There are games you finish and don't know what to say because they are so unremarkable, and then there are games like 1000x resist where I sit at my computer inmediately after thinking how exactly I could do the game justice without just playing it again whilst taking notes.

I'll try to be brief, but what 1000x resist's sci fi narrative adventure game brings to the table is that its not only dense as hell plot and theme wise, feeling almost like an adaptation of some acclaimed novel, whilst also having stylistic flourishes that are both impressive and also feel purposeful in a way that a higher budget game probably wouldn't. They made a game this visually striking with what feels like cardboard sets and a few unity shaders. The starkness of the environment design and the various shifts of perspective from over the shoulder to first person to top down to side scroller in a way that feels elegant rather than whiplash to the extreme.

The credits have the usual indie game thing where one guy was Modeler, Texturer, Writer, Designer, Costum Designer, Chef, Lawyer and Defender of the Innocent. The game is so impressive as someone who does 3D modelling myself, I have taken a bunch of screenshots of the game simply because I love how they look. One small ass team somehow puts most AAA games I've played to shame in the visual department.

Thats not to say the game's budget or lack thereof doesn't become apparent with the lack of facial animation. Of course the game understands this to some extent, hence the choice of making the sisters require masks to breathe and be clones of each other (hence, only like 5 or so models had to be rigged up) but thats what taking advantage of your limitations is all about.

Story wise, its again hard for me to really comment because its dense but in a way that all great narratives are, like say, Moby Dick or The Truman show, which are enjoyable both at surface level and on a deeper read of the symbolism. Not everything worked for me, and the resolutions of the endings could have perhaps been more elegant, as well as all the Hong Kong stuff carrying the stench of liberalism about it (Incidentally the cops of the provisional government being called the Red Guard was really on the nose) but the game is otherwise so engaging that I don't mind. Strong personal contender for GOTY, it and Extreme Evolution : Drive to Divinity are the front-runners for me.

"Hekki Grace, Sister."
Quase todo ano tem pelo menos um jogo que me faz lembrar do porque eu amo vídeo-joguinhos, eu sei que essa é uma frase jogada quase o tempo todo por gente que está sempre falando "a indústria está morta, não há mais jogos bons" mas não tem uma melhor para descrever como eu me sinto nesse momento. Em adição a isso também me faz lembrar do quanto eu quero criar experiências como 1000xResist ou Signalis, arte que mesmo com suas limitações utiliza sua mídia ao máximo para quebrar suas expectativas de novo e de novo.

"Hair to Hair, Sister."
Há muito a se falar sobre 1000xResist, o seu texto, simbolismos e personagens são tão ricos e com tantos significados diferentes que eu poderia ficar por horas discutindo sobre, sobre os protestos de Hong Kong principalmente, mas sinto que quanto menos quem for jogar saber mais interessante vai ser a experiência. Uma das coisas mais curiosas desse jogo para mim é como ele parece uma peça de teatro, o uso de luz, poses e exageros para comunicar emoções de formas diferentes por toda a campanha; já que o jogo é basicamente um talking simulator com alguns simples e fáceis puzzles (não há combate) toda a diversidade vem dos visuais e em diferentes mudanças na forma em que a narrativa é contada, e em todos esses momentos a criatividade/expertise dos desenvolvedores são EVIDENTES.
(Os desenvolvedores aparentemente trabalharam com teatro e similares, faz sentido)
Eu demorei um pouco mais de 10 horas para zerar 1000xResist e é surpreendente que um jogo independente com tanto texto e diferentes personagens está completamente atuado, e ainda mais surpreendente: com incríveis atuações no geral.
A parte mais fraca de 1000xResist é na sua fidelidade gráfica, é aparente que o jogo foi desenvolvido para Nintendo Switch e o port para PC possuí diversos problemas com mudança de controles, performance e falta de customização (que provavelmente é a causa de tais problemas de performance), mas nada disso tirou a beleza teatral do jogo para mim.

"Sphere to Square"
Eu não sei se este jogo terá o mesmo Cult-Following que Signalis e outros similares tiveram ao passar dos anos, já que apesar de tudo que eu disse ainda é praticamente uma visual novel e nem todo mundo curte isso, mas se você já tinha algum interesse ou tem gostos para arte similares aos meus, por favor jogue 1000xResist, vai te chocar, vai te fazer chorar, vai te fazer rir, vai te assustar, e mais importante de tudo: Te lembrará que não conseguimos colocar tudo em nossas mochilas, por mais que queremos.

