Posted on: October 21, 2021
labuvetteducampus
Verified ownerGames: 363 Reviews: 7
Engaging and chill at once
At first glance, I believe that Residual might not look like something you'd necessarily wanna play. I mean, it's gorgeous, the music is legit, and your companion is somewhere between funny and annoying (probably exactly as intended). What I'm talking about is the base premise of the game: survival platformer without combat. That sounds like a super awkward thing, right? Yeah, indeed it does. So for me, it was all the more fascinating that the game keeps sucking me in. After many failed attempts, I finally managed to finish the first planet. And oh boy, am I looking forward to continue ;-) I really enjoy the part where you receive very little hand-holding and have to figure things out by yourself. From my point of view, there are several layers of exploration involved which intermingle quite nicely. One, you explore the planet itself. Two, you explore how to do stuff and how to interact with the world. Three, you explore that which "links" the different planets you visit (trying not to spoiler). Let's be frank, at launch, the game had quite a bit of bugs. Quite some of them are gone now (1.1.5b), but there still are some rather awkward bugs around (with some I'm unsure whether they are supposed to form part of the gameplay). Also, the dev is much better to be reached via steam and not so much via gog which sucks a bit. On the flipside, he is very responsive and rather quick to fix the bugs you mention in the discussions. I really want to emphasize what this game accomplishes marvellously: starting from a rather awkward base premise, it manages to captivate through the different layers of exploration which unfold as you play. While the game is engaging - you always have something to do -, it retains a certain chill-ness which makes it perfectly suited both for ambitious and laid-back gamers. Finally, understand that this game is unlike any game I've played before. I've played survival games, I've played platformers. But not in such a wonderfully awkward combo <3
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