Gaming has come to a strange inflection point as of late. So-called triple-A games routinely sell for record high prices, and are often received ambivalently at best due to a host of issues, of which being derivative is often at least one charge. Enter the indies, and while not the intent here to argue what is an indie, in general they provide more experimental genres at a fraction of the price. One such genre is that of the ‘roguelite’, featuring quick playtimes and steady progress that even if the player loses (and they will) small upgrades give a sense of progression.
RIP: Reincarnation Insurance Program is one such game. Stated to be a mix between Vampire Survivors and Diablo, the game has players take the role of a character fighting waves of zombies. As they kill them, experienced is dropped, which can then be used to get random level-ups from a selection of elements, like lightning or flame. In addition, there are random gear drops that are permanent such as armour or weapons that boost damage.
While this is a preview and the typical caveats apply of ‘things might change’, at this point there is zero story, and the main hub quickly borders on useless as well. This is a huge missed opportunity as RIP claims to be inspired by Diablo, and while it could be argued later games went off the rails, Diablo II is universally well-regretted for its setup of ‘town hub/story>dungeon>repeat’ formula. As an example, the store becomes completely useless only about two to three runs in as a player will simply have better gear than anything that can be bought, rendering an entire portion of the game useless (currency, selling and buying).
In the same vein, this game tried to copy the loot/tier of Diablo, which is part of what made that game so well regarded, but it ultimately misses the mark. Even in the first run it’s possible to find epic or mythic gear that basically makes any future drops for that slot utterly meaningless. Partly what made this not matter in similar games is ultimately a level system to the gear; a player might find a super rare quality sword, and for all intents it would function at a higher level, but there was never a doubt that a dungeon or two later it will likely be replaced. Here, even hours later some drops from the first run are still better than anything else. It ends up feeling boring and disengaging.
Caveats aside, Reincarnation Insurance Program has some major points it needs to hit, but it could be good if it does. At this stage the elements don’t feel interesting or different enough as there are simply better options than others, and no penalty or bonus for staying in a single element. The gear feels like it bombards the player with quantity of items, but they all blur together as it is not that interesting deciding between one weapon with a ‘+2% to damage and +1% to critical’, and a different one that adds ‘+1% damage and +3% to critical’.
Additionally, the meta-upgrades feel widely imbalanced. Despite playing for several hours, still only had the first character was available, and their individual upgrades are very, very slow to unlock despite how weak they all are. This is in addition to easily having near-max rarity gear on from only a few hours of gaming.
