Overview Redeemer. Study in awkward tones

Redeemer – the child of a long love for computer games. To carry out the desire, a dream game that domestic staff Sobaka Studio hatched, according to the head of development, still at school. Good, even light motivation. Inspirational.

Taking the examples to follow both classic bitemapy like Battletoads , and newfangled fighters like Hotline Miami and Batman from Rocksteady , Sobaka Studio is bent to create the hurricane action in the CIS. With meat, obscenities, killings and luxurious beards. The audience only: on the set of live shows expected Redeemer almost a standing ovation. At a recent conference DevGAMM 2017, for example, the game was awarded for best game design. Richly! Can anything go wrong?

With sadness we hasten to reassure – can. And it is not something, and almost all that great hopes.

We spent on the passage of about a dozen hours, and to the final credits have accumulated countless thoughts and more questions. Being from a small project (five people) studio, Redeemer looked incredibly promising. Looking at the game from the outside, not knowing anything about it, you can not guess what it really indie debut. Mechanics there in place and are organically combined with each other, pretty graphics, krovischa and slo-mo on the spot.

Alas, all doubts disappear after a couple of hours of gameplay. Ideas that sound decent at staff meetings or on paper does not necessarily retain their beauty in practice. To prove this thesis, we will go straight to the page of the game on Steam and analyze in detail the chips mentioned there. In descending order of importance.

It sounds great. Hardcore audience with every fiber of the soul yearns for the “right” of unarmed combat simulation. With improvisation, wide scope for improvement and, most importantly, variability. To be able to follow the precepts of Bruce Lee, and be like water.

In practice, the system of fisticuffs in the Redeemer – is not nothing but a very slow Hotline Miami with notes of “Batman.” One button is responsible for the punch, the second – for kicks. The third need to do somersaults, but in chips about them for some reason forgotten.

De facto of bumps can actually be a combination thereof. But they cause the same damage and are virtually useless. Here’s the thing: kicking and punching differ only in the affected area. If the enemy is one, we mutuzit his fists. If more than one, then the legs to control the crowd immediately. In what situation can be useful series of different attacks is unclear. The game seemed very shy of the shortcomings and even the list of combinations does not. Ironic, is not it?

If you hold down one of the buttons, the impact will be “charged” and the damage it will grow significantly. The protagonist even fly forward as Captain Falcon during his crown reception. But the “charging” lasts a few painful seconds, for which the horde of enemies will turn the player into a puree of testosterone. Enter the blow a longer game does not allow in the bunch, but because using them, you will only be able to show off – even after being well-aimed kick send the latest live enemy in orbit.

Thus, variation techniques – it is a fiction. “Brutal” – perhaps if swotting one button gamepad can be called brutal.

At this point the Redeemer becomes much more interesting. Something tells us: these were the key concepts in the vision Sobaka Studio. You see, the main character – a mighty bearded monk sneakers named Basil – man resourceful. He did not hesitate to use in fights not just pood fists, but almost all of that will at the level of: Knives, clubs, torches, steel bars, vases, barrels and other stationary objects that are difficult to reconcile with the adjective “alive”. Huge circular saws, for example. As planned, the player must combine the available means to destroy all who stand in his way.

It turns out a parade of battle arts: spectacular alternating fists, firearms and other tools found on the locations. When this idea works, to inflame passions and coolness Redeemer easily furnishes the same Hotline Miami. Basil turns to locations in a continuous dance of death. Counterstrike, a series of jaw, somersault, vases cast in the big man with a shotgun, a knife in the ribs one, another to put his head in a red-hot stove … half-dead opponents can immediately finish – “fatality” in Washi arsenal a bit, but it felt right. With a bang.

In fact, you get the fun of action is rare. One reason – if the game even tested, then the process was woefully poorly. It is difficult to come up with another explanation for the mess, which turns Redeemer after the first two (different!) Level.

Action that was to be “busy” turns into a dull monotonous routine, since all enemies except the ordinary, have a really good health. None of them does not pose a threat alone, none of them has interesting features. But they attack Basil literally hordes. And they do not stop the hordes. Enemies respawn again and again, in different places, as if creating a sense of “unusual” combat situations. In fact, the collision hit in samopovtor every couple of minutes. After some time begins to seem that you play Diablo III naked (and blunt) barbarian too high complexity.

About the location, it could make some flavor to the gameplay, it is better not to remember. Let’s say only one thing on our minds Redeemer – perhaps the only game in all seriousness feed elevators as a separate chip. In their honor, called a level.

