![]() ![]() ![]() It’s also another case where the map (in its indulgence with its aesthetic) doesn’t help in providing a clearer bearing on position. The problem here is that players will often make plenty of U-turns due to the over-reliance on long, corridor-like stretches only for you to hit a road-block by the end - resulting in countless time wasted in areas that needn’t require attention. Explore regions, inevitably stumble across parts you can’t unlock or pass without some future upgrade eventually you’ll brute-force your way through to a solution whereupon that desired item unlocks a new route. But even when you can put those brief annoyances aside, to focus squarely on gameplay, Resolutiion is your typical run-of-the-mill Metroidvania progression. Usually in areas where a more isometric, top-down perspective is provided and the contrast in color is not as great. Sometimes that same disorientation can come by way of the world itself, with some moments making it hard to distinguish what parts of the environments are in fact the floor, the walls or something else. Namely the map layout one can access at any time and how its reliance on empty shapes and lines does a terrible job at pin-pointing your exact position. It’s a shame then that this over-reliance on pixelation does get in the way a few too many times. Large masses of organic matter, one great example - a point in the game where the overarching surrealism on what’s actually going on lends itself in a positive light to some absurd level design. ![]() That careful attention to detail expands to even the pixel art itself, with some impressively-detailed work invested in particular reaches of the world map. From the burnt orange and purple contrast of its desert regions, to the refusal to simply have forest-orientated parts confide in only green - touches of blue and even lilac are part of the mix - if Monolith of Minds get anything right here, no doubt it’s the use of color to make the surroundings pop from out the screen. So rest assured that there are some good aspects to Resolutiion. Which is a shame, because for all the lack of clear communication (a problem that bleeds into far more than its narrative, which I’ll get to), Monolith of Minds’ artistic design, specifically the choices with color palette and pixel art, are spot on. Like a lot of things in Resolutiion, the appeal to keep going, to keep digging, falls off quickly and only after a couple of hours, the formula reveals itself as satisfactory, if relatively shallow. That like its backdrops, they allude to something grander, but end up merely a decorative affair. But even these design choices don’t cause that much a problem it’s the vague story beats and NPCs whom all talk in riddles where a lot of the frustration occurs. It doesn’t help that in its early stages, it quickly settles into the seen-before cyberpunk aesthetic complete with breezy ’80s synthwave music and blocky, retro-futurist surroundings. To its credit, Resolutiion‘s leaving many a question unanswered come its closing credits (the second rolling of credits actually given the nature of its fake/true final battle), does avoid fulfilling that specific trope.īut even that lends itself to one of the game’s major gripes and something which leaves Resolutiion, to fall back to my original point, feeling predominantly surface-level in its attempts to evoke and aspire whatever kind of message or theme it’s attempting. Namely, the suggestion of an amnesiac protagonist and that eventually, inevitably - through the acquisition of lost memories - we’ll learn of our true place and nature in the world. A few minutes into Monolith of Minds’ Resolutiion and we’re already graced with not one, but two examples of what could so easily be construed as common narrative tropes. That for something to be “dark” all one needs to do is subtract any and all connotations to light - have everything bathed in some murky, disheveled filter - or for something to be surreal, basically have little semblance to structure or internal logic. ![]() A common mistake when it comes to applying tone to anything, be it video games or maybe movies and television, is the idea that tone is superficial and primarily visual. ![]()
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