Rob Lake reviews Red Colony on Nintendo Switch...
Red Colony is a 2-D survival-horror title that's been developed by Shinyuden. In Red Colony, you fight through the zombie-infested colony, whilst looking for your daughter, all whilst using some pretty colourful language and wearing very little clothing.
Boobs, anime, zombies and sci-fi. What's not to like? Well, when it comes to Red Colony the real question is "what's to like?"
The story is your typical average survival-horror affair. Set amid a zombie apocalypse our protagonist is focused on finding the cause of the outbreak, and more surprisingly her cheating husband. Yes, Red Colony is pretty much a zombie parody of The Jeremy Kyle Show (or Jerry Springer to American readers). The real objective for Maria - our character is to find her young daughter, but a massive chunk of the dialogue does infact focus on her husband's affair with their child's nanny. It's ridiculous and incredibly daft, with there being zero urgeny in dealing with the chaos that's unfolding in front of us.
There's also an extreme amount of sexual content which diminishes and quite rightly destroys any of horror or tension. Every character has extremely large assets and as such it just feels over the top and completely unnecessary. It can be pretty cringe-worthy and is so heavy-handed in its inclusion.
The writing is also pretty bad too. While some of the dictation can be forgiven due to translation, it just feels sloppy. Every character also swears at an almost obsessive level. Nearly every dialogue has the word f*CK included, and it's just so over the top to be believable that anyone talks that way.
It's not all bad however as the gameplay to Red Colony is largely pretty good. The game has been heavily inspired by past survival-horror games. The main being Resident Evil. With items needed to perform saves, a rather terrible knife, and a distinct lack of ammo, the groundwork is there for the makings of a pretty decent horror game, its just a shame that Red Colony goes in the opposite direction.
There is a fair amount of exploration to be had and you'll be running backwards and forwards through many of the locations. Puzzles can feel a bit taxing but the solution is always nearby. I did enjoy one of the puzzles that used a nearby language test to crack the safes code. It was pretty clever and also added something different to the generic "find the code, open the safe".
Combat is so-so. On one hand, it's very reminiscent of Resident Evil in a 2-D setting. When we get into combat you stand rooted to the spot whilst you can aim up-and-down for either headshots or body shots. On paper, this sounds pretty good, but that brings me to the other hand. With the game being in 2-D you can only run in one of two directions. This negates any challenge in avoiding a zombies attack. You either kill it, hide under a conveniently placed table, or the zombie grabs you to the shrieks of your character. It's not entirely terrible, but it's not good either.
Red Colony's graphics are also surprisingly pretty good. The background images particularly are quite striking and in some cases highlight some pretty shocking moments. The art style also changes with each new area, and in doing so it does convey a sense of progression through the otherwise flat colony. Of course, the elephant in the room is the casts choice of clothing - or lack of. Nearly every character is a scantily clad anime style sex siren with unrealistic proportions. That being said Red Colony is a game styled for the older gamer but the over-sexualized content does feel a little over the top throughout. However, that being said the cast are drawn pretty well, albeit a little unrealistic.
Final Words
I wouldn't say that my time with Red Colony was awful, it just wasn't very good. From watching the trailer you get a pretty good idea on what the games going to be about, and it doesn't hold back any punches in telling that story. While the foundations for a semi-decent survival-horror homage are there, the air-head cast, over the top anime fan-service and excessive swearing, casts any feeling of tension and urgency aside.
Good:
+ Background Art
+ Zombie Plot
Bad:
- Too Much Anime Fan-Service
- Tone of Language
- Pointless Husband Subplot
Rating 3/10
A review copy was kindly provided for this review.
Rob Lake - For more comic book and video game chat why not follow Geek Culture Reviews on Twitter and Facebook @GeekCultureRev
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