on what we’ve all gone through since 2020 by way of a fictional contagion that causes its victims to cry themselves to death. It also weaves in an alien invasion that asks us to grapple with understanding and communicating with unknown forms of life, and intention versus outcomes. Then there’s the story of Iris, an Asian-Canadian teenager, and her relationships with her parents - who left Hong Kong following the 2019 protests - and her friend Jiao, a recent Chinese immigrant, which integrates powerful ideas of generational and cultural conflict, both internal and external. The culture that develops following these events, which you witness through the eyes of Iris/Allmother, Watcher, Blue, and the dozens of other characters in the Orchard highlights how religions and cultural movements develop, our complicated relationships with faith and loyalty, and how we shape our worldviews. Then there are the more personal ideas of alienation, regret, mental and physical illness, bodies, identity, nature, nurture, memory, forgiveness…and it goes on.

Even making a brief list here of all of the disparate but interconnected subject matter is a bit of a task, let alone expounding on any of it to any meaningful degree, which is something I don’t have much interest in doing here, where I typically just like to give some cursory thoughts upon completing a game. In 2021, I was so awed and inspired by Disco Elysium that I made an hour-long YouTube analysis video, and this is the first game since then that has me even vaguely considering making another one. All I will say here is that Sunset Visitor has weaved so many ideas into a complex tapestry that somehow does service to all of them, and the result is supremely impressive.

I played this game on the heels of listening to the very enlightening conversation between Remap Radio’s Rob Zacny and Xalavier Nelson Jr. (of Strange Scaffold and lead on El Paso, Elsewhere, another one of the coolest and most memorable game narrative experiences in recent memory) for the most recent LudoNarraCon. They talked a lot about evolving perspectives on gameplay/interactivity vs linear storytelling, and I kept coming back to a point that both of them were making throughout the talk, which is that, regardless of the ratio between these two often competing design approaches, the potential of interactivity to elevate a story to harder-hitting levels when done right.

This is an interesting concept to consider for this game in particular, for a couple reasons. First, this game has some extremely strong writing, art, and direction, to the point that I think it COULD have still worked very well within another medium. It shares a lot of visual language with anime, for example, and takes clear inspiration from the psychological horror of Satoshi Kon’s Perfect Blue, or the sci-fi worldbuilding and aesthetic stylings of Neon Genesis Evangelion. I feel fairly confident in saying that 1000xRESIST would be an absolute banger of an anime, even if I'd still argue it works better as a game. Additionally, while other strong narrative-heavy games from recent memory (Sleeper Citizen, Pentiment, the aforementioned Disco Elysium) incorporate clear and present elements from tabletop roleplaying games, like player choice, dice rolls, or even character stats, the “gamey” aspects of the game are fairly limited. Most of the interactive parts are spent just running around talking to people. The communion sequences make use of a mechanic where you can jump back and forth between different moments of time, and another where you move around abstract environments by zipping to various points in the area. The very last scene of the game asks you to make choices that will determine the ending, but until then, dialogue options are purely for added flavor, not steering the course of the story, as far as I could tell. And that’s about it.

And yet, there’s undeniable power in these interactive aspects. Getting to explore the Orchard, becoming familiar with its many interconnected pathways, then feeling like a stranger to it again as it changes - that’s important. Coming to know all the side characters and recognizing them later on is important. Controlling the time period and perspective to unravel mysteries in the Allmother’s psyche is important. There are multiple communion sequences so engrossing that I nearly stopped noticing the fact that I was controlling all of it, the interactivity becoming an automatic impulse equivalent with my desire to learn what happened next, yet key to my absolute immersion in embodying the character(s). It’s a sublime synthesis, and the game does it over and over again.

This is kind of a hard review to write. There’s so much more I can dive into thematically and/or emotionally, not to mention things like just how damn good looking it is (I am once again on my soapbox about how graphics never needed to surpass the PS2 era, with this game’s Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne-esque stark beauty as my prime example), or how well the voice actors embody a cast of characters who are largely all clones of the same person with their own unique personalities. Each of the game’s many aspects could warrant a few thousand words, so I’ll just end my rambling here. I know that I’m going to be thinking about this game every day for the foreseeable future anyway. I can’t wait to see what more revelations I come to as I do, and to finally start to read and listen to what other people have to say about it.

