Review | Re:Turn – One Way Trip

LifeisXbox’s ‘Re:Turn – One Way Trip’ review | Today I will be reviewing my first ever horror game! And what a game it was. It claims to be a puzzle game with RPG elements, and I can confirm all of that in more detail below. One Way Trip also borrows Adventure elements from other games that will surely get you more connected with the protagonist! So without further ado, let’s tell you all about Re:Turn – One Way Trip right now made by the people over at Red Ego Games.

We played Re:Turn – One Way Trip for 6 hours on Steam. This game is also available on Nintendo Switch, Playstation, Windows Store, and Xbox

What we liked!

• Graphics/Artwork | When I played through the beautiful world of Re:Turn, I found myself gasping at the custom artwork. When you have conversations with yourself or other people, a drawing of the person speaking will come up. This drawing will change based on their emotions and is genuinely detailed! When you get cut-scenes, you get whole sections that are custom drawn with a lot of effort. Honestly, I did not expect this for this price point! When you play through the rest of the game, you will be playing in a lovely 2D Pixel Art style setting that is also interesting to look at. Cute and functional! So big win here.  
• Connection | I found myself connecting with Saki a lot! Even though I am no woman, this is the first time that I really was able to place myself in the shoes of a female main character. So this came as a big surprise. Sometimes you will feel the shivers run over you when scary things happen, and that is what I was looking for when I started playing Re:Turn.
• Music | When you play a thriller/horror game, you NEED the right music to set the tone. And Red Ego Games delivered this perfectly. Nothing too monotone and vary based on the situation. The scenes swapped, and so did the music. It helped me immerse myself in the game, so a job well done here!
• Story | Now for the main dish as it were! Story. So when I played Re:Turn, I actually spent time reading a whole story. And yes, that comes as a first. Usually, I tend to skip parts to get along a bit quicker cause I am a rather busy person, and I dislike a lot of reading in my games. But here, the reading was done well. I don’t know how to stress this, but it was great. You will find yourself around a campfire with friends. Then when an earthquake hits, you can’t find those friends anymore. This is where you will end up on the train, where the rest of the story will unfold. It’s told in such a way that you won’t get enough. It has plot holes at the end, but devs are working on a second part in the series to resolve this.

Somewhere between

• Puzzles | I found myself enjoying most of the puzzles. When you finally find that one clue that you are looking for and progress that storyline, you feel terrific! But it can sometimes feel a tad tedious since it involves a lot of thinking and walking (more on this in the new point). This isn’t that big of a deal for most people, but it got me bothered a few times. Mainly because a disturbance in the flow of actions comes with a risk of detachment from the main character. Luckily this didn’t happen for me, but still something to watch out for if you are prone to this.

What we disliked

• Train setting | Now to the big elephant in the room! The train. Train settings are dangerous, and I didn’t entirely like the execution here. It made the gameplay feel stretched at quite a few moments and involved a tremendous amount of unnecessary thinking, walking trial. I get that it is the game’s main plot, but some more outside-of-the-train events would have been welcome.

CONCLUSION

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