Rob reviews Citizen Sleeper on Xbox Series X...
To best describe Citizen Sleeper is to call it a visual novel that also plays homage to both classic board games, and a table-top RPG. Throughout the game, you'll take your character across a pretty standard sci-fi plot, yet the journey along the way is one full of intrigue and dice rolls. While Citizen Sleeper won't beat everyone's beat, it's a perfect slice for someone looking for THAT game that tries to be different.
So what's it about?
The story behind Citizen Sleeper is pretty standard. You play a character who's sold their life to a corporation. Now in the future, their memories and personality live on thanks to the wonders of science. As a Sleeper, you find yourself now inhabiting an artificial body, that also happens to be on board a vast space station. Played from a top-down perspective, it's then your job to guide your character across the narrative, whilst aiming to do the right thing. But when everything is decided by the random throw of a dice - things can go wrong very quickly.
The general gameplay loosely follows the rules of many board games and TTRPGs. At the beginning of each turn (in this case "Cycle") you'll roll a pair of dice which then dictates how many action points you have to play with. You are then free to explore the space station and interact with its inhabitants. However, when it comes to actions these are all based on the previous dice rolls. Choosing higher rolls naturally offers the greatest chance of success, but using all of your action points does come at risk as it could leave you powerless to continue. It's a very risk Vs reward style, which saw me playing conservatory just in case a bad thing was around the corner. As the game progresses, you'll also unlock other actions where specific rolls are required for hacking or lock picking. While Citizen Sleeper is very dice-centric, it perfectly plays into everything that's inspired it.
To keep things flowing, at the end of every turn your artificial body goes through a form of decay. This ties into the story pretty well and is explained as a way to stop you from escaping your corporate masters. As your body further decays, you'll then have fewer dice to roll - which results in fewer action points to spend. As such finding a way to fix your body (and there is one) is arguably the game's first port of call.
While this mechanic does add a little bit of tension to your dice rolls, it doesn't necessarily mean that failure is around the corner. The game is very generous with its auto-save function, which is very helpful if you have a run of bad throws.
When it comes to story, Citizen Sleeper plays like a George R.R. Martin novel. There's an absolute tonne of reading to be had which allows for a great degree of world-building and character dialogue. That being said, this also acts as a double-edged sword. A few of the characters seem to ramble on and to get from A to B, you have to go to C, D, and E first. Also while this form of storytelling is great for those who like to read, many gamers often skip dialogue-heavy scenes. Personally, even with the abundance of text, I did enjoy the story. In the game, many characters are well presented, with each fitting into the narrative well.
While the majority of Citizen Sleeper is pretty positive, it's also a game that isn't without its negatives. The major one is the game's UI. The menus themselves are very cumbersome to navigate, which often leads to making simple tasks more frustrating than they needed to be. The next criticism is that the story can also be fully completed in just one playthrough - regardless of what choices you make.
This then sacrifices whatever choice you made at the start of the game, due to the ability to eliminate your class's debuff. I would have preferred the game to utilise three separate plots for whichever initial class you chose, to then have a concluding narrative line that brings each class together. Think along the lines of Nier: Automata and you'll catch my drift.
Overall, Citizen Sleeper is a niche title that's worthy of playing through. While there isn't a lot of "game playing" involved, to an extent it does make for an excellent visual novel. The story itself is pretty fun to experience and does provide a scratch to that sci-fi thriller itch.
However, regardless of the positives, Citizen Sleeper isn't going to be everyone's cup of tea. The abundance of text, followed by the lack of actual gameplay is certainly going to put a few people off. Yet, if you do stick with it then you'll find a rich assortment of characters that are thrust into a very intriguing sci-fi tale.
And to make it more tempting, Citizen Sleeper is currently available on Gamepass!
Rating: 7.5/10
A code was kindly provided for this review.
Citizen Sleeper is available now and can be purchased via the Microsoft Store by clicking here.
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