DERE Vengeance

I’ll start by saying that the game is mostly fine. It’s largely competent and completeable. I finished it in just over two hours. The story is largely nonsense, with character motivations changing constantly, insipid attempts at creating vague lore, and twists with no real impact at all. The jump scares come exactly where you expect them. The controls are generally fine, but fall apart any time you are expected to do tight platforming or interact with moving/moveable objects. The biggest flaw is that the entire middle act is just playing every level again with very, VERY slight changes. The final act introduces a couple new levels and mechanics, but ultimately ends with going back to another retread of a level. Finally, the game ends with a very silly Undertale-inspired boss battle (albeit with way worse controls and design). You can, in cases like this, really see every inspiration the game has, because it wears them proudly and (often) poorly. The art is nice, at least. All in all, it was fine, and feels like exactly the kind of game children will enjoy when they haven’t played any of its much better inspirations. Would recommend playing for free if you’re going to try it, but I imagine the game would be miserable to complete without doing the no-ads IAP. I saw a single ad, and paid the couple dollars to not have to endure that again.

Alright, there will be spoilers in this review, so heads up. The game was very nice, love the details, love the gameplay. I feel like this was less of a horror and more of just a tough platformer, the horror aspect was clear but not enforced too much. Not a bad thing at all, I love the first major jumpscare, first one that got me in a while. I feel like the storyline had a lot of major plot holes though, unless I missed a few things. Kara ‘escaped’ then sort of disappeared. For the rest of the game. Never got deleted, there’s still supposedly the most dangerous of the three of them just sorta roaming around. And we never got much of an explanation to who any of these three are, they’re awfully basic and don’t have much character. I don’t think there would be a second part to this game after deleting them, but I would love to see it. I really enjoyed how hard this game was, and all the different level design using barrels and such. I also enjoyed how it basically forced you to play with volume, with the ai telling you what to do. Just like it would help a lot to read the dialogue, so when there is a clone of you that kills you, you know to pause the game to pause the clone. Overall great game, just a bit of an empty story.

Let me start by saying that yes, there are ads, but this is one of the only times where I’ll say paying to remove them is a good choice. Not only do you support an amazing developer, but you also save yourself five seconds every thirty (yes I died a lot, so I saw a lot). With that out of the way, this game fully outclasses almost every mobile game I’ve ever played. Not only are the controls smooth and responsive, but the music, art, and dialogue really bring the game together, and form the masterpiece that this game is. The platforming is difficult, especially during certain sections, but it feels rewarding every time you get past it. Oh, and uh, I’d like to apologise to the developer. I betrayed you at every turn (Sorry!)(But not actually)