Republique is also utterly beautiful, and coming to the PlayStation 4 as a complete package, rather than the chapter structure it adopted for the iPad release, is greatly welcome. This way, it is a complete package, this game is a chunky, lengthy experience that will last you for quite some time to come.
République offers an interesting take on stealth, and if you enjoy that kind of gameplay, you'll probably enjoy this game. It's has its flaws, but the experience prevails.
I didn't expected much from the game, but I was positively surprised! The story and the atmosphere catched me directly. The protagonists have sufficient profile, to continuously investigating their background.
Also the many background information (about books, music, art) are an important aspect of the game.
Of course you can't expect an impressive game play, and sometimes it was even frustrating (when you loose 45 minutes progression due to missing save possibility).
But in case you can live with that, you'll have much fun with that game.
I played on PS4.
Republique
A slow journey to confusion
Republique is a stealth game where you control 2 characters…
You control 390h or hope as well as a mystery person that can take control of all the cameras..
You’re tasked with keeping hope alive...
Helping her escape…
You do this by scouting out ahead, and then sneaking hope past and around potential problems...
Your only problems for the most part are the handful of guards you’ll run into in each of the 5 episodes…
luckily hope isn’t all too helpless…
She can pick up pepper spray Tasers or gas mines to blind enemies temporarily or take them out for the night…
and to make it a bit challenging... not all enemies can be blinded or tazed….
You can also unlock abilities as you play to distract guards, delay them, and predict their path..
This uses battery power so hope has to keep her phone charged to use these skills…
and to unlock them you have to collect information around the world by scanning various items…
this is the gist of the game...
collect data... listen to audio... and get from one checkpoint to the next..
Admittedly this sounds horrible… and to top it off I hate stealth...
but I absolutely loved my times with this games...
I had fun pick pocketing enemies to find games, and listening about banned books as I found them all over the place... I was addicted to collecting information... which ties in perfectly to the overall story that I can’t really get into without spoiling the game…
every episode ends with a cliff hanger to keep you wanting to keep going... and you will….
if you love mystery, stealth, story, or all 3, you’ll love republique..
But things do get a little weird towards the end... you get some weird thing that doesn’t tell you what to do so you think the game is broken, but its not…
I had to go to google to figure out what I was supposed to be doing and then the ending..
The ending... it just made me mad…
Despite a bit of frustration with the ending...
I loved my 20+ hours with this game
I give republique an 8/10
With its eloquent mix of dystopia, stealth puzzling and point n’ click adventuring, Republique is a gem of a game, soured only by some easily-avoided technical problems and a slightly uneven storytelling issue late on.
A lot of thought and care went into this game, more so than expected at first glance. While République can be a little rough around the edges at times, its flaws are never so pronounced that it ruins the experience.
Republique is a stealth game that delivers a strong overall story, while delivering a unique gameplay experience. You explore the game through the lens of a camera, which is a lot of fun despite the flaws the game has.
République is a competent stealth game that leaves plenty of room for improvement. While it weaves a number of intriguing plot threads into an interesting story full of socio-political motifs, it's ultimately an uneven ride that could have done a better job conveying its ideas.
If you’re interested in Republique purely as a tech demo, its smooth animations, realistic models, and excellent touch-controls would have you raving. Unfortunately, the story is so shallow and the central character is so bland that, despite a top-notch supporting cast, Republique’s narrative simply can’t carry the weight of the game.
Played this on my tablet and wow its the only game i ever liked on tablets and i tried about a hour worth on this version and the game is still epic and worth every penny .
(+)
Unique stealth gameplay
Good story but a little difficult to understand
Pretty good graphics
(-)
The ending is a bit disappointing
Bad save game feature
The pickpocket feature is only for completing collectibles, not weapons
Too repetitive
Story - The developer being one of Kojima's protege you could say and would have expected it to be weird, long dialogues but addicting kind of storyline. Alas, it had some of those engrossing elements but had issues and has some poor execution made that affected negatively its plot. Regardless, the story is as follow, It follow a girl named Hope imprisoned or housed in an unknown facility which makes experiment on other individuals like Hope. You (the mysterious guy/AI on the camera) must help her escape and obtain her freedom. A good plotline at start to middle but to be honest, it has a dissapointing (despite being meaningful) ending. Thus, a score of 8/10
Gameplay - The gameplay focuses mainly on stealth, with you controlling both the characters (Hope and the camera). Hope will be the one who will do physical actions like pickpocket, picking up items, clues or some collectibles while the camera will mainly do the hacking and mostly the puzzle area of the games. It has an organized gameplay with little to no issues but nothing really made it stand out as a whole since it is too standard. My main issue is how the game isnt really as intense as a thought it would be as well as the puzzle are pretty straightforward and few. As for the 5 episode game, only 1 of them had what a stealth game should have, pressure and intense and good puzzle. Thus, a score of 7/10.