A really compelling narrative that shifts between the domestic and the planetary. It has so many rug pulls and shifts in perspective that despite its very long run time I was constantly being surprised. It feels like a big shift in the way that the interactive narrative games (ones where the only mechanics are movement and those that let you view your surroundings or trigger dialogue) can work. Its definitely the most ambitious game of its type I've encountered and managed to feel like something genuinely new and exciting.

A particularly powerful characteristic of games as a medium is that, in creating a virtual world with its own rules and that runs on its own time, they can not only achieve a level of immersion other forms of media struggle with, but also, they can employ and borrow liberally from the tools those other forms of media use without breaking the experience. There are multiple examples of games that do so, but the latest and a new favorite is 1000xResist.

To define 1000xResist succinctly is in itself a challenge: to simply say that it is a sci-fi narrative game does help a potential player tell if it's their type of game or not, but betrays the amount of layers there are to the game and how much there is to see beneath the surface. It's a groundbreaking work, and if I only have this one paragraph left to convince you, let me say this: if you enjoy narrative games in any way, and especially if you make narrative games yourself, this is the game to pay attention to in 2024.

It was developed by and is the debut title of Sunset Visitor, a studio composed mostly of Asian-Canadian folks, and the events of the game take place on Earth, over a thousand years from the present day. Somewhere near the middle of the 21st century, Earth was visited by aliens humans called the Occupants. The Occupants didn't attack, per se, but they brought with them a horrifying disease that caused humans infected by it to rapidly perish. Only one person was immune: a young girl named Iris, who seemed to become immortal instead.

Failure to develop a cure in time, however, left Iris as the sole survivor from our species, and all those who walk the Earth, one thousand years after the occupants arrived, are clones of her. She is revered as the ALLMOTHER, who fights the Occupants to reclaim the surface. Meanwhile, her clones, who call each other sister, live in peace within a large enclosed facility called the Orchard, each sister with an assigned role. This is where the player joins the story as the new Watcher, whose function is to experience the ALLMOTHER's memories in Communion and interpret her teachings.

Based on that synopsis, one might expect the story to approach the themes of religion at some point, which it does. With so much death and technology, maybe it would ponder the meaning of life and what being alive really is, and that's also here. But would you expect it to discuss diaspora, and the challenges it places on the people undergoing it? Would you expect one of the deepest and most poignant explorations of generational trauma ever to grace videogames? Do you think 1000xResist has something to say about real-world geopolitical conflicts? About the nature of totalitarian regimes and the process through which they are created?

Because it does discuss those things, and much more. That is why it is such a difficult work to define in just a sentence, because it juggles such a wealth of themes that focusing just on the speculative fiction premise comes off as empty. Not to say that that premise is disconnected from the themes, however -- far from it. Even more impressive than the breadth of themes is how seamlessly they are woven into the narrative, how all of them emerge organically from the elements and characters in the story. With 1000xResist Sunset Visitor achieved something extremely challenging: to create a work that takes a crystal clear stance on several political issues, while not even for a moment feeling preachy.

As fantastic as the setting might be, as many cloning facilities, infinitely renewable resources and impossible life support technologies it might feature, 1000xResist feels authentic, as if it was a continuation of human history itself, with each event but a natural consequence of that which preceded it. The characters also avoid the fate of being one-dimensional stand-ins for the ideas they represent and instead sound like real people, with beliefs and personalities shaped by the environments they lived in. It also helps that the game features extensive voice acting that feels, for lack of a better word, mundane – not in a bad way, but as if these were real people having conversations.

