2024 has been a pretty interesting year for video games hasn’t it? I don’t want to look down on Triple A game devs or anything, because at the end of the day they’re just trying to make a game that dozens of people can enjoy. However, there haven't been any truly landmark titles this year as compared to previous years and part of the reason why could be the slow descent of the video game industry. Dozens of game studios get shut down even if they make an okay game, because the sales executive is hard to please and doesn’t respect the work of the developers. Mass layoffs and replacement of said workers with soulless AI, or forcing more work onto the smaller staff who probably don’t get paid enough for what they do. Then there’s the fact gaming is becoming more expensive and less accessible each day as companies want to charge more than they should and games are overfunded. No game should cost four hundred million dollars to make, and no console should cost seven hundred.
Putting aside my attempts to rip on big publishers, let's focus on the good. Gaming is still going and if you ever feel down you can always look to the indie scene for hope. Most of my favorite games this year have been indies and with any year stuffed with indies come difficulty trying to choose what indie game stands out the most. The grandest of the grand. The one that shows how tall the medium stands when enough heart is put in. Otherwise one of my 10/10 indie games. A few weeks ago I did give a 10/10 score to a 2024 indie game that being Crypt Custodian. I look back fondly on it, but I wouldn’t say it’s my overall indie of the year. One of few, but not overall. I feel like I could be choosing something greater, because choosing a game centered around tried and true principles feels a bit safe in my opinion. Well thankfully we have another game that has come to test my spot for indie of the year, and it very well might be one of my personal favorite games of 2024. 1000xResist, a narrative driven game made by Sunset Visitor who mostly consist of asian Canadians. Which does somewhat explain a lot of the themes this game conveys, but I don’t mind because exploring different worldviews is better than being closed minded. Go talk to more people. It helps.
1000xResist is a game that was recommended to me a lot online. I’m a sucker for science fiction and everywhere I looked it was compared to something I loved. A good mix of Nier: Automata, 13 Sentinels, Everything Everywhere All at Once, and Envangelion. That last one I never saw, but the sheer amount of comparisons got me interested. What the f*ck was this game doing to get compared to all these things? Especially when looking at 1000xResist it doesn’t seem to be doing much at all besides telling its narrative. Graphically it looks to be on the low end of the spectrum, there’s not much gameplay to speak of, and isn’t the most polished indie game out there. Yet I’ve seen this game receive tons of appraisals, 9/10 scores, and currently sits with an overwhelmingly positive review average on Steam. Making it fall into the very small percentage of indie games that have received near perfect praise. 1000xResist was a mystery to behold and I kept it close on my radar until I checked it out recently. I’m very happy to have played this game, because this is my favorite story of the year. The debate of whether this is a good video game or not is there, but if you can open up to what it has to say you’ll be amazed. Heart strings thinning out and getting ready to breakdown to what you just witnessed. 1000xResist is a must play narrative experience. I’ll try not to spoil anything big about this game, but I urge you to go play it immediately if you own a Nintendo Switch or have a good enough PC to play it on. Today we’ll be talking about why I loved 1000xResist and why it utterly deserves your attention.
Story
The game opens up with a benevolent figure dressed in black praying within a well lit room. She is not the only one in this room as a blue figure approaches her with what seems to be a pointy glass shard. The blue individual stabs the benevolent woman in the back where she falls to her knees and dies. This is not the actual beginning of the story. This is an event for which we will learn the backstory of time. Let’s go back. Not too far back, but far enough to see where all of this may have started. The blue individual from the beginning is seen running towards a subway. A train that’ll carry one of her longtime friends away to an unknown location. She’s sad to see her friend go and she doesn’t know when she’ll come back. We learn the friend that is leaving is named Fixer and the blue individual is named Watcher. Through the first few chapters we get to learn more about the world and setting we are placed in. 1000xResist takes place in the far off future. Almost all of mankind had been wiped out from a world ending event and all that remains is a colony consisting of several clones of the same woman. That woman being the Allmother, the benevolent black clothed figure we saw in the intro. The clones work together to maintain the colony. Preparing for when the monsters, the Occupants, of the outside world can attack.