1000xResist é meu jogo do ano até o momento e acho difícil algo tirar, mas vai que o Miyazaki cozinhou um The Old Hunters² ai, nunca se sabe.

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?

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.

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.

Holy fuck

Hoooooly fuck

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

There's a common criticism of games as a medium that even their best narratives lack something in comparison to those of books, movies, etc. And while games are what I love, from a narrative perspective I have found that framing hard to disagree with. There are several games that have changed my life, but they are so often unsophisticated in their meaning-making. They are frequently blunt in their delivery and single-purposed, perhaps because it is so difficult to do all of the creative mediums at once and tell a story with interactivity. I love games because of that ambition, and yet...

I think 1000xResist actually defies that notion. And I don't mean to say that as if everyone who plays this will have their life changed forever or whatever, but it IS one of the most thought-stirring games I've ever played. It is utterly overflowing in meaning. It is not impressive merely "because it is a video game," or because of clever interactions that "could only happen in a game," yet all the while it makes shrewd use of its interactivity. It's the kind of narrative where truly nothing is without purpose, and I spent its entire runtime learning how to reinterpret past scenes, adding layers to the meaning that I had already derrived.

I'm afraid all of that is going to come across like I'm just dumping hyperbole on it without getting specific. It is sort of a challenge to articulate what it speaks to, because there truly is so much: it speaks to the experience of COVID-19, of the tension between immigrant parents and their children, of fitting in, of finding one's purpose, of generational trauma, of mental health, and so much more.

"But isn't this just the way? We do not get to choose what we inherit."

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

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.

1000XResist is so skillfully recursive, it folds back on itself so effortlessly, it wrenches your heart out and soaks you in addictive melodrama.

There is a core within the core of this game here. Some of the most on the nose stuff, the relation to the Hong Kong protests, I don't care about and wasn't moved to care for. I thought some of the allusions there were inelegant. I have other raw feelings on this but they're unimportant, the point is that despite not really feeling anything for the game's big metaphor and not being really convinced that I should care, it didn't matter.

1000xResist is such an accomplished angsty brood that any clumsiness can be easily forgiven. It takes on all questions, all comers, and leave them wondering what they've been doing with their lives. It is utterly confident in its voice and as powerful a game narrative as I've ever experienced.

Gonna be hard to go back to Stellar Blade after this.

An ambitious and provoking narrative spanning across many generations.

1000xResist, Sunset Visitor's debut work, is undoubtedly one of my favorite releases of the year. Gameplay-wise, it's mostly a walking simulator with light puzzles, but with some excellent direction, it effectively portrays what it wants at various points. Chapter 2 is a clear example of such display by switching to a different gameplay perspective and utilizing more non-linear memory sequences. Each chapter has a distinct feel to it when it comes to its gameplay/art direction. It does look really low budget at many points, with some amateurish voice work. But I loved the style, vision, and methods the developers worked with in order to capture the game.

The game and its themes centering around the 2019 Hong Kong protests, immigration, COVID-19 pandemic, etc. are very prominent. I'm not well-versed with some of the matters the game links itself to, but I believe everything is incredibly weaved into the story and is properly handled. The allusions can be a bit on the nose at times. However, they're still so powerfully portrayed that I don't really have a problem with it. Even if you aren't familiar with what I've described, I'd still recommend to play it even if you slightly understand these problems more afterwards.

Aside from all this, the game has an intriguing mystery to follow with constantly shifting situations and a great cast to boot. There's a great mystique to the game, with every twist and turn pulling you in. The cast of humans and sisters change greatly over the course of the game (or rather unfold), whether it be for better or for worse. There's a lot going on for this game as it focuses on forgiveness, trauma, and so much more to look into.

Other aspects of the game I loved:

In the short time that I spent with them, I enjoyed some of the minor characters. There were some pretty fun interactions and dialogues.

Though the voicework is not consistently good as stated earlier, there were still some fantastic parts.

A truly amazing video game narrative that should not go ignored by anyone who is a fan of story-driven titles. The dialogue and the characters are so skillfully done. I don't want to reveal anything, but the game's story is so ambitious and daunting in scale and it somehow pulls it off. It's a game about SO many things and it somehow doesn't lose itself in that abundance of plotlines and concepts.

