Relooted

Despite its narrative shortcomings, Relooted makes a deep impression. It’s a history lover’s dream, offering factual glimpses into a vibrant continent that Western civilizations have long been groomed to view as backward and conflict-ridden, while offering thoughtful puzzle designs, fast-paced action, and a charming cast of characters. It demands a fundamental change in how people view Africa and its place in the world, one that resonates more with every reclaimed artifact.

The workaday plot aside, the fact that my main complaints about Relooted boil down to wanting more of it says something about its quality. The heists are satisfying, the escapes are exciting, and the characters that get a chance to shine are charismatic. Relooted has the bones of an all-timer, but it falls short of building the perfect reliquary to keep them in.

Smart design, a fantastic script, and a stellar soundtrack all make Relooted a delightful indie surprise to seek out.

Relooted turns a fantastic premise into a fun heist game. Putting its weaknesses in writing and plot aside, repatriating African artifacts is fun, swift and captures the emotional spikes and troughs of the heist genre nicely. Relooted also never loses sight of why these artifacts should be repatriated, treating them not as empty collectibles but instead as a way to help players understand their cultural significance and why they should be returned.

Until these closing stages, though, Relooted doesn't match its cast's bold determination and flexibility. Despite well-laid plans, the execution isn't as slick as it might be. [Issue#422, p.116]

Relooted makes you feel like you're a mastermind, and escaping is thrilling, but there are just enough problems that drag the experience down to the point you can't ignore them.

Relooted serves as a fine and righteous outlet for the moral rage at the unfairness and unjust occupation and horror experienced by this continent, and fulfills double roles as a history lesson and fun heist platformer. Here’s hoping more people discover just how bloody and unfair African history really was — and how wonderful, beautiful, and inspiring our continent and its people remain.

Very interesting story with fast pace gameplay. The graphics are generic, but it is nice that these type of games spend time telling stories that usually are not told.

Only reason you're seeing so many negative reviews is racism. That's sadly all there is to it. As for the game itself, it's alright. You play as someone working with a professor, her student, your brother, and close friend yo take back artifacts, some of which were stolen from you or ripped from a historical site for the sake of profit. The game teaches you about these artifacts with history lessons, and they're very engaging and interesting. The gameplay is parkour based as you utilize that mechanic to escape the site safely, but has puzzle elements that add a challenge to it. While I plan to beat it, though, it does feel very surface level for now. I may edit this review if anything changes, but all in all, it's alright. I'm only giving it a 7, though, cause of a character with a stereotypical Asian accent. Even if he's voiced by a Chinese person, that still doesn't sit well with me cause of how they had him voice the character.

The premise is good. Heist stuff with a National Treasure type flare. The game is at it's best when it's doing that too. I like the core of the gameplay; Find your way into rooms, explore, find artifacts, plan an escape route and then escape fast. That part is good. Unfortunately, there is the not good and it messes with the core experience. I liked casing the smaller places, but it got to be a chore in the bigger, later levels. Also, early on every other level was a tutorial that seemed unnecessary and bulky to the experience. In between missions you also go back to your hub, which was cool looking, but I wanted more with it. Activities, mini-games, etc., just something more than have long meaningless talks with people. That is one my other points. The story is super dry and boring. It was fine early on, but every twist and turn was so corny and predictable it wasn't worth my time at a certain point. The characters are also super generic, very stereotypical architypes (techy, strong, rich, nerd, athletic, etc.), I wish they fleshed them out a bit more, they all just were very one note and just played their role. I also had several bugs that made me rerun missions and bug UI out at times. The in game save system is also very lacking. You cannot save on missions at all if you quit out. Even if you are one step away from finishing a long level, you start back at your hub if you quit or get a bug or error that closes the game. That is a real bummer and soured my experience quite a bit. This could have been a really cool game if it stuck to the simple planning stuff, exploration and getaway runner, but unfortunately it just falls quite a bit short. Maybe a sequel would clean some of this up, I'd be interested in giving a 2nd game a go.

Gameplay wise the idea has a lot of potential but sadly doesn't reach it. It's a basic platformer with some parkour elements and very light puzzles. Occasional jankiness aside it's completely fine. I would really like to see this idea taken further and refined. The storyline is predictable and the characters are one-dimensional cliches. The bar for stories in video games is much lower than other media, but this still fails to meet it.

Let me set the record straight: I am the target audience of this game. I am a South African citizen. I’m also a game developer who works with Unreal, and for the time being, mostly Unity — and I have to say, this is possibly the worst video game product to come out of South Africa. And I know exactly who, what, and why this game exists. Now, since I don’t want to mysteriously disappear, I’m going to rate this game incredibly fairly — that’s my job. I learn, I create, and I review stuff at my own leisure. Let’s start with performance and optimisation: it’s below standard. I genuinely don’t understand how people can make a product with some of the worst settings and optimisation for a game of this scale. The game runs like it’s constantly checking something in the background, like it’s necessary. This is a 2.5D game, not an open world. It’s meant to load in a level, and that’s about it. Constant stuttering on my PC running an RTX 3060, using my fastest M.2 PCIe 4 SSD — with enough speed to match, even surpass, the PS5.Then we have the graphics, and I hardly ever use these kinds of words because I think they’re cheap — but this perfectly describes it: “Cheap, uninspired garbage.”There are solo devs and PS2-era games that produce better animation, visuals, and graphics. I just played Big Hops, and that game is better than this because it looks fun, cute, and interesting enough to keep playing. This, however, is one of the most blatant and blind games in terms of diversity, story, and plot. Why are we stealing artefacts that are part of history? Because we’re returning them to their rightful place? That makes no sense. If that were the case, why not just contact the museums and trade for them? Aren’t the characters loaded with money and technology? None of it makes sense. There are games like Uncharted that perfectly explain why Nathan is going around shooting people, etc. He’s literally a thief trying to make ends meet by exploring and finding treasure. In this game, however, it’s because the artefacts are African and not kept in Africa… what?? Nyamakop literally needs to hire someone who can actually lead their studio to make a game worthwhile — something that shows we have competent developers in this country. ****, hire me. I can guarantee you I can lead a team and make something worth a damn. In fact, I’m doing it right now as we speak. Anyway, this game is not it. It’s not worth R100, not worth R50. This shouldn’t even exist — but we can thank the investors, and probably the South African government, for this slop. They’re making my job quite tough because when people see what I’m working on and they look at where it’s coming from, I can only hope everything goes smoothly. Ratings: Graphics: 4/10, stiff and uninteresting. Gameplay: 5/10, it can look okay, but overall, it’s nothing special and can often be boring. Music: 5/10, I’ve actually heard better African music… to my surprise. Story and Plot: 2/10, fairly poor in quality. Performance: 5/10, it’s not the best or the worst. 3/10. The game works. Is it fun? No. Is it worth your time? No. Does it offer any value on planet Earth? Probably not. Is it even worth pirating??? Hell no.