You Shouldn't Resist 1000xResist
It has issues with gameplay, but they're not consistently frustrating to ruin the whole experience. Even though the high minded philosophy can get exhausting its still highly enjoyable.
I hadn't heard of 1000xResist until my partner was upset with me for not playing enough new games so then one day, when they were at work, they texted me about it as a suggestion. Then once I heard more about it on The Besties podcast, I decided I should grab it once it was on sale. Its a game that takes place 1000 years after a pandemic and is about the lone immune person, Iris. It grapples with a lot of philosophical themes and made me interested, so I grabbed it near the end of last year to review it soon.
Based on the Pandemic setting, I want to say that 2020 was a big year for me, as it was for the rest of the world. I broke up with my abusive partner, moved back in with my parents, got on a new medication, and dealt with a lot of anger about the whole situation. Yet despite those bad memories and experiences going through my mind during my playtime with the game, I still found enjoyment that I dont expect to experience again on the same way. It's a game that only has one comparison, Nier Automata. So with that said, let's get going.
The Good
The story is fantastic. From the jump you are slowly piecing together what the world you exist in has been through and what you can do about it and it delves into the theme of what it means to survive when it seems like all is lost. What it means to change the world with random acts of destruction. What it means to choose the future. What it means to rebuild some sort of society from the ashes of the prior world. What it means to be traumatized to the point of unconsciousness. You play Watcher (sort of), a clone, and in the first little bit of the game you go through your first "communion" where you learn about the God of your world, the Allmother, the one you are cloned from. You discover a lot through this experience, primarily that she was immune to a plague that swept through the world and that she was also kinda a bitch to everyone around her. This is meant to be a "it caused her to learn to be better" but then you get this tease that there's more to it than that, that things go far deeper than we think. The tease, being dropped into the world with so many questions, it's all fucking fantastic and made me want to keep playing despite some of my gameplay issues. Plus, as you go through the game you discover more and more of the story behind the Allmother, as well as whether or not she should be worshiped as the God the clones think she is. With all that, my love for a good and innovatively communicated story, made me immediately fall in love with the game because I do love a good story.
Okay so there are good parts of the gameplay, mainly I really like the innovative use of changing movement gameplay during communions. For example, you'll often be taken from the normal moving around to a completely different type of gameplay and area, holding left trigger then flying between points when you hover over them and release the button. You'll wander around the environment then find a memory in this new area that gives you information on what you're searching for and what the communion is trying to teach you. It's a really interesting change up. Plus there's the changing between time periods that adds extra complexity. I really really liked that part of the gameplay.
Changing the movement isn't the only thing that changes throughout the game. The gameplay has so much messing with perspective and camera positions that I think were really interesting. In one communion you're in first person, experiencing Iris' memory of leaving her family which mostly takes place in the family apartment. It really makes you feel the weight of leaving your family, plus its very well acted and written wonderfully. In another you're in an environment that is almost stage like where you're running back and forth as you view the gameplay from what would be the audience in a theater. During that communion it also plays with how it communicates story where sometimes you will have it communicated through discussions with the Allmother and her first set of clones, but other times you will have the story told to you through text that is inside the stage. It will be above you, in front of or behind you perspective wise. Then there are moments of [Redacted] portions where the Allmother is hiding those memories from you and the rest of the clones, expectedly because it's embarrassing or for some other more ominous reasons. Those moments also come with adding some glitches into the environments during the communions which is really fascinating. Additionally, each communion has its own theme, it's own style, it's own camera perspective, and its own very different environment. It's a really innovative way to communicate the story to the player which I adored. Especially as a former film student. It's not something I've seen replicated in anything else that I can remember and it's innovative communication is very effective.
Halfway through the game, things changed, the story takes a turn, which develops far more than I was expecting. Being able to experience this blind was something I'm incredibly happy about and I highly recommend you, largely, go in blind. Don't look anything up (past this review, of course). The story is wonderful and the turn elevates the story to another level after the 5th chapter. The story in general reminds me of Nier Automata in that it's very existential, but does have less set pieces, less good music, no combat, and you dont have to replay it a bunch of times to truly get the whole experience, but, story wise, very reminiscent of Automata.
The Bad
In all my reviews I have focused on gameplay first and foremost, and the gameplay here does not make a good first impression. This is not to say there are not good bits of the gameplay. I've covered that above. Yet the bad bits stick out in comparison to the good bits due to the fact that walking/running is the core of your gameplay. See, moving around as a player should be immediate. It shouldn't take a second for you to change direction or for you to stop running, but in this game, I was constantly trying to change directions and because I'm actively running, not only do I not change directions, I actually continue to run in the previous direction I was running. This will often lead to running into objects/walls and getting caught on them, especially during the moments where the fucking camera angle changes constantly. There are also repeatably moments where it forcibly slows you down, makes you walk soo fucking slowly, which I really didn't appreciate. Especially in the first person moments where I'm wanting to move around the world faster but instead feel like I'm moving at a snails pace. It sucks. I think it's partially (at least the directional issues) just because the devs don't have a lot of experience with third person gameplay. As a dev myself, third person gameplay is hard, so i get that, but it doesn't make the movement better even when you understand that.
