Before digging right into the game I looked up the internet and found people reviews like “Its a mixup of God Of War and Hotline Miami” and other statements glorifying the game but are all those things true and does the game even hold up on the Nintendo Switch? We find out in our review of the Redeemer: Enhanced Edition.
Away From Peace Back In Mayhem!
Redeemer is a brutal beat ’em up game where all you do is pretty much beat the living hell out of every single guy with deadly blows, environmental finishers that comes in your path. You play as the protagonist Vasily, have taken the life of a monk who has enjoyed life in peace living in a hidden temple away in the mountains.
All of this goes down as your monastery is attacked by unknown assassins so you leave all that peace behind to take up the fight and my god what brutality is seen by the hands of our Kratos looking monk man! Apart from all of this, there isn’t much to the game’s story and with what we have the narration is very weak.
The way transitions are done as you progress through the game trust me they are a big no-no! After a few hours of gameplay, I realized how good things would’ve been with the story if they decided to put a little more work into it.
Attack, Pick, Kill And Repeat.
Gameplay-wise there’s one thing and one thing only. you have to kill them all! Combo-based attacks with environmental cues are going to be how you pound your way through this game, You can kick (heavy attack) punch (light attack) and do various parries and jumping attacks, you can also combo all of these to get epic killing blows.
Charge attacks are also there but you barely get time to execute those as there’s a lot of mayhem around you. Using the environment felt really good as smashing the bad guys through burners, walls and spikes was wicked cool. Areal throwables like rocks, logs, fire and all help you make space and even take out lighter enemies with a single throw.
You can also pick up weapons that have increased attack power but can have some negative side effects as well, allowing for some strategy to your fighting, and some give and take in your combo brawling. Beyond that, the game gets more gruesome, as you can disarm opponents and use their weapons against them, or even dismember them in order to gain a melee weapon. Totally gruesome.
The game isn’t super deep beyond its combat which gets boring after clearing a few stages as all of the gory adrenaline rushes you get within the first few hours wears off. The progression system is present.
You can pick up scrolls and other items hidden throughout the maps to build of a collectible system, and you can really get into your combos and strategic fighting, but other than that you are really just running through levels causing as much chaos as possible.
The game is tough here and there, especially when you have a ton of enemy types with guns shooting at you, but throughout I found the experience somewhat fun, and with several levels of difficulty options you can really customize how you want things to go.
You have a few different ways you can play the game outside of the difficulty levels, as the game features three different modes. You have the single-player story mode where you learn the linear and simple history behind Vasily, and play through several levels along that journey.
You also have the arena mode where you have endless hordes of enemies thrown at you where you can let the body count really pile up but that doesn’t mean a lot as you do the exact same thing in the games story mode so putting in two of the same modes isn’t a good move. You can also play in co-op mode where you and a friend take on this gory nightmare.
There is a very limited amount of content here though the single-player is a really good length unless you really just fall head over heels for the combat system you won’t find a ton of replayability here. and playing through a second time with a friend could be fun but generally, this is a one time title which gets very repetitive. Heck, some might drop the game halfway because that’s what people around me did.
Looks And Performance
In the graphics department, there isn’t anything special like a super looker of sorts and during your gameplay, you can notice sharpness and lack of polish also the textures around do look a lot rough. The game is played in top-down perspective but during some deadly finishes, it gives you a close up of such moments and things there don’t look that neat but generally throughout the game the gameplay everything stays all dark and with gritty tone of colors.
The major concern with this title is the performance. There is a good bit of stuttering, and the frame rate dips are all around in your gameplay and the moment there’s a cut scene type of a thing or just anytime with a lot going on the screen the frame rates drop harder than a DJ’s beat and it gets super bad. The poor performance on Switch is a big let down. The developers have ensured that a patch is on the way but until it arrives, you should stay away from the Nintendo Switch version.
Final Verdict
A game that is just what it’s core loop till the very end, levels that are bland dark and sometimes feel out of the picture, a story that has absolutely no wieght and depth in it with poor narration. With its perfomance on the switch being so poor that it felt like frame rate drops are part of the package. It is something that could’ve been great but sadly there is alot that the developers missed out on.
Score: 5/10
