Now that I'm approaching the end of Relooted, I wanted to share some thoughts after reading some of the criticisms and reception of the game I've been seeing, in case anyone is interested in playing this game.
FWIW, it has exceeded my expectations and hopes- I love this game.
I should point out that my tastes in gameplay have been running divergent to a lot of the critical and gamer culture opinions. I love games that focus on providing a total experience, narrative through gameplay, and offer a unique vibe. Recent games like Keeper, Sword of the Sea, Neva, and South of Midnight were largely dismissed as being good but not worthy of high praise because they didn't do anything particularly novel with gameplay, weren't particularly challenged, and offered no reason to replay them. Yet I loved them for what they are- total and complete experiences that were beautiful and fun to play.
Relooted combines platforming, a puzzle aspect, and a narrative. None of them are amazing by themselves, but IMO all work on their own and, more importantly, create the kind of "greater than the sum of its parts" gameplay experience that are my favorite games. The rhythm of getting a Mission Impossible style briefing with cultural lesson; scoping out a space, deciding on entrance and exit points, where to place team members, and deciding on whether to go for optional objectives; running around the joint preparing your route; then run-platforming your way out of there is like the perfect type of 30 minutes gameplay loop.
So if you see reviews they'll say there is jank and really the only jank is there are some awkward animations in the dialogue here and there, but nothing serious or frequent. And the UI with the planning phase of a heist did get annoying sometimes. My biggest criticism is that sometimes it's hard to know how to plan for the heist before you get to run around in the space as the playable character and that made me start over. Since the whole loop is very fast it wasn't a problem but maybe a long dev/play-test would have ironed some of that out. Compared to some of the "jank" and UI struggles I've seen in more popular games, it actually feels like petty complaint (I'd rather die than attempt a Larian game with a controller again, for example).
Another criticism is pacing, and that is one I strongly disagree with. The game is like 5-10 hours, broken up in chapters, with most chapters adding a team member (and associated mechanic), a sort of "training" mission to get you up to speed on how to use it, and then the heist. Some reviewers have complained that this feels like constant tutorializing. I disagree because metroidvanias and action games are praised for adding new mechanics throughout a game while others are criticized for being repetitive, so it's like you can't win with opinon about pacing. Relooted keeps things moving along by adding to your heist kit. I also think dismissing the "training" missions are just tutorials is unfair- these are core game moments, where you're developing narrative through gameplay. And since it uses the platforming and action element of the game, it's like any other narrative driven action game.
Frankly I think people are coming in with their own genre preferences and judging like that. The puzzles aren't as hard as the Talos Principle or Lorelei and the Lazer Eyes so it's a "bad" puzzle game; the platforming isn't as ball-busting as Silksong so it's a bad action game; the narrative isn't as hearbreaking as Claire Obscur so it's a bad story game; etc. It's kind of a like how some reacted to Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, calling it a bad metroidvania etc. But these games aren't interested in being some definitive challenging thing, they're going for having you play through a story with a smooth total experience. And that kind of thing just isn't interesting to argue and talk about I guess.
The biggest set of criticisms of the game though are from a bunch of racist/anti-woke assholes and they can just go eat a dick. Any search for this game on youtube or Steam comments is just a slew of racism, coupled with celebration over its low player count. Congratulations racist assholes for doing your part to sabotaging a game. Fortunately, this is the kind of game that lends itself perfectly to patient discovery. I see the makers of Raj- another game with no discerning individual gameplay elements but was a delightful experience for those who liked it- are making an ambitious sequel. These linear, play-once, single-player action adventure games offer the same experience on release days and 10 years later, where world of mouth and as the racist grifters move on to their next targets hopefully allow the positive Steam comments to catch up to reality, allow more and more people to find their way to these games.
