Game: Rebel Transmute
Genre: Action, Adventure, Platformer
System: Nintendo Switch (also on Steam (Windows), PS4 and Xbox)
Developer|Publisher: Evan Tor Games | JanduSoft
Age Rating: EU 16 | US Teen
Price: US $19.99 | UK £17.99 | EU €19,99
Release Date: March 14th, 2024
A review code was provided, and many thanks to JanduSoft.
Rebel Transmute: a Tough But Good Adventure
Rebel Transmute is a 2D action adventure with a lot of Super Metroid vibes. It is another Kickstarter success story that managed to get backed in 2022. Now, two years later, the game is out, and it’s pretty good. I’m not sure the game was really for me, but it will certainly appeal to anyone looking for a new meaty adventure to keep them busy for several gaming sessions.
Search For the Lost
You play as moon Mikono, a loner explorer on a mission to search for her missing mother on a hostile planet. Things don’t quite go according to plan when you crash land on a planet, only to be revived in a stasis pod years later. Now you have lost time; the planet is teaming with baddies, and you still need to find your mother. As you work your way through the game, you will encounter multiple robot NPCs to help you in your search. Some will offer some witty banter; some offer some useful services like items to buy to aid in your quest. Dialogue is kept pretty short and to the point in text boxes so as not to have a significant impact on gameplay.
The plot didn’t honestly resonate with me that much. I didn’t much care for the angry protagonist and the general downer tone of the setting. Maybe because I’ve seen these themes multiple times in other games, or maybe because I’m going through a depressive episode. It’s probably just not the right place and right time for me, but that doesn’t mean it won’t work for others.
Game Looks Like Metroid
Graphics make use of a beautifully detailed pixel art style. Super Metroid is the clear influence, with its fusion of biology and technology creating levels that make it look like they are living and breathing. There’s a wide variety of biomes to explore, each with unique enemies, from the insect to the robotic variety to take on. Boss fights are often larger than life, providing a gross but gigantic spectacle. A feature I really liked is how you can blast away the plant life to reveal what’s hidden beneath. Small touches like this make levels much more interactive and interesting as opposed to feeling bland and hollow. Performance was top-notch in TV and handheld mode.
Explore and Upgrade
The gameplay follows the typical 2D adventure game formula. Or Metroidvania if you prefer. Explore a large, expansive map seeking out upgrades in order to access new areas. It’s a process that requires a ton of exploration and backtracking, but as you persevere on your journey, you become a little stronger, making return journeys just a bit more interesting as you finally figure out how to access a high area you couldn’t get to before.
A feature that makes Rebel Transmute stand out is the ability to equip augmentations. These are small gizmos you can find dotted around the world that grant various perks such as showing enemy health, improving attacks, and providing the ability to heal a health point, provided you have enough charge. You have limited capacity and can only equip so much but it gives the player an opportunity to tinker around with various builds to see what fits.
Unlike many adventure games, you can save anywhere if you need to back out and stop a young person from turning on the oven by mistake again. There are checkpoints to heal up, adjust your augmentations and act as spawn points when you perish. Overall, Rebel Transmute ticks all the right boxes for a decent adventure game, but I encountered problems with its design that didn’t click for me.
Niggles
I don’t think Rebel Transmute is a bad game, but there were a lot of features I just didn’t gel with. The opening half of the game felt like quite the push-pull slog fest. Platforming requires a lot of precision to reach your destination. With movement being sluggish, often, you need to jump at just the right moment to avoid plummeting back to the base of the area to start the climb again.
Your starting weapon can only fire in four directions and packs a very weak punch, which isn’t particularly useful in boss fights that take a very long time to defeat. Better weapons unlock later, but it took a while to reach a more comfortable point. Boss fights are very aggressive. With moment and attack patterns rapidly increasing in speed, making it hard to keep up, especially if you have slow reactions. I honestly had to repeat a lot of the starting boss fights multiple times and found it very tedious to return to the last checkpoint just to crawl back and try again. On top of this, when you die, the game drops a health orb. Like Dark Souls, you can reclaim this if you make it back or pay some money at a save point to avoid the hassle. This mechanic just didn’t seem necessary and felt like it just padded the run time.
A lot of my mentioned grievances do improve if you can push through the game. You will unlock better gear, more health and more platforming skills to make navigation much more fluid. But it feels like a lot of hard work to get there. The game does offer accessibility features like more health and no damage in hazards, but it actually feels some in-game balancing would have helped, especially on boss fights. I kinda miss the days when games made harder difficulty an option rather than its default mode. But thanks to Dark Souls, that is the trend now. Rebel Transmute is by no means bad; I just didn’t click with it as much as I expected.
Conclusion: For the Hardened Fan
Rebel Transmute is a good action adventure, but it’s not for everyone, including myself. The difficulty of this game is pretty harsh in the first half of this game, with fiddly platforming and touch-as-nails boss fights requiring quick reactions and patience to succeed. It’s a barrier of stress that won’t work for everyone. If you can make it through, there is plenty to like. Customizing your build with various augmentations provides flexibility to the gameplay, and once you have a huge map to explore, you will have multiple secrets to uncover. So, if you find most adventure games too easy, then consider this your next gaming project.
Final Verdict: I Like it