Graphics - Being an originally released mobile game years ago. Its expected that the graphics of the game will be behind compared to current gen games. However, it does not necessarily mean that it cant be criticized. The character design of some characters like Hope are good to great. while others are pretty generic and same especially the enemies in the game. Its pretty weird that one of them has an ID of a lady but the enemy you got that from looks like a bald, thin, pale skin guy that looks like Jinzo in Yugi oh. The areas also are plain looking. However, the effects of the game are accurate like how the camera becomes static when you transfer from one to the other, the night vision like to see highlighted objects and some parts. Still though, an underwhelming performance. An average score of 5/10.
Sound/Voices - Well, music in the game is almost non existent. I really cant hear anything worthwhile to listen too. I understand though so you could focus more on the sounds the enemy make to know where to go. As to the voices, well I like to hear David Hayter's voice in a long time (Snake's voice actor.) However, I didnt like how he executed his voice in the game since he looked like overacting it too much and too whiny. The other are pretty decent but average as a whole. Thus, a score of 4/10
Fun factor - Well despite my complaints above and how for me this game is pretty average or below average as whole. I indeed liked it. I liked the characters of the game like Hope and Cooper (and his gaming addiction and opinons) except Zager and his whiny persona. The mood and mystery of the game was performed well as a whole but was toned down by the poor performance of its ending plots and twists. Still though, it was pretty satisfying to read and hear every collectible in game for you to understand its lore and Hope for me was one of the characters I cared about in game (and a small crush too boot) Thus, an ok score of 8/10 in here.
Average score - 6.4
Republique is...a mix. It's an episodic game, and was originally made for the iOS. The remastered version was released with the release of episode 5 in March 2016, which might explain why it feels so rushed.
The game mainly features stealth game-play, with some "hacking" as well. The story started off very interesting, as did the entire game. The first episode the guards are dumb as bricks, you help Hope out, and learn some interesting things about the story. Second episode was good as well. Stealth game-play feels good, but the lack of improved AI for the guards is a let down. Story progresses and gets more complex. Episode 3 feels more of the same. More questions get raised, you are still unclear of things, and you perform very easy stealth maneuvers on dumb AI. Episode 4 flies completely off the rails and the player has absolutely no idea what's going on, in the bad way. Gameplay is a bit tweaked, and feels a bit fresher. That might be the only upside as you trudge your way through that mess of an episode. Episode 5 was less of a mess, but thankfully it's over. Now we get some answers right? Wrong. Unless you want to listen to 5 hours of audio files you "hacked" in the game, or grabbed as a cassette, good luck finding any answers. And even then you might not. I don't really know, as I stopped listening to the audio files once they put you in a room with four 2 minute long audio file scans to listen to back to back. I'm not sure about you, but looking at a magazine cover while listening to people talk about things that vaguely relate to anything that's happening for 8 minutes straight isn't what I find fun or interesting. The story and characters never got a good conclusion or even any explanation of anything. The game adds more elements into the mix every episode to make it more and more confusing. It was a major let down to watch the end and not care about any of it. Very poor ending. Also I have to note, the cliffhangers from the end of episodes don't make any sense with the beginning of the next episode, especially 4 and 5.
On to the minute-to-minute game-play. The stealth feels pretty good actually, but wears incredibly thin a few episodes in. The controls feel a bit strange, and sometimes you seem to be glued to walls for cover, but the movement is fine on the whole. The main issue I have with it are the guards and the cameras you view Hope from.
The guards are dumb. Very dumb. I can't count how many times I picked their pockets when they had plain sight of me, or when I would pepper spray one of them and he would scream "AHHH IT BURNS! MY EYES!" and the other guards literally 6 feet away in the same room wouldn't even notice. Overall the guards could have made the stealth more interesting if they were smarter, but they only serve to throw you off your path slightly. Near the end it got better when they upped the guard count in each room, but that doesn't solve the issue.
The idea of only seeing Hope through security cameras is a very neat idea. I liked the novelty of it a lot... until it would switch camera feeds. The amount of times you need to change camera feeds in this game is immense. That is fine, but it being such a huge part of the game, you would think it wouldn't need to load the very next room for a good 5-9 seconds and completely break up game-play. Especially problematic is when it switches feeds without you wanting it to. Sometimes I would accidentally walk into the wrong room and it would automatically change camera feeds and waste 5-9 seconds. Then I would quickly walk out of the room and see the same glitchy effect for another 5 seconds. There were also times where you would need to walk into a room blind. As in, there were no cameras for you to switch to in the room until you had Hope walk in. For a game that relies so heavily on the aspect of scouting the area first, that shouldn't ever be an issue.
Overall I feel this game tried too hard with making the story complex and thought-provoking when it should have spent more time on the game-play. It was almost a good game. Needless confusion, endless "hacking" to get random audio files, and tiresome game-play earns this game a 4.
I found the game was trash I mean the part especially where I find the game way too hard to play is not the game-play itself but the part where you have no choice but to get caught by the guards in the first episode because you constantly need to go down to level 2 in the game where the recharging station is located for your smartphone and every time you use the smartphone to hack unlock doors there's 3 life bars which indicates the battery life of Hope's smartphone to make it short I hated the game.
SummaryDeveloped over 5 years by industry veterans (Metal Gear Solid, Halo, F.E.A.R.) and fully realized in Unity 5, Republique is a thrilling and topical stealth-action game that explores the perils of government surveillance in the Internet Age.