While we still have to decide the name for the genre of games that borrows heavily from Vampire Survivors, one thing is for sure: any game that follows in its footsteps hardly messes up. R.I.P. – Reincarnation Insurance Program follows the footsteps of Vampire Survivors to create its own unique world with addictive gameplay. And after playing R.I.P for over 40 hours, I could easily say the team nailed it.
Truth to be told, I treat games with rougelike elements as long-distance family members who show up once a year, completely neglecting their presence in my life. I was a bit of a skeptic before going into R.I.P. The trailer did look decent, but I wouldn’t count myself as the biggest fan of the genre of games.
But the cloud of skepticism started evaporating inch by inch, as I was sinking more time into the game. R.I.P. ‘s little-to-no-handholding approach further pushed me to learn even the basic gameplay mechanics through trial and error. The accidental discoveries mixed with a couple of intentional findings became a major part of my runs in-game.
This review is going to be a long one. Grab a snack, preferably something big, and let’s dive into a review of R.I.P.: Reincarnation Insurance Program.
It’s More Than Just Shooting
There is a level of expectation people have when they come across any game that shares the label of Rougelite or Looter Shooter. The gameplay has to be nailed to perfection, or people will flood the discussion section with nothing but complaints. There are many ways to fumble the gameplay, luckily R.I.P stays far away from that.
The game drops you on a map, and you just press the Go button. That’s it, you are all alone, fending for your survival by grabbing abilities and Tech nodes to make your current run powerful. The enemy drops gears of different rarity, making your next run even better. That’s it, the general hook of the game doesn’t add too much complexity, and keeps everything easily understandable.
A single run lasts for around 15 minutes, and I died more times than I would like to admit. But it never felt like a punishment; the game did let me keep the gears and EXP points after death, making every instance of death a meaningful ride. While the run itself lasts for a good 15 minutes, each 15-minute run felt different than the last.
Mixing up different weapon elements, creating an unholy abomination, and watching it either fail or succeed is my gameplay highlight of R.I.P.
Another hidden gameplay mechanic that I appreciate is that R.I.P. also keeps track of the RNG status of the element skill drop. So, if I choose the Corrosive element on my first level up, the later skill drops will also feature the Corrosive element to help me mould my build towards one specific element.
Each element skill line pick has one ultimate attack, a perfect blow to cast against bosses or a massive zombie horde. By a little bit of tinkering in the skills and choosing proper gear, I managed to lower the cooldown of the ultimate move to mere seconds, making the game utterly broken, a heavenly sight to witness. It could be a bit difficult to pull off with the RNG mechanics, but it’s all about knowing what you want. It could take some time to learn the skill pops on certain elements. I would advise keeping a note on certain skills under elements, so you will always choose element tech that drops specific skills.
The game throws six different characters, each with their own unique weapon and armor set, drastically changing the gameplay. So if you don’t fancy the idea of firing 60 bullets out of an SMG to take out a zombie horde, then you can choose the character that has a rocket launcher, a shotgun, or a good ol’ bow to carry out the slaughter. Personally, I always liked the sound and visuals, and the pace of an SMG firing multiple bullets.
Once you have selected a character, then it’s all about playing the game to level them up to Lv. 40. Then the game opens the door to the endgame, where you replay the same map on greater difficulties, earning more rewards and Pacts, helping you further boost your gear to melt the bosses.
With the right build, you can melt down even the heaviest bosses on the greatest difficulty without breaking a sweat. Mixing up different elements, coming up with a hybrid build to try my luck on how far I will go in the run, was my go-to objective in R.I.P.
Bland Visuals for Bland World
The graphics of R.I.P is nothing to write home about; it follows the traditional visual aesthetic of an Unreal Engine game. At this point, any game with the UE engine has a layer of homogeneity to its visuality. While the three distinct maps, Snowy, Desert, and Swampy areas, have a different vibe from all of them, there is nothing in the map that actually stands out. Each felt the same, since gunplay takes the center stage, the map itself does nothing unique.
The presence of Unreal Engine graphics makes the visual aesthetic of R.I.P more akin to homogeneity than anything artistic.
There is no quicksand in the Desert map, nor does a giant worm come out of the surface for a surprise challenge. The same goes for other maps as well. While the Swamp area might look unique, it’s largely empty, and the snowy area was also devoid of anything interesting happening on the map. While each map focuses on different environments, none of them adds any challenge to the gameplay.
