The Rewinder Review | Master of Time

The Rewinder screenshot

In recent years, there has been an influx of games made in China  to online stores. 

Most of these are avoided by gamers as they aren't quality products or are plagued by systems that many find unbearable, such as dishonest and unbalanced microtransactions.  

However, there are also developers who want to create more classic titles and The Rewinder is an example of this.

Aesthetics

The Rewinder frog

Remember to say hello to your local frog spirit

The game uses pixel art graphics and honestly I've seen games use this drawing technique in a more refined and detailed way.  The looks are lifted by the visuals inspired by the style of Chinese ink paintings, without this inspiration it is very likely that the game would have had a less pronounced appearance. 

The animations are ok, without infamy and without praise.  

Voice acting only appears on two occasions during gameplay: during the intro cutscene and in a song in the middle, since I don't speak Chinese I cannot make judgments.  

The music is harmless, it modestly accompanies us in the adventure in an acceptable way.

Game Mechanics

The Rewinder puzzle

Various mini-games will be played during the game

The game is an old-fashioned point and click graphic adventure: find objects, solve puzzles and talk to characters around the world. 

The game saves automatically, it is not possible to manually save or reload a save. 

The areas explored are of discrete size, minimizing the solving of puzzles by using brute force while stimulating experimentation. 

There are some mechanics that are not common in other games of this genre, the first one of these is made of rewind sections in the past, in these sections one has to acquire sensations by analyzing surrounding objects or people's thoughts. Once acquired, they are used to stimulate an individual to change their mind about what to do. In context, changing a person's intentions in the past will change the timeline and the present. The second one involves close-up puzzles scattered throughout the game, these puzzles do not require the use of specific objects or to talk to the right person, they are independent to the rest, in them, it is possible to consult the partner of the protagonist who gives suggestions for their resolution. 

 Keep your eyes peeled for certain collectible flowers throughout the game, they will unlock the secret ending, in case you miss some of these, at the end of the game a karma stone is unlocked which allows you to replay specific parts of the game and recover the lost flowers. 

It is possible to die, but death has minimal consequences and the autosave has your back. 

I finished the game in almost 5 hours. 

Narrative

The Rewinder book

In case you have any questions or doubts, consult the diary

The four keepers created the rewinders, a group of individuals able to rewind time using certain shrines, tasked with preserving the cycle of reincarnation and maintaining the natural order. We will follow the story of Yun, the last of the rewinders, and Light, his ally and protector, they will have to investigate why some souls have not reached the afterlife and cannot be reincarnated. 

The game intro is interesting and lays a good foundation on which the entire narrative will develop. 

In people's memories, you can witness events disjointed from the main plot, which have their own short but intriguing micro-stories. 

The obvious typical question in these cases would be "if you go back to the past to change it, wouldn't you lose the original reason for going back? And if you don't go back, shouldn't the past remain unchanged? " typical of time paradoxes, but the game is not interested in answering this, the protagonist remembers everything and the game glosses over the question. 

The characters are characterized quite well, the main characters are given more screen time and given more moments to express themselves, but the secondary characters are given a couple of opportunities to manifest their personalities too.

With the setting of the game centered around ancient China, it is only natural that you will encounter supernatural entities influenced by Chinese myths. 

Having no experience with this type of mythology, I had the fear that I would not be able to understand the events of the game, but fortunately the developers had already thought about that and filled the diary with references to the various legends, it was a good choice that helped me get a better understanding of the big picture.

The folklore is interesting, with a strong emphasis on the concept of the cycle between life and death. 

The English translation seems to be done well, I didn't notice any strange expressions or had difficulty understanding the texts. 

Recommendation :

The Rewiender is a well done product that manages to provide a captivating experience with a good mystery to solve in a gloomy setting.

The game is available on Steam.

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