There were many times where I thought I had 1000xResist figured out, and it continued to prove me wrong and surprise me. Every time I thought I saw all that this game had to offer, it one-upped itself and just progressively rose further and further up the ranks as one of the most engaging and unique game narratives I've seen.

Obviously, as a narrative-driven game, it's the story that's the crown jewel here but it also has excellent art direction. The graphics and animation are nothing to ride home about, but the framing of scenes and how the camera can be utilized makes so many moments feel dynamic and carefully thought out. It's so well achieved that the many setbacks, like the lack of lip movement on characters, or the fact that there's not much animation at all in scenes - especially intense ones - doesn't feel like it takes away from the impact. It compliments the artistry in a way, whether intentional or not.

Talking about impact, another huge factor of what makes 1000xResist amazing is the voice acting. I was impressed by many of the performances in this game, not to mention that every line in this games script is voiced. Considering how much dialogue there is, and the indie nature of the title, that's an incredible achievement. There were a FEW odd deliveries, in my opinion, and some characters that I wasn't super keen on the performances of, but it's overall pretty excellent work.

Oh man, and THE SOUNDTRACK! A game without a beautiful OST is a crime in my eyes and I really liked what was composed for 1000xResist. With how many perspectives and layers there are to the game, it's so fitting that the music befits that as well. There's tracks that are moody, solemn piano pieces and then there are some exciting synthwave-y tracks. It's not super in-your-face like how many video game OSTs can be, but it's just as much part of the genetic makeup of this game as every other aspect.

I don't have many qualms with this game EXCEPT the Orchard. It's a neat hub area, but I found it sort of tricky to get around. The waypoint system's a bit odd and sometimes I ran around in circles just trying to find the right pathway to get somewhere. A map would have been handy getting better accustomed to it because, for the life of me, I struggled with this my entire playthrough.

Other than that, this game is amazing and I will be there day one to see whatever else the team at Sunset Visitor does next.

In its first week, 1000xResist has received near unanimous praise for its story. I am not one of those people. I wanted to make clear what this is on the surface as a caveat for those sucked in by hype but aren’t primed for this sort of experience, which at points was the only thing keeping me going (besides the fantastic somber music).

The prose often consists of punchy psuedo-poetic labyrinthine conversations. I’d say Disco Elysium has poisoned the well here in terms of how its influence has conditioned gamers to treat cryptic rambling as the gold standard for writing in games. I think there was a finesse to the writing in Disco Elysium that made me believe in it regardless of my inability to latch onto it emotionally or intellectually but I must say I tend to feel dead inside by its imitators. This applies to the work of Hideo Kojima and Yoko Taro as well, whose work is similarly convoluted, but have a playfulness about them I find intoxicating regardless. 1000xResist takes itself far too seriously to develop much of a personality of its own, which leads me to a compounding issue here- the clones.

I think using clones is an excellent idea for a more budgeted title like this (fewer voice actors, fewer models) but it’s detrimental to understanding a complicated story when its singular voice actor is talking to herself in limited shades of aloof and tired. It’s a great gear to be stuck in for a sci-fi story I guess but the emotional range is lacking and the supporting voice talent isn’t doing nearly enough to inject the story with much flavour. Differentiation is needed in a narrative with so many twists and turns- because they were all technically the same people, emotionally I treated them as such. I didn’t care. I didn’t understand the stakes. My plot comprehension is pretty poor on the whole, so calling me out on that is fair, but the acting and writing is actively undermining clarity and I do see that as an underlying flaw.

The gameplay is fine. I like relaxing story-driven games without combat. But let’s talk about its derivative elements. If you’ve played your fair share of games in the past 10 years you’re probably well-acquainted with “vision quest” segments that place you in a hazy psychedelic space with oversized familiar objects untethered by gravity as symbolic waypoints for the fractured psychology of a character’s emotional distress. I am unbelievably tired of this trope, and 1000xResist makes an entire mechanic out of it. TBH it actually pissed me off less in this case just because of its commitment to the bit, but when trying to understand the story in tandem with its other quirks, there’s just layers and layers of inception here I don’t care to sift through.

