REZPLZ is a 2D puzzle-platformer where you play as a set of brothers, who I don’t remember the names of. You can play the game solo or in co-op where each player controls one character. They’re shitty mages who show up to class late one day, only for an evil mage to come in and capture everyone. The brothers are given a bound scroll right before the evil mage shows up. The scroll lets them revive each other as long as they have a crystal. They’re so shit at magic that magic tends to kill them.
That death mechanic is on full display in the game. You use one character’s death to help the other one further on a regular basis. Sometimes you drop one character in lava so you can use them as a jumping stone, sometimes you throw one onto spikes to use them to get across a large, spikey chasm, sometimes you shove one into an electric conduit so that electricity flows to an item you need it to flow to, as such killing your brother be it controlled by you or a friend, is a hilarious core mechanic.
There are thirty-six levels in the game, split into six levels per chapter with some variation of a boss battle at the end of each chapter. The chapters are completely different environments including the traps you need to use to get through the world. At the start of each chapter you’re also given a new power which will be used throughout the rest of the game, but is heavily used in that chapter. For instance, in the first chapter you get the resurrection spell, but later on you can also turn into a boulder, and in another chapter you get telekinesis.
It does have an accessibility option, as in just one, but it’s useful. It’s for people not good at the game. Basically, as stated, reviving requires crystals, which there are a set limit of them in each level, and you start with 6. However, you can change the resurrection style from classic to infinite which changes it from needing crystals to not needing them so you can infinitely revive. Personally, I used this cause I’m kinda shite at these games.
There’s also a speed run mode you can activate on each level. I didn’t even bother trying this cause… well… come on… there’s no fucking chance I was going to manage that. There’s also a gauntlet mode that you unlock upon finishing the game, which pits you against incredibly, overly annoying, ‘I hate life’ type of hard levels. Each level is fairly long, thankfully there’s not many of them, though… I can’t tell you for sure that there’s not more than one page of them since I couldn’t even manage to finish the first gauntlet, I spent over fifty minutes on it and got stuck twice, the first time took me around ten minutes. Sadly though the second time I got stuck I spent over thirty minutes on and I just couldn’t figure out what I needed to do, I had ideas but none of them panned out.
The game isn’t for kids, it’s funny, but bloody as hell. I thought it was pretty good overall, however, some levels were annoyingly difficult to figure out just what you needed to do, and required me to die a number of times before I accidentally figured it out. Granted, every time I figured out what to do it became part of my repertoire, not that it was ever going to be used again but still. The things you learn are simple enough it’ll stick with you, but learning it is a bitch because the game really really doesn’t help you with that. The game seems to believe in trial by fire which is fine. It tells you how to use your new powers when they show up, and when you’re doing something for the first time it gives you kind of an explanation to a full on explanation, but when it comes to the traps and enemies and how they affect you, 90% of the time it won’t tell you anything. My best example is there’s a bee enemy in the game. I assumed like other enemies it would kill you if it hit you, and it does, big shocker I know, but instead of just killing you like the rest, your body swells up, still dead though, but that body floats on water. That was never explained. I was trying to figure out how to do stuff while trying to avoid the bee cause that’s what you tend to do in the game kill enemies or avoid them like the fucking plague if you’re not able to. I happened to get hit by it once and then I was able to figure out the way out of the area I was in, but I had restarted the game a few times thinking I had glitched it.
Overall, I did enjoy it, however there are some kinda bullshitty “banging your head against a wall” sections of the game that really killed the momentum and kinda pissed me off. A hint system for if you’re stuck for a while would be nice, though I’m sure the game will get some enterprising players to create guides for it so a hint system won’t be useful in the future I guess, would have been nice right now, but putting in a system that would be useless later on is a waste of time. Another thing I’d like is if you could just click to turn off the story and tutorials. You get the same information and cutscenes every time you replay a level that you got in it the first time. I’d rather not waste my time on that and would like just to jump into the level and kick ass. Those are really the only issues I have with the game. Also fair warning, the game is really set up to be played in local co-op, playing it solo is much much harder, still doable, but so much harder. There’s also a grading system which keeps track of how long it took you to beat the level, how many deaths you had, etc. I’m not sure you can get the highest rank solo because of the need to switch between characters. Hopefully they add online co-op to it at some point, that would help a lot for people like me who live alone.
REZ PLZ was developed by Long Neck Games.
Point of Sale: X1, Switch, Steam.
$15
A review copy of the game was provided by the devs via VIM Global.
darkmikasonfire gives REZ PLZ the Indie Gamer Team Seal of Approval.
Indie Gamer Team 