While Hope never contends with more than the average grunt while she’s out sneaking, there are a few curveballs that Camouflaj threw to keep players from getting too comfortable. Things are pretty simple in Episode 1, with Hope never having to deal with more than two guards at any given time, but, soon after starting the second episode, I was introduced to the anti-taser guards that I mentioned earlier. As if that wasn’t bad enough, I also found that these guys didn’t follow a set route as they patrolled. It got to be quite the stressful situation when trying to get around a normal guard, only to have one of these special goons randomly come through the door I was trying to work towards. It just goes to show that players will need to be extremely wary of all the guards in an area, and be extra cautious, especially when moving through doorways and other constricted areas.
I do have to make special mention of the game’s voice acting. Again, it may be my own lack of experience in the mobile gaming sphere, but I certainly didn’t expect to hear such heavy-hitting actors like Jennifer Hale, as Hope’s domineering caretaker, Mireille Prideaux; and David Hayter, as would-be revolutionary, Daniel Zager, when I first fired up the game. However, even in the face of such well-known talent, I have to say that Rena Strober absolutely stole the show as Hope. With the kind of quiet desperation that one would expect from someone caught between a serious rock and a hard place, I quickly came to care for Hope and wanted to do everything I could to help her escape her fate. It wasn’t all doom and gloom, though, as a Prizrak mole named Cooper advises players throughout the game on how best to proceed. Given the secretive nature of his job, Cooper contacts you using a text-to-speech Microsoft Sam voice. I don’t know what it was – the monotone tone or the silly emoticons he included – but hearing from him always lightened the mood a bit, even if Hope was in imminent trouble.
It also helped that the game looked and sounded utterly fantastic. While I never played the mobile version of République, seeing comparison shots shows that the graphics truly were “remastered” for PC sensibilities. While the gray and sterile hallways early in the game aren’t much to write home about, you’re soon sneaking through opulent libraries and enormous, realistically-lit laboratories, which might be considered breathtaking, if not for the constant threat of guards looking to grab you around every corner. The character models are also realistic and well-animated, though I did notice a fair bit of a screen tearing during some close-up shots when Hope would speak directly to “me.” Of course, I consider that more a limitation of my own machine rather than a fault in presentation. The rest of the time, the game ran silky smooth, even on the highest settings. The music, too, while not particularly memorable on its own, did a fantastic job of setting the mood for some high-tension sneaking.
However, there were a few instances in the game that left a bad taste in my mouth. As I mentioned before, the point-and-click mechanics of telling Hope where to go mostly worked, but there were a few instances when her pathfinding seemed to go against logic. There times when I would click to tell Hope to move, but she would take a rather roundabout way of getting there, which, in some cases, could land her right into the line of sight of a nearby guard. This was more evident in areas with several obstacles that might confuse Hope while looking for the best path. In these situations, it was best to guide her a bit more closely — clicking from place to place in small spurts — rather than just pointing to the final destination and leaving her to figure out how to get there.
Also annoying — though this is really more of a personal gripe — is one of the game’s more optional objectives. As you might guess from his preferred means of contacting you and his really bad jokes, Cooper is a huge nerd. And, as with all huge nerds, he is also an avid gamer. However, such hobbies appear to be frowned upon in Metamorphosis, so Cooper’s fellow guards have seen fit to steal his entire game collection. Every guard in the game carries one of these games, which Hope can steal whenever she pickpockets one of them. Once in her inventory, examining them will signal Cooper to jump in and talk about each game at length, talking about their strong points and how fun they are to play. Now, while I do agree that many of the titles featured in this way are great and certainly worth your time, in practice, it’s some of the most thinly-veiled product placement I’ve ever seen in a game (not that I believe anyone paid Camouflaj to put this into République). While I can understand that Cooper is this huge video game nerd, and, as such, this is very much in line with his character, it seems counter-productive to include this massive feature where he tells you about all these other great indie games. It’s as if the Camouflaj team is saying, “Why are you playing this game? Go play this game instead!” That said, while hearing Cooper tell me about how great Shovel Knight, Bastion and other such games are did little more than ruin the immersion for me, I should point out that it’s a completely optional feature. It was all on me to actively go into my inventory and click on these floppy discs to hear Cooper gush about them.
At the time of this writing, République Remastered has yet to be completely released, with only the first three episodes out. Between those three, it took me about 11 hours to complete, though I did a fair bit of exploring and looking for secrets. However, even with a chunk of the whole game still missing, I’m extremely confident in recommending this game to anyone who loves a good stealth experience. For $25, you get the three episodes currently available, plus the last two, whenever they finally release. The real question now is if Camouflaj will be able to finish strong after the fantastic showing from these first three outings. I, for one, am eagerly awaiting news of when I’ll be able to plunge back into this dark and intense world. If nothing else, République Remastered has shown me that, in a world of Candy Crushes and Clash of Clans…es, there may yet be a reason for a hardcore gamer to give the mobile genre a try.
| Review Score | |
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| Overall |   |
Review copy supplied by the publisher.