Which is a good segue to get out of the 'what' and, going back to the intro of this review, to talk about the 'how'. Gameplay is split between two parts: the Orchard and the Communions, and while it would be unfair to say that it is in the latter that the direction truly shines, it is in the surreal, dream-like sequences of the ALLMOTHER's memory that the game's inspirations become more evident. Each Communion has a distinct flavour to it: some borrow a lot from cinema, while others replicate books or theater in their presentation. Some sequences are straightforward, while others are maze-like.

Nier is explicitly listed as an inspiration for 1000xResist, and it shows: Sunset Visitor plays around with the camera and its own mechanics, sometimes subverting players' expectations of how the game would play, to add metanarrative elements to certain passages. Sometimes, the camera is used to communicate the constrained feeling of an environment. Other times, the layout of the stage expresses confusion or unwillingness of the ALLMOTHER to share details of a memory. In some of the game's more climactic moments, a barrage of different shots is presented interwoven, seeming, at first, like a series of unrelated facts, but that soon begin to coalesce as the game slowly and elegantly ties its own story together.

The use of color is also noteworthy, with the game making great use of colored lighting to establish moods and frame its many scenes. The expert craftsmanship is apparent: 1000xResist is a game made by a small team with a very low budget, but you wouldn't think so at first glance because the competent art direction knew which corners to cut. Characters are beautifully rendered and well animated, since they're the focal points of most scenes, but the environments' comparatively simple geometry and texturing is played to the game's benefit, with scene composition favoring strongly defined shapes, spaces and colors that effectively communicate what the artists and designers wanted to show or say. So many indie games display hideous, low-effort visuals and try to pass them off as "retro" or "low-poly", and it's great to see one that goes the complete opposite way and deals so well with its own limitations.

This is an outstanding game, no matter how you slice it. 1000xResist is a stellar work of art that has been living rent-free in my head since I finished it, and will probably continue to for some time. It absolutely should not be slept on. Hekki Grace, sisters!

1000xResist is one of those sleeper indie games I picked up because of the seemingly out of nowhere cult favoritism and fanfare they've gotten, thinking I may be in the running for a hidden gem and possible memorable sleeper hit. What I quickly found out as I made my way through this visual-novel esque piece of abstract was that you are intended to revel and take in the confusion as a piece of endearment towards this media and not as a detraction. The scope of the narrative is entirely obscure and reminiscent of an amalgamation of futuristic and philosophical pieces of work that I've experienced in the past like Nier: Automata, Land of the Lustrous, and strangely enough Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. I'm all for the out-there when it comes to penning a story, but there has to be a level of grounding for me to have a buy-in. Nier: Automata's abstractism and grandiose questioning of Philip K Dickian ponderings works because it has an immediate pressing storyline to help carry on the deeper and more intrinsic philosophies. Where 1000xResist separates for me is that you as the player are immediately thrust into a cavernously deep thought-focused plot with no real endeavor made to either coat it under an easier to parse coat of paint or giving it a guiding light. I'm not saying that it needed to be spoken to the player like they were out of Idiocracy or something, but Moreso that levelling out a ten or so hour experience in abstract and only making it more confusing and... abstract leads to a story that never really sticks for me.

I was able to understand the loose goings-ons of things as they happened and the messages placed throughout the game, but it never really struck with me as a critically important or thought provoking piece of media. This is the same gripe I had with the last six episodes of Neon Genesis: Evangelion that gets me in hot water with friends of mine as we discuss the hallmark and legendary anime. As the creator delved further into the conceptional of Shinji's mind and enemies at large and further and further into psychological mysticism, I fell out of favor with the show. It felt like it was trying to "think too much" and not "say enough." That is ultimately my qualm with 1000xResist, there is a lot being done in weird ways that are meant to be symbolic and interesting but ultimately fell flat because of the persistence to non-linear and ambiguous storytelling.

On top of qualms with the way the story was told, there are some slight issues I had with this game that don't really chalk up to much of a real con-list: voice acting I felt could have been greatly improved to create a more passionate tale, and the hub world that you revisit quite a bit is maze-like and annoying to traverse.

Pick this up if you want a mildly interesting (basically) visual novel that jumps heavily into science fiction themes, but if you want a game that will stick with you and make you think, this was not it.

