ReSetna Review
Inventory management can be a mixed bag (pun….errr, intended). You can go the Diablo route where space is limited, and you constantly sort it and drop items until you have an opportunity to return to town. There is the Skyrim way, where you could carry anything, but you have to contend with being overburdened and having to walk/not fast travel. What if there was a form of inventory management whose sole purpose was to provide skills and upgrade your abilities?
Developed by Today’s Games, ReSetna is a “combat oriented action platformer” with a “Tetris-inspired upgrade system…” (Steam). You play as the titular character, a combat-ready robot. The mysterious Signal is corrupting robots into madness, and it is ReSetna’s mission to uncover the truth and eliminate the threat. You are humanity robot’s last hope (sorry, I had to).
ReSetna may be “combat-ready,” but what fun would it be if all skills were unlocked immediately? In the beginning, you can jump, dodge and roll, parry, attack, and unleash a charged attack. Eventually, you unlock the ability to double jump, dash (on the ground and then in the air), perform hacks, and throw your weapon. Dodge and roll are the same button; if you are moving, you roll; if standing still, you backstep, a/k/a dodge. Quite often, though, there is input lag causing that dodge to be a roll or vice versa because you thought you stopped moving, but the game did not register it, and you roll, sometimes into water, lava, poison, etc. The aforementioned charge attack is, at best, an opening move. For starters, it can be interrupted, and when taking on several enemies (which is the norm), it will be hard to complete the animation. Secondly, there is a follow-through to the move, except you might follow through the enemy altogether and swing at open air. Granted, there are times when you can roll through multiple enemies, turn quickly and pull off the move, but it largely becomes forgotten over the course of the game. Not to be outdone, parrying is equally as useless and largely forgotten. It is not that parrying is hard to do (for the record, I hate parry mechanics even after years of finally figuring it out in Soulslikes), the game teaches you to parry in a tutorial but does something completely different while you play. In the tutorial, enemies “flash” or have an indicator right before attacking, which is your "alert” to parry. In the game, enemies would “flash,” there would be a brief delay, and then attack. Without fail, I hit parry as the “flash” happened, and would take a hit to the face. Could it have been input delay? Possibly, but I managed to pull off a few parries. In the grand scheme of things, getting hit after a missed parry did not kill me, and landing a parry and counter did not destroy the enemy. I was better served constantly rolling through or dodging back from attacks.
ReSetna (the character) has access to several weapons, all of which have a standard attack, the previously mentioned charge attack, an AoE ground attack, and the ability to throw said weapon. Weapons can be swapped freely by pressing left and right on the directional pad. The attack animation for each weapon differs enough that you can choose your own playstyle, so to speak. I liked the AoE ability of the first weapon you start the game with, but I preferred the throwing animation and upward strike of the second weapon. The final weapon has the longest reach of the three, but also felt “off” as I kept sailing through enemies if I spammed attack. The throw ability must be found in-game and because I did not find it for the third weapon, I found myself using it the least. In addition to attacking with your weapons, ReSetna can hack other robots. The first hack you have access to is a disorient, which allows you to leave an enemy wandering aimlessly for a few seconds. Attacking the enemy does break the disorient, so this was only useful on isolated enemies. The most useful of hacks (at least in my playthrough) was the Chain Lightning. The flying enemies in-game are incredibly weak BUT a giant pain in the ass as they generally fly just out of reach of an upward swing. Chain Lightning, though, can reach them with ease and even take out multiples in one shot. With a relatively long cooldown and minimal damage done, hacks sounded like they could be useful but ultimately proved underwhelming.
Speaking of underwhelming, the Tetris-inspired inventory management sounded phenomenal on paper (or the Steam page) and started on the right track but quickly became an afterthought. ReSetna will find various upgrades scattered around each different biome. They range from increased health and increased Life Cell (health potions) capacity to reduced Hack cooldown and the ability to throw specific weapons (yes, each one has its own upgrade). In your inventory, the upgrades appear as different colored Tetris pieces. The colors correspond to different types - weapons are separate from hacks, which are separate from system upgrades.
The pieces fit on a grid, and if same color pieces are touching, their effectiveness is increased. For example, hacks like Chain Lightning are permanent (once you find it). An upgrade increases the bounce number (how many times it chains). If you place that upgrade next to other upgrades of the same color, you increase its effectiveness, or in this case, the number of bounces. Now, perhaps this is a “me” problem, but I explored every inch of the available game until I could not, which was the first boss fight. As a result, I had more than enough of the various currencies (there are different parts to collect from defeated enemies) to purchase an upgrade to the inventory grid. From this point on, every upgrade fit in place with little maneuvering needed on my part. In fact, I only tinkered with it before the last boss, but only after failing a few times. Like the hacking, it could have been a great feature, but it was easily manipulated to not matter. You can even save different combinations of upgrade configurations, but to what end?
ReSetna is a fun action platformer/metroidvania. Despite some under-utilized skills (the Tetris inventory could have been so much more) and a little jank making precision platforming rage-inducing at times, you will surely enjoy your 10+ hours with this game.