There are specific clones each with their own purpose and job to guide the other clones. Those 5 clones are Fixer, Healer, Knower, Bang Bang Fire, and of course Watcher. All of whom have a higher up that being Principal, and above them all is the Allmother. After Fixer departs to see what lies on the other side, Watcher is given the task by the Principal to commune with her many sisters. To unravel events of the past, learn more about the Allmother, and connect. This is where we learn more about our time. An asian girl by the name of Iris lives in Canada with her mother and father. Both of whom were immigrants that migrated over from Hong Kong. The two wanted to escape their previous lives, so they moved to Canada and had Iris. Doing the best they can to raise her and make sure she doesn’t repeat the same mistakes they did. However, by witnessing these past memories we learn Iris wasn’t on very good terms with her mother. Her mother would always talk down on Iris, verbally lash out at her, demand her to achieve perfection, control her life in any way, and all Iris could do was endure and try to be the person her mother wanted. We are given clues of a virus that began to wipe out mankind, and Iris was immune to said virus. So these events would spiral and lead us to where we are now. What is left of mankind. Copies upon copies upon copies. Through each memory you’ll learn more about Iris and the past. How things came to be and why things are. For the Watcher shall discover the cold truth.
Gameplay
Near the start of this review I mentioned how 1000xResist being considered a good video game is debatable, and the reason why is pretty simple. Most of what you’ll be doing in this game is walking around, talking to characters, and progressing the dialogue enough to get further into the story. There’s no combat to speak of, no no morally important decisions besides one choice near the end, no RPG stats like Disco Elysium where you can invest in specific areas of speech, and anything else important. There’s the occasional section where you have to zip between points to navigate the environment and get to where you need to be, but a majority of the time it’s running around and talking. It’s basically a third person walking simulator, but that’s fine by me because I knew this is what I was paying for and was excited to see what it had to say. These games are defined by their narratives and might as well give up if the narrative doesn’t hook the player in from the beginning. That’s why I described in detail the first few hours of the game. Of course they’re gonna show you a scene midway in the game at the beginning. It builds intrigue. Who is this person? Who is the other person? Why is one of them angry? Why did she stab the praying woman in the back? Where are they? Why does the room feel so artificial and unnatural? Is this earth? Are we in the future? It’s these questions that build up the rest of the game.
Through reliving the memories of the Allmother we get to work our way back to this point. See what led to it and build upon the characters. Add depth to our world, get us to care, and so when this event finally occurs the hype is even furthered. Then again I said this was the halfway point of the game, and from then on you get to witness how the consequences of the character who we played for five hours carry forth. How this affects the world, changes the narrative, and new questions are brought onto the table of what is happening now and what led to new problems. I’m happy I’ve opened up to games like this, because not every game needs to be too engrossing for there to still be an engaging narrative. Yahtzee Croshaw expressed it best when it came to his review of Still Wakes The Deep a few weeks back. In it he explained how he really enjoyed the narrative and horror, but criticized that every attempt to make Still Wakes The Deep a video game somewhat dragged down the experience. He said that narrative games can still be good without there having to be gameplay, and that good focus and intrigue are the main reasons why. This is exactly how I feel about 1000xResist and its gameplay. It doesn’t have a lot, but what it’s already doing is enough to keep me playing. I’m having fun engaging with the narrative and trying to go understand it without there having to be the natural conventions of a video game. It’s a pure test of what interactive media can be, and all we can do is hope for you to understand.
Thoughts
Well let’s get the obvious out of the way first. 1000xResist is a masterpiece. One that’s not gonna be for everyone as it caters towards a very specific crowd of science fiction enjoyers, but one that I would recommend to anyone who wants to see interesting subject matters explored with both the science fiction and video game medium. It is an enthralling narrative and while there were a few points that lost me mainly towards the middle I found my compelled. Pushed to piece every bit of the narrative together, make sense of it all, and come out with the knowledge I have then obtained. It’s rewarding, but I wouldn’t say it’s confusing. Some themes are made rather clear to the player, and there are points where they slow to give you a better idea of what is going on and what to expect. I understand why a lot of people compare this to Nier: Automata and 13 Sentinels so much for me. There’s gonna be points where your jaws gonna drop and wonder what the heck any of this is, but then you sit around longer and go “Wait a second I know what they’re trying to say.” It’s a satisfying approach to storytelling. The anticipation, the connecting of dots, payoff, and the rewarding feeling at the end. This is why I personally believe science fiction is one of the best genres out there next to fantasy. There’s so much room for depth and analysis, and with how bizarre science fiction can be they can throw curveballs at you to test your thinking skills.
