Gunpoint. Stardew Valley. Braid. The list of one man developed indie classics continues to grow to this day. And now, a new sort of underdog challenger has entered the digital ring, this time on Playstation 4. Part platformer, part puzzler, Retsnom’s got potential far and wide, but we’ve got a verdict to see if it retains it throughout the whole adventure.

Gameplay:

Almost immediately. the game tasks you with a challenge

Upon experimenting with the controls in Retsnom, I found a gruesome animation of the main character bashing his head against the floor until his untimely death. I was wondering whether this was a sign of the game’s mix of morbid curiosity and humor, or rather challenge, but it’s harshly the latter. Retsnom tasks you with placing mirrors and swapping landscapes to get to your objective. This could be something beautiful in terms of puzzling platforming adventure, but Retsnom is so clearly never invested in itself that this never seems to pan out.

Story & Design:

The amount of content can seem staggering at first

There isn’t a great puzzle game without an influential and perfectly timed learning curve, and Retsnom struggles with this concept. Throughout the first few levels, I thought I had wrapped my head around what I needed to do next, only to be befuddled to the nth degree. It doesn’t help that the story is overly dramatic to, something that carries the tone of the darkest Telltale game, yet it’s not achievable in it’s own right.

Presentation/ Visuals & Audio:

The animations are to die for!

Retsnom has impressive animations, but everything else in it’s presentation department seems bland or uninspired. I’ve seen similar environment patterns in games like Axiom Verge and dull music in countless indie ripoffs. The enemy design is salvagable, but these two small greats don’t complete the game’s full picture.

Conclusion:

Retsnom is a failed and flawed puzzle adventure. On one hand, it’s trying to do to many things at once, and on the other, it can’t even properly execute it’s most trivial logic, with broken level design and sloppy controls, I might add. Retsnom might be acceptable to the toughest of puzzle players, but I’d advise anyone else to stay away.

Retsnom gets a 3/10 (Painful)

We’d like to thank SOMI Games for giving us a code!

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