Weapons and interactive environment clumsily woven into a dynamic and inorganically. At one point the game can overwhelm Basil literally dozens of identical guns in the other, when they are essential, they will not wait. And it is almost physically painful because knead enemies with bare hands can be almost eternity, alternately pressing two buttons. But at other times the game turns into a natural shooter a la Crimsonland, where shotgun fists rivals. In this case, not the fact that the shotgun would be just at the player, not the enemies …

In addition, in some rooms provided almost half a dozen opportunities to throw the enemy at some saw, and other developers like to forget about this chip and shoved us opponents, where such trick does not work.

The player has no bearing on this routine, because that’s all that the game has to offer. We can not find your style of play, we can not experiment, try new things, tactics or tricks. There is no leveling, abilities, gadgets Batman masks or jacket – it seems that the developers are so confident that the combat mechanics will pull on a game that completely forgotten their own sources of inspiration.

Neither Hotline Miami, or Batman: Arkham not even tried to bribe the audience only boevka. They have, in addition to the massacre, was a kind of personality and even aesthetics. Why, in the ancient Battletoads diversity is much greater than in the Redeemer: there is at least possible to break into a pancake on a scooter and kick all.

Rocksteady should patent his invention, by golly. In the Redeemer, we find the very mechanics of Batman: Arkham. However, the developers forget about the details of such an approach. So, Basil, one parry animation to a specific type of enemy and miss and not pressing at the moment do not entail negative consequences. You can peck on the button incessantly and “zaparirovat” all around to stupor. About timings, the study of patterns and other nuances are not talking.

Amusing innovation. The enemies armed with firearms, guns can take. Knives or clubs is not covered, they are not easy for some reason you do not withdraw. But you can tear off a limb. But only the hands, and only one type of enemies, which is found on a number of levels in the middle of the game. Well, at least you can immediately beat poor fellows their own five fingers ( ! Well this is what I have ruined the mechanics in this game came only to vent anger, for example, on some Krivorukov authors and at least metaphorically tear off their hands – Ed. ).

This mechanic does not play a special role in the gameplay, but it can help to create a truly magical situation. The whole pack of mutants can be torn off the hands, all to a man. On the floor of the living space will not go – certainly would lie around like cigarette butts in the bin. A foe, as the Black Knight from “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”, will try to bite you … things which reach.

Or, you can disarm the roomful of special forces, so they rushed to Vasily heels in an attempt to kill him with his bare hands. They can not bend down and pick up weapons from the floor. What fell, then it was gone …

It is in the best traditions of the school screenplay’s Dzhona Karmaka. Naturally, from the silly to require bitemapa drama at the “Citizen Kane.” Therefore, there is not a shame for narrative and for the opportunities offered by the plot outline. Monks and colorful Buddhist monastery, first set up in the eastern fashion, but an hour later we moved into the cesspool of modern shooters – the endless gray-brown lab. Of course, full of mutants, without them nowhere.

This decision was probably also part of the original idea of ​​the game. The developers have implemented it as deemed necessary. Coulda woulda – with the setting and the plot seed you could do a lot. A duel in the spirit of the “House of Flying Daggers” with mechanics Redeemer, we would be happy to look.

Sobaka Studio is not indicated as a distinctive feature of great Redeemer bugs. And very much in vain. There is the usual bouquet: subsidence, clipping, broken scripts, catatonic AI opponents and regularly crash animations. Basil often forgets that he has to “die” at zero health, so often continues to stand, grab his head or portray the “moonwalk.”

But it bugs gave us the most memorable moment in the game! Once we wanted to check whether a real run level, do not enter the fray. It turned out that yes – verzily mutants are not keeping pace with the swift-bearded. One we have not considered: the enemies are no scripts, which would limit the distance persecution. Therefore, within five minutes of Basil locomotive raced all met enemies. A minute later, they tore it, because some of the pipes are lying under the feet of the monk, was an impenetrable wall.

After that game revived Buddhist at checkpoints, but then we were in for a surprise. The entire horde of mutants, we carefully collected, waiting for us at the point of revival rather (and more successful) than this is your Hachiko. Even after several restarts all monsters remained in place.

But there are no insurmountable obstacles to vengeance! Million somersaults and we escaped from this trap, heroically reaching story cutscenes. Here are just mutants were not aware that they seem to have not be here and now is the time for the scene, so slowly, as if reluctantly, tore us directly during cutscenes.

A curtain.