Philosophy is not a bad thing for games to explore. Not many have done so, and, as I've said already, 1000xResist is very similar to Automata in the themes it explores, but the problem with exploring Philosophy in a videogame setting is that it can get exhausting. I enjoyed it, yet the game definitely made me feel like the director was wanting me to feel a certain way and it just fell flat. There were also many more moments where it didn't, where the game effectively communicated the concepts it was aiming to communicate, but that just made the moments where it fell flat that much more obvious.
The Ending
So, turns out most of the game you were playing as Blue, a miscellaneous clone, reliving what Watcher experienced. After Watcher dies on the train from her injuries (stabby stab eyes eyes), you leave and head to the bridge of the generation ship you've been on this whole time with Healer, BBF, and Fixer. They then bring in the rest of the groups who helped blow up the Provisional Government, the Jiaos, the Fanatics, the Miscellaneous, plus some of the other Iris types and particularly older Iris types. The plan is to surface your ship, since its been in the Pacific Ocean for 1000 years, but you need to get the ships main systems up and running. Once you do that, the group decides that, in order to convince the people on the ship that they should go back to the surface, they need to summon an Occupant and institute a universal Communion by using the three familiars that exist, ones with Principal, ones with her Jiao, and one is obviously with Blue. This is so they can show the entire population of the ship all that Watcher discovered during her communions.
Y'all then do your job, Knower activates the alarm and sends the Reds to the bottom of the ship where a crowd is resisting. Blue, Healer, Fixer and BBF go above the fake sky in the Orchard, BBF gets shot, and Fixer explodes the sky. Then the communion begins. Once you take over Secretary you begin to learn about the Occupants, how they came to this world to live and experience. Then, once you're finished with all the exposition, Secretary merges with The Source and erases all that Iris was from its memory.
Cut to a series of memories from the clones we know. Some from Knower, some from Fixer, some from Principal, some from Iris' Mother and Father. These are Secretary overwriting onto The Source that they merged with. Then, once you are back to being Blue, you are given a choice of what parts of the society that currently exist will continue. Who survives, who is left behind. Then the Occupant saves you
Epilogue: you are someone new, someone who came back to the ship years later, who is there to remember those that came before, be they good or bad. You then get to see, for the first time, what its like outside the ship. Blue takes off her mask, seems to see Iris on the beach the ship landed on and she walks towards the first generation of clones that she killed. End credits.
When the credits rolled, I couldn't help but think that the ending had confusing moments, had me frustrated because you often were forced to do that slow walk for dramatic effect, yet I still enjoyed it. It provided some level of closure, a variance of camera types and gameplay, exposition that explained much despite having said confusing moments, and had you were able to choose the future for the people around you. What I really didn't like about it is that I didn't get to see anything more about what happened after. There's a person who Blue communicates with in the Epilogue that obviously isn't a clone or Jiao type so there's obviously things going on outside the ship on the surface and stuff has progressed, but we never get to see what society evolved into. Most importantly, we didn't get to see what our choices influenced. I liked how the choices were based on who you wanted to keep around, and that they used a "light on" or "light off" communication of what your choices were, Secretary describing what your choices were and what kind of future that could lead to is the only knowledge you have about what the choices you make will do. Because of that I didn't feel like they really...mattered? These were the only choices in the game and I just wish I could see more. So, enjoyable, but had issues overall.
The Conclusion
1000xResist is not a super long game, my playthrough only took about 8 hours, but a fuck lot of story and existentialism is packed into that time. Chapter after Chapter continued to develop the story, world and characters that you knew which was incredibly enjoyable. Yet, as with many pieces of media that have existential themes, this game had moments that provoke deep thoughts, moments of being way too confusing, and moments of trying to make you feel a certain way that just didn’t land well for me. I enjoyed all the themes yet sometimes I found myself feeling like I was back in college in my Philosophy course. This wasn't always a bad thing, I loved philosophy despite not being my major back then, but I think the game could have sometimes been more...straightforward? That's probably not the right word, maybe just expanding the philosophy out to have more of it so it was a slower burn? I dunno. I just think there were ways to improve it.
Its a great game, has really interesting themes, doesn't have a lot of gameplay issues, has a lot of innovative ways of communicating its story, but is also sometimes plagued with the slow walk BS that is so exhausting. But, again, the game is fun, it has a fascinating story that makes you think, it doesn't over stay it's welcome, and despite the hit and miss ending, is largely brought to a satisfying conclusion. I'd say it would be good to play if you're looking for something philosophical like Nier Automata. You'll likely enjoy it. Even if you're not looking for philosophy the themes I talked about at the start of this review, this could still interest you, just prepare yourself for lots of thinking. Despite that, its still a great game and a worthy beginning to the new year for my reviews. Happy New Year!
Meow,
Cat