Holy fuck

Hoooooly fuck

This might just be one of the best games of all time. Such beautiful writing.

i'm not exaggerating when i say this is one of the most incredible games i've had the pleasure of playing. everything about this game is so carefully crafted and unapologetic about its style and sentimentality. the cinematic shot compositions and camera work are peak -- every cutscene frame could be a painting made for a wong kar-wai animated sci-fi film.

without digging into spoilers, the wide breadth of themes present in the narrative (anti-asian racism, experience of the asian diaspora , historical revisionism, intergenerational trauma, cycles of abuse and violence, motherhood and girlhood, etc etc) are covered with such thought-provoking depth and care. the writing is so succinct and sharp -- cutting straight to the emotional core that perfectly balances tragedy and the grief that follows with hope and levity in the connections we make within our relationships. it never feels pretentious or preachy -- it's honest. it perfectly captures both the beauty and cruelty of what it means to be alive.

genuinely a game i will think about forever... i never write reviews and i don't think i'll make a habit of doing so, but i felt the need to write something short because i genuinely think this is a masterful portrayal of storytelling in games....thank you to the devs who worked on this game <3

People who say video games are worse nowadays seriously need to play this and Lorelei and the Laser eyes. Starts off about as dreamlike and intense as the “surreal finale” of many other games, progressing through notes harsh enough to make it into the history books. I don’t think I can quite call this a “groundbreaking” experience since in all earnesty I’ve seen most all of these narrative notes and structural beats in various other places, but its dedication to its own voice and its understanding of the sci-fi genre make it possibly the best overly cinematic game I’ve played. 1000xResist is still an awful title lmao

So often does this medium surprise me with its continuing innovations in how a narrative can be presented in an interactive format that when something this good comes about, I'm left damn-near speechless. This is one of the most layered, interesting bodies of narrative fiction ever conceived, only made better by the fact that you, the player, are behind the wheel at every turn. Every shift in perspective, every crazy twist, every beautiful and painful moment - you're there, and you really feel it. I cannot begin to sing the praises of this masterwork enough; just play it already.

Es difícil poner en palabras una experiencia que aun tu cerebro esta procesando y asimilando.

Quizás eso ya diga mucho del juego: 1000xResist es uno de esos juegos que dejan poso, que dejan su huella y te acompañan durante mucho tiempo.

1000xResist es una aventura narrativa, lo que viene a ser una novela gráfica con pasos extras, increíblemente bella con una gran puesta en escena (se nota que parte del equipo desarrollador hay gente que viene del teatro) e increíblemente bien actuada (al menos en una gran parte).

Lo único malo es la parte "juego" que presenta que a veces es increíblemente tediosa (navegar por la laberíntica zona principal para poder hablar con todos los personajes en varios momentos del juego) o simplemente innecesarias como la secciones donde saltamos de un punto a otro para llegar al siguiente marcador.

Una pequeña e insignificante mancha para el que es sin duda uno de los juegos del año.

Incredibly bold storytelling with a stong style and confidence to its narrative and design.

Gets a little incomprehensible towards the end but there's too many pivitol moments that linger with me to knock it too hard.

Also one of the few games where I prefer the limited nature of the mechanics; anything additional would have likely gotten in the way of story and likely wouldn't have added much to the experience.

Feels like a long lost PS2 game. Thumbs up.

I went into this game looking at the screenshots thinking it was going to be a bit stale but it was actually quite opposite. What I got was something I didn't expect which surprised me. It's hard to get into why this game really stood out to me without spoiling it but they way it handles specific situations and dealing with other's emotions and thoughts was really well done.

The way scenes were left to breathe as you soaked in the dialogue and beautifully minimal backgrounds felt like a film at times. While the game is basically you running around talking to others I actually felt compelled to rather than skipping the optional dialogue. I felt like the way the story went was great and the pacing was really well done. I don't see this as a game everyone can enjoy but for those looking for something a bit deeper in terms of themes and don't mind running around without action, then this will probably be your game.