Many games these days tend to have a predictable and run-of-the-mill plot. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to find a unique and well-told narrative, but Sunset Visitor has taken that challenge and fired on all cylinders with its debut title1000xRESIST.
On the surface, 1000xRESIST is a story about surviving an apocalyptic alien incursion. But in unraveling its approximately 1,000-year timeline, 1000xRESIST delves into numerous meaningful themes including family, humanistic nature, and the adaptivity of the mind. I even learned a thing or two about myself along the way. It’s still a sci-fi tale, but it’s not afraid to get a bit deep as the story unfolds.
Those expecting intense or difficult gameplay in any form won’t find it here. In fact, for the most part, 1000xRESIST is mostly an adventure game with some light gameplay elements sprinkled throughout. But those elements serve the exact purpose you’d hope for in an experience like 1000xRESIST: to enhance the narrative. After experiencing this roughly 15-hour journey, I don’t think I’d want it any other way.
1000xRESIST (PC [reviewed], Switch)
Developer: Sunset Visitor
Publisher: Fellow Traveller
Released: May 9, 2024
MSRP: $19.99
Game of Clones
The story of 1000xRESIST starts over 1,000 years after an alien species known as The Occupants visits Earth, bringing with it a weapon; a disease that leads to the near-extinction of the human race. The disease is brutal. People start to cry, before all their bodily fluids are eventually forcefully expunged from their bodies. Certainly not a pleasant end for humankind.
A group of six sister clones, all named after their purpose—Principal, Knower, Fixer, Healer, Bang Bang Fire, and Watcher—reside in an underground bunker serving their creator, the ALLMOTHER. We play as the Watcher, who has the especially unique role of being able to observe the memories of the ALLMOTHER through a process called Communion. We can observe the memories and learn more about life before the Occupants arrived, as well as the last 1,000 years since they got to Earth.
At the time of the Occupant invasion, ALLMOTHER—whose name was Iris—was in high school. In your first communion as Watcher, you experience the trials and tribulations of Iris, going about her high school life. The Occupants appear and the disease starts infecting everyone at her school, except her. But before you can finish your first Communion, Fixer finds a way to interfere with the memory; to alert you that things in the bunker, and more specifically with ALLMOTHER, may not be as they seem.
For a narrative-driven experience like 1000xRESIST, the story is the most important part. And thankfully the story here does not disappoint. 1000xRESIST utilizes a variety of forms throughout the telling of its story, mixing laughs, cries, scares, and confusion. The early chapters drip-feed you enough to satiate your appetite for answers, while also prompting more questions about what’s going on in this world. In the end, you get the answers to most of the questions, and the unanswered parts feel intended for the player to fill in the cracks with their own theories.
Clonesome Dove
I usually struggle a bit getting through dialogue-heavy games. It’s not that I don’t like them. Who doesn’t love a good story? But whether I want to or not, I eventually find my mind wandering a bit. 1000xRESIST finds multiple ways to prevent that from happening.
From a story perspective, there are tons of comical laughs and subtle third-wall-breaking segments that keep it feeling fresh. Sunset Visitor’s writing had me genuinely looking forward to each and every line. To make it even better, each line of dialogue from every character is fully voiced with a superb cast of voice acting whose stellar performances only make the narrative even more surreal.
Then there’s the gameplay. For most of the game, each chapter goes through a similar cadence. You’ll start in the underground bunker in the present day. You’ll walk around and talk with the other sisters, then perform a Communion where you experience a memory of Iris. During the Communion, you’ll walk around solving very light puzzles with a handy technological device that allows you to jump forward and backward through various times on demand. For example, you may want to enter a room that’s blocked off in your current time. You can simply jump to another time where the entrance is open, walk in, and then jump back to your current time.
None of the puzzles are difficult in any regard, and mostly just serve as a fun little gameplay element between the storytelling. There are also several Gravity Rush-style segments where you must look around you and right-click on specific highlighted points of the area you are in, jumping from one to another to quickly climb to high areas or cover larger distances quickly.
Gameplay is supplemental to the actual drive here, to progress the story and explore the narrative in detail. You can’t fail or get a game over screen, and you probably won’t find yourself searching for a difficult puzzle solution on your phone or anything like that. But it does offer a nice change of pace between the sometimes hard-hitting narrative at play.
The Rolling Clones
At the end of each chapter, you’ll end up back at the underground bunker where you can run around and explore the bunker, called the “Guarden,” and interact with your other sisters to gain even more insight into what’s going on, as well as get their input on your observations. The character design of all of the sisters is really well done. Each sister’s namesake describes their purpose in the Guarden, which also molds their personality based on what they are tasked with doing in the bunker.
You’ll only scratch the surface at the start. Each sister will start to open up and show you more and more of their personality as you progress through 1000xRESIST. Even though the sisters are clones, they all have their own personalities. It’s a lineup of characters I didn’t expect to care much for when I first met them, but by the end, I appreciated each of them for different reasons.
The Sword in the Clone
Though small in the grand scheme of things, there are some minor issues I had with 1000xRESIST. First is how the save system works. At the end of each chapter, you’re presented with the option to save. However, you can also save during the game as well—right in the middle of the chapter, for example—as long as you aren’t currently in a dialogue segment. Simply open the menu and click Save Game. But that save doesn’t seem to save the actual point you’re at. Instead, it just creates a save point at the beginning of that chapter.
The first time I experienced this, I had no clue. I was a couple of hours into a chapter, nearing the end, when suddenly I had something come up and had to step away for a while. I went into the menu and saved my game, only to come back later, and upon loading the save had to start over at the beginning of the chapter. I tried this several more times just to see if it was a fluke, but every save just loaded at the beginning of its respective chapter. It’s an unclear option that could lead to some annoyances for players taking a break.
I also had a bit of frustration trying to navigate the Guarden, which you spend a lot of time in. It’s pretty massive in size, which is important, seeing as it’s the last bastion of the apocalypse. But you only get a simple compass-style indicator at the top of your map to find certain characters to interact with. Even after exploring the corridors and multiple levels of the Guarden throughout my 15-ish hour playthrough, I still found myself running around lost, trying to figure out how to get somewhere due to the somewhat maze-like flow of it. It’s a cool setting and I can certainly appreciate the detail that went into it, but traversing it (which you will do often) can be quite a pain at times.
The Twilight Clone
1000xRESIST is a narrative masterpiece. It’s a testament that games can be light on the gameplay, but still tell a story that rivals all other types of media if done properly. It’s clear that Sunset Visitor drew inspiration from other sci-fi story-heavy titles like NieR: Automata. Narratively, 1000xRESIST holds its own and tells a captivating, intriguing, and thought-provoking story, paying homage to the titles that inspired it as opposed to relying on them.
If you enjoy a good story that can make you laugh one minute, hold back tears the next, then audibly mumble “WTF?” right after that, do yourself a favor, and check out1000xRESIST. I’m incredibly impressed with Sunset Visitor’s ability to tell a story with its debut title. It’s one that will stick with me for a while, and I’ve already caught myself still thinking about it, despite having finished it a few days ago. I can’t wait to see what Sunset Visitor does next. Hekki ALLMO.
