Rèpublique Review

Republique VR takes a minute to get going with some long dialog sequences and non-interactive cutscenes. And the reason I'm starting off the review telling you this is because you really need to be in the right mindset to enjoy Republique properly. There is a LOT of exposition here and if you want to take in all the additional dialogue, story, and audio logs - get comfortable. Because it's way too easy to start skipping through it all, cutting off one voiceover just to start another. And then - if you're like me - you'll reach chapter 3 and wish that you'd slowed down and absorbed it all along the way instead of rushing through just to get back to the interactive stuff. Because while I highly doubt anyone will walk away from Republique raving about INNOVATIVE gameplay or stealth mechanics, I do think the story here is something special - and one you'll think about for a long time after its over. Now just because you've seen all these stealth mechanics in other games doesn't mean they're not implemented well here. This is about as close as your're gonna get to Metal Gear in VR, at least for the time being. Once you get the hang of everything you'll feel pretty dextrous, creeping around, hopping in and out of lockers, causing distractions, and it's extremely satisfying making your way from point A to point B undetected. Helping Hope escape the facility means you'll be doing two main things throughout the course of your 10-12 hour adventure. Firstly you'll be Hope's guide. And as her guide you can hack survaillance cameras - which will be the way you view the game world. Jumping from camera to camera gives off some OG resident evil vibes, but will also allow you to see each room from different perspectives, study the guards patrol route, and find safe passage for Hope. Tapping R1 will freeze the action and highlight anything of interest in the environment. Here you can learn more about the guards, unlock doors for Hope, and scan items in the room. The game will also automatically switch cameras FOR YOU - and 9 times out of 10 this will cause you to lose track of Hope. Sometimes it's just for a second until you reorient yourself, and sometimes it's a bit longer. So get into the habit of hitting R1 and pausing the game immedately whenever the perspective changes. That way you can reassess the situation, see where the gurads are, and figure out your next move. It's a slower way to play the game, but the more methodical approach will keep you from getting caught and save you time in the long run. Controlling Hope is a different story altogether. You move her with the analog stick - which is never a problem in bigger open areas. But when you're trying to be stealthy a lot of her movements come across as clumsy. she'll stick to walls when you don't want her to and when the camera angle changes it's too easy to start walking in the wrong direction. And when you're trying to sneak up behind guards and pickpocket them, sometimes the risk just isn't worth the reward. And because of this there's a big part of me that wishes I could have played this game from Hope's perspective in first person then - when necessary - jumped into surveillance mode to help her along. But thats just not the case and these are things you'll get accustomed to - and just like everything else in Republique - will require quite a bit of patience. There is a decent sense of progression here though. Because even though Hope is generally defenseles comapared to someone like SOlid Snake, you can find pepperspray and tasers to incapacitate guards when things get hairy. And as you progress, the more items you scan, the more abilities you can unlock - hacking emails, voicemails, causing distractions, and probably most importantly AN XRAY ABILITY that allows you to see guards through walls. If you're the kind of gamer looking to get the most for your money there are quite a few ways to play through Republique. First there are 4 different outfits you can equip before starting and each of these actually affect the game signifficantly. There's her default clothing, A speedrunning outfit that lets you move faster and has a running stopwatch, a Prizrak enemy uniform that allows you to blend in with the guards, and a schoolgirl outfit that should be considered Hard Mode since it disables autosaves - relying on the old Resident Evil method where you have to collect tapes and find save spots. Adding to the replayability are 100 pieces of developer commentary strewn throughout the game that were all recorded during development. But there's so much stuff to discover on your first playthrough that I'd actually recommend turning this off and saving for your second time through. Graphically Republique is kind of all over the place. There are moments where you'll stop and awe at the archetecture and beautifully designed rooms, and other moments where you can tell graphics weren't nearly as much of a priority. And Republique's mobile roots do become apparent in some unexpected places, like whenever a door opens and you realize that you can't actually see the next room through the door, just a JPEG representation. It looks good overall though and I think if you play this for yourself you'll wonder why I'm getting caught up on so many of the small issues when the there are so many good things to say about level of detail here, and i guess it's because that bad stuff - when present - kind of stands out like a sore thumb next to the quality environments.. The audio is far more even through out though, with great voiceovers feauturing the noteworthy talent of David Hayter and Jennifer Hale. Okay so I don't want to spoil anything for anyone, which is why none of the footage I'm about to show you will match up with anything I'm saying. But when I played through Republique the first time and chose the paths that I chose - I didn't experience any major bugs. So when I published this review yesterday I was surprised to hear anyone say anything about the previous VR versions having major issues that still haven't been addressed by camouflaj. And suddenly I got nervous that these issues could be present in the PSVR version too.. So I jumped back in yesterday and played the ENTIRE GAME AGAIN from start to finish, chosing an alternate route. And in the 5th and final chapter, theres a major decision you make - and if you choose to side with the dude instead of the woman (yes I'm being intentionally vague) - you'll get caught in a game loop, a huge bug that will keep you from being able to finish the game. And your save file will be too far along to restar the chapter, forcing you to start the entire game over. So here's the deal. Republique on PlayStation VR might be the best way to play Republique - and as a game I never really cared about before I'm so happy I finally saw the story through to its conclusion. The addition of VR made me feel more connected to Hope, like she was really relying on my help to get her to safety. Republique does have its fair share of issues though and certainly could have been a lot more immersive - which is why i went so deep into all of its issues. But if your patient and my review score doesn't scare you off I really do think it's a game you should play. There's a great story here that is super relevent in the Facebook age and its never aftraid to throw in bizarre twists that you'd only ever find in a video game story, which I love. And when everything clicks, the stealth mechanics become fun and you can focus on collecting every last item in the game - and ultimately the platinum trophy. Sure it's not perfect, but for $15 it's worth playing through once - although personally I'll be playting through it twice. REVIEW VERSION 3.0: Updated in this review are the descriptions of the costumes and what they do, changed the score to reflect this knowledge, and (from V2) included information about a game breaking bug. This will be the last revision of the review unless Camouflaj patches the game to address the bugs.

Score: 8/10