So this review is mainly going to be focusing on the narrative since it’s a narrative game. I don’t want to spoil too much, because most of the joy you get from 1000xResist and pieces of science fiction like it is witnessing what happens by yourself. It’s best to go in blind, because if you know the major plot twists and beats a lot of that fun is lost. What I can do instead is discuss to you how I feel about the themes of the game, and trust me they pulled at my heart strings a lot. 1000xResist is a story about a lot of things. It’s a game about generational trauma, how we bring about justice, what we do to justify said justice, and at one point the Hong Kong police protest that occurred between 2019 and 2020. I think the writers had the balls to feature a recent modern day protest as a plot device, and try to tackle how people who participated in said protest felt. I try not to dive too deep into politics in my reviews, afraid of those I might argue with, but this I want to address. Imagine being oppressed by higher officials day in and day out. Powerless and unable to do anything because if you try to voice your rights they’ll write you down on a list. An act that’ll limit the jobs you can take, people you can gain help from, and at times ruin the rest of your life. Imagine if the higher ups who control and dictate this act constantly take advantage and look down on the people below them. Wouldn’t you feel angry? Wouldn’t you want change? For something better so people like you or after you wouldn’t have to deal with the same? That’s why I think featuring an event like this in a game takes balls, and I’m happy they did it.
We are still witnessing law officials abuse their power, and it’s not just in Hong Kong. You can see it occur a lot over here in America, and I just feel bad whenever I see someone affected by such broken and abusive systems. Unable to do anything to help in their now ruined lives as all they tried to do was stand up for themselves. A human right is a human right, and you should not deny a person’s right to live. I could go on, but surprisingly that is not the theme that clicked with me the most. This is where we get a bit touchy, but I want to make it very clear I don’t want anyone worrying about me and my personal life. My life at the moment is fine and better than it was before. Anyways, generation trauma. The way the game explores this theme and how cycles of unmanaged mental health and harassment between families is done so well and is yet another thing I’m happy the writers had the balls to do. I’m an Asian american. My parents spent their childhoods in Vietnam before immigrating to the USA after a tragic event. Their parents were often strict with them, because they wanted them to take the most opportunities in what is a less cruel world to where they were before. My parents had to endure a lot, and some of the behavior they witnessed carried over to my childhood. I was lectured a lot. Mainly because they didn’t want to turn into a terrible person, and because I have more opportunities at a younger age than them. They want me to be the best, and this created this sense of “If I f*ck up too much they will hate me?” My father was probably the more strict parent, but as I grew older he learned to calm down because he realized doing this my whole life would leave me miserable.
It’s this realization to bring an end to the cycle yourself, because if not you keep creating several generations of miserable children who are unable to connect to others and no one can connect to them as they never had to witness what they went through. 1000xResist is a game about that. You witness the memoirs of all these individuals and how this cycle keeps persisting. Iris’ parents were Hong Kong protestors who fled the country in fear of what the government would do to them after trying to stand up for individual rights. Iris’ mother was treated poorly by her mother for abandoning her, so Iris’ mother was strict on her hoping she wouldn’t be just like her. This then leads to Iris never being on terms with her mother due to her strict behavior, and wishing for a day where she can depart and be on her own. Then she creates her own children which she is strict to and some of those children end up plotting against her. It’s this cycle of hatred between parent and child. Disagreement because they did something you didn’t want. Disagreement as you didn’t want them going through what you did, but then you recreate the situation again under a different guise. Generational trauma. They call it that because it persists through generations. This is the theme I connected to the most and I think a lot of people no matter their gender and race are should too.
1000xResist is one of the best stories I’ve witnessed this year. As to whether it’s one of the best pieces of science fiction I’ve witnessed is debatable, but it may be up there. Give it time for it to worm into my head and take hold. My only criticism for the game mainly comes to performance. As of writing this review it’s only available on Nintendo Switch and PC. I’m pretty sure the PC version runs really well, but the Nintendo Switch version is the one I played. It ran well which is surprising seeing the environments this game has to process. It may not be the most graphically impressive game out there, but some of the set pieces and art direction will amaze you. In fact, that’s one thing outside of the narrative that’ll keep you going. Wondering what on earth they will plop on the table for you to witness. The Switch version is good, but if you have a PC or think they’ll do versions on other consoles I’d say buy it on those instead. The Switch version has a few performance issues in terms of frame rate and a few times the game crashed due to how much it was trying to process. However, this mostly happens from long playtimes or keeping the game open while in rest mode. So just take a break and close the game when you’re done playing it for a bit. I love 1000xResist. It’s one of my personal game of the year choices and I expect it to be on a lot of end of the year lists. In the end I am going to have to give 1000xResist a 10/10 for being incredible.
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