In the end, each map felt like scrolling through wallpapers on your phone rather than feeling like an actual part of the world. Some of the problems in visual direction can be put to use of AI.
Low Effort AI Makeover
Regardless of many people’s voices regarding AI usage, it is a godsend for small developers to create well-crafted visuals to add more narrative depth to the world. But unfortunately, R.I.P usage of AI was the opposite of what it should be. Most of the AI usage is hastily used, case in point, the background image on the main menu had an AI picture of a boss in the game.
The very first thing you see in the game is an AI-generated picture that looks blurry and out of place.
There are many cutscenes and videos in R.I.P., completely made in AI. And for some reason, the AI videos or cutscenes only play once and stop instead of looping into another instance. Each of these AI cutscenes or videos plays during the gameplay, particularly during the skill selection screen, making them awkward to see.
This barebones AI usage adds a level of cheapness to the game; fleshing out the AI videos could’ve added a different vibe and made the environment or the world-building a tad bit better. But instead, the game relies on playing the same old 5-second AI footage only once and lets it hang on the screen.
I wouldn’t put the game in the bin of AI slop, as the gameplay is far superior and engaging and challenging from start to finish, but the AI cutscenes certainly need a lot of rework to make them sync well in the game. So it doesn’t awkwardly stand out in the middle of high-octane action scenes.
The bigger they are, The More Health They Have
The game introduces new enemies and places them in the zombie hordes in every new map. They exist to add variety to the enemies rather than making sense of the world or the environment. The bosses spawn the same way as the common zombie out of the ground, but with a neat little visual cutscene.
All mini bosses or elites and regular bosses were uniquely designed; every attack had an animation that could be used as an indicator to dodge. You can always wait and dodge at the last minute to get a perfect dodge, which does look cool. If you have the right gear build, then you can deal even more damage after a perfect dodge.
The game also features six different bosses, two per map, and each one of them is tougher than the last. They have a good number of moves that demand learning. And the final boss of FrostField, which is the last map of the game, put me through a stress trial. As the boss pushed things far beyond fair and balanced, taking him out on the greatest difficulty was a sense of relief that could hardly be expressed in words.
The difficulty options are done extremely well to create mild to extreme challenges with rewards, making the challenge run worth the trouble. Getting the Mythic gear after slaying bosses at higher levels and earning more credits and EXP was the endgame grind that put me on a hook for hours on end.
Automatic Vs. Manual
As of writing, the game received a patch to make everything automatic. While you still have to control the movement of the character, everything else, from firing a gun to throwing a grenade, can be switched to automatic. At first, I didn’t really like the idea of making everything automatic, but after playing a round with automatic gunplay, now I’m more hooked to the game than ever.
Don’t worry, you can still use manual methods while in automatic; the transition from manual to automatic gun firing is quick. Many would like the idea of manual, as the game offers many skills around manual gunplay, such as DMG boost to reward people who are doing the shooting manually.
Automatic firing, grenade throws are perfect when you are running a broken build, or once you have the highest level guns in your arsenal. The manual is perfect for beginners, as you are trying to find your footing in the game with the default armor and weapon at your back.
The automatic firing adds a relaxed vibe to the game, as I found myself using only the keyboard, and occasionally had to touch the mouse to choose the skill. I hope that in later updates, they will add a way of choosing the skills with the keyboard. So I could certainly play the game with only the keyboard without ever using the mouse.
The burden of Early Access
R.I.P is in Early Access, but nothing in the game can be labelled as half-finished or in the making. A typical Early Access game will have certain elements locked behind a Work In Progress pop-up box. This has been a deal breaker for me in many games with the Early Access tagline. Many times I would be interested in trying out a certain gameplay scenario, only to find it’s been locked by the WIP box.
Luckily, the stench of Early Access is not found around R.I.P. Every gameplay mechanic is open to the player. The game has three maps and one crucible or horde-type mechanic to farm gear. All of them can be unlocked and played by meeting their requirements. You can also level up all six characters to Lv. 40, making their build perfect for the end game.
It took me around 30 hours to level up one character to Lv. 40; there are still five left in the vault. The endgame is all about farming loot; the loot can be shared with other characters. So once you are done leveling up with one character, you can then switch to a new character, hand over the rare loot, and repeat the process.
