GAME REVIEW - CITIZEN SLEEPER
🎮 total time played: 13 hours
🎖️ achievements: 74%
🖊️ rating: 8/10
this is a text-based "rpg" where you play as a sleeper, essentially an android with a copy of a human's mind in it, and you wake up on a centrifugal station. i put quotation marks around "rpg" because this is mainly a narrative experience where you get to talk to people, while the rpg mechanics are mainly trying to survive and manage your limited resources cycle per cycle
the writing in this game is excellent, i love the characters and how rich this place feels. the themes around the control of corporations are kinda obvious when you start, but im glad they got deep into the ideas of personhood and identity and what it means to be yourself and live for yourself or live for someone, and what it means to get to decide that for yourself
however, i don't think this is a perfect game, and a few things nagged on my mind up to the very end.
first, while the game does track the number of days or cycles that have passed, it doesn't really change the metanarrative of the game that much. you could go through a storyline near the start or end of your playthrough and it would have the same events with no change. because of this, even though i felt very encouraged to feel through the character and make choices based on how i felt the character would feel, on a meta level the game is pushing me to continue playing and try to finish every drive. it also loses its replayability when ive seen so much of it on my first go
second, none of the storylines or drives intersected with each other at all, which made sense given you can do any at any time, but it also took away from the immersion the story was trying to put me in. it was only at the end, playing the three final episodes, where i really felt like my previous actions actually had weight and could come together, even with how limited the interactions between those storylines were.
third, this game has too many early endings. three times i completed a storyline to be met with a choice, i made a choice and i was given the credits, and i found that confusing tbh. none of those felt like they would have been satisfying endings in any playthrough, so they didnt make sense at all. the only ending that made sense and felt definitive was the final one. plus with those other endings, like i said in point 1, the game is encouraging you to keep playing, so to have an ending there goes against what the game really wants you to do in that moment.
you may read all of this and think i hate this game or something but i really do love it - the story is brilliant as is the worldbuilding and the beautiful art and music. i wish i could spend a hundred hours just exploring this world (and i cant wait to continue with the sequel)!! there are just some things i think the devs missed out on doing with this one.
i have yet to check out the sequel, but i sincerely hope some of these problems are addressed in the next one. if they are then im sure the next game will be a banger
https://backloggd.com/u/aenthology/review/4534978/#backloggd #gamereview #citizensleeper
Obspogon
aen
Stephen Berg