REPLACED review – A Cautionary Tale of Rogue AI

REPLACED Review

There are a lot of gamers who claim that graphics and visuals don’t matter. I’m not one of them. A game’s art direction or graphics have to hook me. That doesn’t mean the game needs to have bleeding edge, photorealistic graphics or Hollywood-level performance capture, just a clear, polished vision and a style that partners with the story. Whatever other qualities Sad Cat’s REPLACED has, you have to be impressed by its detailed and darkly imagined world.

Remember How The 1980s Were Apocalyptic?

REPLACED takes place in a post-apocalyptic, dystopian version of 1980s America. Class inequality has never been more dramatic, and the Phoenix Corporation exploits the poor — known as Disposals — as organ-harvesting cattle for the rich. You play as Reach, an A.I. who catastrophically finds itself in the human body of scientist Warren Marsh. The game takes place in and around Phoenix City, as Reach/Warren attempts to evade the corporate goons and return to their former selves.

Reach is an interesting protagonist, with an easily killed human body but the reflexes and reasoning power of an AI construct. The machine part of Reach doesn’t know how human emotions and relationships work. The living flesh of Warren has to learn the capabilities of his new body. This premise makes for interesting gameplay mechanics.

Phoenix City is a shadowy, beat-down collection of cyberpunk-style urban locations: sewers, tunnels, guarded walls, elevated trains, and wooded suburbs. There’s a multi-level hub location called the Station filled with NPCs, vendors, low-lifes, and quest givers. Although REPLACED’s characters are rendered in retro pixel-art style, the world is not. It doesn’t take long to realize the brilliance of this visual concept.

Although not voice-acted, REPLACED has a large cast of NPCs and a narrative that hits a wide range of emotional beats. There were moments where I wanted to skip through a bit of overly expository dialogue, but not many. For a game in the sometimes simplistic action platformer genre, REPLACED clearly has something to say about morality, technology, AI, and class warfare.

Running and Gunning Around Phoenix City

REPLACED thoroughly embraces an identity as a 2.5D action platformer. It does a pretty good job of dolling out new moves and platforming challenges at a reasonable pace. Reach’s skillset starts with the most basic jumps but soon adds an array of acrobatic abilities. As someone with a severe case of PD (platforming deficiency) I always worry that games like REPLACE will stop me cold with precision demands. It lands somewhere short of that. Generally, its platforming is reasonably forgiving but can evolve into sequences that frustrate.

This is because stealth is also a major component of the game’s action, with Reach having to outrun and find cover from various ranged 1-shot-kill attacks from above. When stealth alone is required, no worries. When stealth is joined to fast-reflex platforming, I knew I was in for some repeated attempts.

Combat also starts out fairly basic and grows more sophisticated throughout the game. Reach has one weapon, a combination of melee baton and pistol. Although the weapon receives upgrades and new abilities, this is not a game with an arsenal of firepower. Instead, it depends on reacting quickly to various types of enemies. Some have to be dodged, others need to be blocked or countered, and a few can just be dispatched. The majority of combat scenarios consist of enemy groups with a range of attacks. While the number of enemies never becomes overwhelming, reading the attacks and timing the responses can be very challenging.

There’s a bit of clunky, retro-inspired inelegance to Reach’s moveset in combat that I think is intentional. Players used to smoothly articulated characters in action games might be put off until several hours into REPLACED. That brings me to my other little gripe about the game: pacing. Until Reach reaches Pheonix City, there are long stretches of running through the world while the exposition spools out. It drags.

Cyberpunk Mastery

REPLACED lives in a beautifully imagined dark and detailed world that’s immediately engaging. Characters and a narrative that are surprisingly nuanced and layered set the stage for action combat that relies pretty heavily on quick reflexes, stealth, and acrobatics. Some questionably telegraphed platforming and frustrating stealth sometimes get in the way, but on the whole REPLACED is a unique and thoroughly engaging sci-fi action game.

***PC code provided by the publisher for review***