Again- just my caveats! If you’re predisposed to enjoying these kinds of bendy sci-fi stories, I’m happy you’ll get a lot out of this. Not for me. To give it marginal credit, the prose itself never got anywhere near as bad as the “dumpster Jiao” line in chapter one. There is an overall maturity here I do appreciate despite my objections.

A fascinating, compelling, thrilling dive into a niche subject I'm entirely too white for.

This is a story about Hong Kong and its revolutions, a story about diasporas and perpetuated cycles of violence arising from not being able to fit in. A story creating your personal hell, a story about being unable to forget and forgive. A story about a wound that hasn't been even allowed to scab. A story about having to learn to live with the mistakes you've made.

The game is built out of micro- and macrocosmic representations of the relationship between HK and China and the consequences of them. Iris and Jiao, Orchard and Old Town, a certain couple of characters in the last chapters, the way this little broken society functions and perpetuates -- everything that the game has to show and say cannot reasonably be discussed without also discussing that.
It's really not subtle about it either, at some point the imagery of 2019 protests is entirely in your face; which also makes the game fascinating, since rarely you see a videogame that processes and reflects on events so recent.

However that might make the game somewhat tough to truly resonate with. My general knowledge of Hong Kong protests is limited; before playing this game I didn't even know about the Umbrella Revolution of 2014, and I have only cursory knowledge of major events surrounding it, so actually piecing certain events together required talking to more knowledgeable people and those who actually lived in Hong Kong.

I think the game doesn't do that good of a job of actually connecting its past with its present for audience that is not already intimately familiar with the matter; the imagery is in your face but often enough contextless, leaving the outsiders either to do the research on the matter on their own, try to ground themselves in some other recent conflict (as some do with certain events in the middle east) or, as many do, disregard the imagery outright as something that doesn't interest them. Ultimately, though, I've heard people who are connected to the matter at hand praise the angle this game takes on HK diaspora and how it's weaved into the narrative, so maybe it does do a good job for those it's aimed for.

And yet even if you're Unaware, an attempt should be made.
Dismissing this aspect of the game outright, as some are wont to do, is simply reductive and deeply disrespectful.
While interacting with the game without interacting with its cultural message is entirely possible -- it's a striking, vibrant, compelling narrative in its own right which gives a lot to think about and which can easily be talked about in the lens of its many obvious influences -- one must not dismiss the game's roots.

As a Game™ that is interactable piece of media it's nothing much; there aren't many verbs to it other than Walking and Reading, with a tinge of Flying since the game has bizarre segments which feel like the last chapter of Neon White on sedatives. The meaning of those still eludes me lol they're just not very good.
Yet it's insanely striking visually. Sure, the character models don't really have Fidelity™, but the very distinct atmosphere, choices of colors, choices of camera angles are an unforgettable, deeply enthralling complement to the game's narrative.
The soundtrack also deserves a mention; while it doesn't have many outliers, it fits the mood nicely and has a good leitmotif going throughout the game.

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.

Robert Altman's 3000xWOMEN

Feels like a spin-off from a Yoko Taro alternate ending to a game that doesn't exist.

Some amazing use of cinematography and jumps cuts, clearly made with a lot of passion for both video games and films. Smart resources allocation make this game feel like a grand odyssey despite the small budget/team, the developers get so much mileage out "basic shapes" or "static poses". You rarely see games with such a well-defined vision, totally its own, like a one of a kind punch to the stomach (in a good way).

Absolutely floored. 1000xResist is one of my favorite games in years and quite possibly my Game of The Year for 2024!

Without question, it is the story that shines here. In terms of gameplay, it's a pretty straightforward walking sim with some light dialogue choice systems and a bit of Adventure game dna. That story though?

1000xResist is a scifi narrative game that explores themes of Pandemic, authoritarianism, and the Hong Kong protests. Its world, shaped by the last living human -- a teenage girl -- and her many clones is bleak and uncomfortable. There is a sense of artifice to everything, because their world has no opportunity for anything else. Everything is fake, everything is a lie, and you the Watcher, the one person in the world who gets to know the truth.

The magic of this story is in the execution; every layer and twisting thread is handled perfectly. Far better than I would have dared hope for, and boldly enough to nourish a need that I've had for years.

If you are someone who doesn't mind a walking sim, and if that story description above interests you at all, you MUST play this game.