Indie Game of the Week 473: ReSetna

Welcome to another episode of Exploraction Satisfaction, where I... oh, hold on, I guess I can't be going around giving this feature new names when we're this close to 500 episodes. But yes, I have noticed that I cover a lot of games from this subgenre and I haven't seen (or rather, paid attention to) anyone complaining so here we go with another one. ReSetna is a post-apoc sci-fi variant that sees its titular gynoid dropped into a world of rust and ruin as she goes about seeking the source of an aberrant "signal" that has caused most of the remaining sapients of this world—all mechanical, since the world isn't really in a livable state these days—to go crazy and violent. A small cadre of sane robots managed to get some archaic machinery working to build you, a humanoid combat model, as their last hope in fighting off the lunacy that threatens to envelope their small pocket of resistance. Classic "what does it mean to be human, and what benefits does being human even offer" The Ghost in the Shell theming from what I've seen so far; the signal creates a central mystery that makes it compelling to seek out, whether it's some ancient numbers station, extraterrestrial noise, or the digital remnants of humanity itself screaming for release. I've seen worse narrative hooks in this genre.

A standard combat tool in your arsenal is this spinning disc thing that stays around for a few seconds. I call it my "get the eff away from me, WALL-E" technique.

As a mechanical protagonist, ReSetna can upgrade herself through various means: there's these chip implants that work into one of those Tetris inventory systems which can offer a significant foray of passive skills if you can fit enough of them into the space you're given. Independent from that are the standard gaggle of traversal enhancers as well as upgrades to your little navigator drone that follows you around, the latter often taking the form of free (but limited) healing or the ability to hack enemies to reduce their aggression towards you or else direct it toward something else. The combat engine is a simple enough series of normal, air, and special attacks that you can chain into one another, as well as a now-ubiquitous parry system which provides a riposte if you get the timing down and a slide dash that offers some i-frames. You start with a pair of axes but it looks like you can eventually acquire two more weapons, each presumably offering a different ratio of speed and power (the guy selling them wants components I haven't found yet; seems like they want you to get used to using the axes first before giving you options). Of particular note is a charge move that leaves a ring of damage behind for several seconds, which is great for when you're surrounded, and a few aerial combos that are excellent against the floating drone enemies you'll bump into quite often while exploring.

ReSetna has some map tech I don't think I've ever seen before—keeping in mind my exploraction background is extensive but not exhaustive—where you can drop a "memory shard" at the spot you're standing, ideally where there's some manner of obstacle that the map doesn't already display (like a locked door), and if you hover the cursor over the icon it just created on your map you get a little picture-in-picture screenshot of where the shard was generated that lets you know at a glance what sort of ability you still need to progress there. I received the double-jump fairly soon into the game (I guess because why not get it out of the way with early?) but from the inaccessible areas I've walked past there looks to be wall-climbing and grapple points to unlock later on as well. You only have a limited number of these shards to use, presumably because the map will take upwards of a whole minute to load if you dump too many everywhere, but you can always erase those you've already placed in case you've already conquered the barriers they were highlighting. It's not perfect—those aforementioned grapple points don't actually appear in the screenshots—but it's a great conceit for those wishing for more precise notes from their exploraction maps.

I took a nice pic of this wall I couldn't get over and now I can look longingly at it through the map system. A reminder both that I need to come back with a double-jump and that the game can be attractive, in a sad and desolate way.

Possibly due to the visual fidelity there's a number of odd issues that can plague ReSetna while playing the game. The first and most prominent is this crazy stick drift you get while navigating the menus that doesn't exist when you're just playing the game normally; either the sensitivity is up far too high or there's some dead zone finessing that is excluded from the menus. I've used this controller for many games recently and never spotted an iota of drift, so it's definitely something specific to this game's menus. The hyper-detailed visuals for enemies often makes it hard to parse AoE ranges for their attacks, and those that have a damage "flash" aren't always accurately conveyed. While the visuals are sharp, because of its crumbling setting everywhere kinda looks the same but for slight background changes and color palettes. It's just enough to help you understand from taking a look around that you've entered a new area but it's all been the same combination of dilapidated concrete and loose cables for the most part so far. ReSetna's model is cool but you don't see much of it given how much the game has to zoom out to account for enemies and checking the environment (which was the right choice, of course). The combat in general can feel kinda mashy since a lot of it is getting behind enemies and hitting them with as big of a combo as you can afford to make before you're on the move again. The parry is nice but the free damage you earn from it isn't worth the risk most of the time; the best use of it I've found is reflecting projectiles from ranged enemies since they make it tough to get close enough for melee with how evasive they are.

ReSetna is frequently striking from a presentational standpoint and ideas like the memory shards and the chip upgrade system (which is reminiscent of that from The Surge games) are valuable additions to this subgenre but for the most part it feels kinda nondescript, as a vaguely Soulsian brawler that's a bit messy with its bugs, a bit mashy with its standard combat, and a bit visually indistinct with some of its environments. However, it's also not too harsh—death has no clear downsides, other than having to walk back to where you perished which is getting tougher now that the fast-travel save points are growing fewer and farther between—and there's a few narrative aspects that are wholly distinct from the usual thematic trappings of this genre so I'm not about to cast it aside either. If my opinions shift at all as I get further in (or complete it), I'll be sure to leave a comment outlining how and why (since we can't edit these things any more) but otherwise my verdict is somewhat lukewarm.

Rating: 3 out of 5. (So far.)

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