Republique has shown me how fun the NSA’s job must be.
Republique takes place in a colony named Metamorphosis. Within this Orwellian totalitarian state, all media, literature, even language are censored heavily. Any citizen who comes into contact with mentally “poisonous” materials must be “removed” from society. One of these unlucky citizens is Hope. Known as a Pre-Cal, she was born within Metamorphosis, and experimented on by an organization known as the Prizrak. After being detained for consuming mentally poisonous material, she cries out for help from a stranger through her phone.
Hope receives help from Cooper, an undercover American agent operating within Metamorphosis. As we aid in her escape, users must guide a shaken Hope through the maze-like facilities of Metamorphosis.
By using what is known as the OMNI system within Republique, players can manipulate doors and cameras. By taking control of the facilities cameras, you can scout ahead for Hope, helping her sneak around the menacing Prizrak guards. Things can move as quickly or slowly as you like, with game play that really lends to player choice when it comes to execution. Whenever OMNI vision is activated, real-time pauses, meaning you can scout ahead and explore as far as you like using various cameras. Will you plot a course ahead of time, or switch in and out of real-time by clicking along to guide Hope? The choice is yours.
Personally I adapted a mixture of playstyles, planning ahead at times, and then giving Hope directions on the fly to avoid Prizrak. The Remastered edition of Republique is a simple port for PC, and boy it sure feels like it. The UI is relatively unchanged and as I played, there were various times where I thought “Wow this really feels like I should be using a tablet”. Having said this however, when you get into the thick of it, effortlessly unlocking doors, jumping from camera to camera, doing so on a pc gives the game a cyberpunk hacker feel.
From the moment I saw the title on mobile, I was impressed by the graphic quality of Republique, because well… it was impressive for a mobile title. Having moved to the PC in this port, the graphics are not as stunning, but still quite beautiful.
The tense musical score lends the player a sense of urgency and importance. As you click about your screen rapidly, you actively feel like you are helping someone, and the music reinforces this. Voice acting is of an extremely high quality, sometimes to a fault. Most of Hopes lines are delivered in hushed whispered tones, which makes sense narratively. But imagine someone whispering in your ear a bit too sharply, that is how it feels to experience Republique with headphones on.
As a whole, Republique is a very interesting and fun stealth/strategy title. Stealth being a genre that may spook a player or two away due to its slow, methodical nature, is made fun and accessible by Republique‘s gameplay. With the Deluxe Remastered version including the first 5 episodes, it is definitely a great value, and a must play.