Sometimes you play a game, and maybe that game is fun for a while, but when you’re done, nothing really sticks with you. You bring nothing to the table, you take nothing away, and you’re finished with it, done and dusted. I find this to be a pretty common experience with AAA games these days, to be honest.
And then sometimes, you play Sunset Visitor’s 1000xRESIST and you have 1000% the opposite experience. (I guess this is finished game #3 for the year!)
Gameplay-wise, this is not a terribly complex game. There is a decent amount of exploring, but the majority of it is in the name of talking to other characters (or sometimes overhearing other characters talking), whether in the futuristic bunker of The Orchard or when exploring one of the many memories during a neural “communion.” Some of the exploration mechanics themselves are, in fact, a storytelling mechanic in and of themselves — a very neat touch for what is essentially a visual novel in 3D space.
But really, it’s about the story, and I’m gonna be chewing on this one for a while. I went in wholly blind, and I suggest you do too, so I’m trying to touch as lightly as possible to avoid spoilers. On the surface, it seems like a fairly straightforward story, as their website sums it up: “The year is unknown, and a disease spread by an alien invasion keeps you underground. You are Watcher. You dutifully fulfill your purpose in serving the ALLMOTHER, until the day you discover a shocking secret that changes everything.” Yeah, that’s putting it mildly.
This sci-fi narrative, which at times borders on the extremely surreal (and can be fairly dark and uncomfortable at times!) covers so, so many topics that feel ever more present than they ever have been. Cycles of violence over generations. Revolutions, and the cost thereof: who gets hurt? Who pays the cost? Who is left behind? The culminations of single decisions over years and years, and how situations of unimaginable complexity can branch out from a single, seemingly small thing. And in a skillful bit of storytelling, there are references to current events for you to read up on if, like me, you weren’t fully familiar with some of them; the 2019 Hong Kong protests play a part in the story, and so many elements of the disease brought by the Occupants rings eerily familiar in the era of COVID-19: the sheltering indoors, the mask-wearing, the frantic scramble for supplies.
Also, it has a horse lobby. Like many things in the story, the horse lobby is apparently real.
1000xRESIST is not a long game, but it is a powerful game with such a good story to tell. I cannot recommend enough that you play it. (Don’t just take my word for it: Mathew Kumar played it not that long ago, too, and as is typical his review is more eloquent than mine.)
Hekki grace, reader.