Reus Reviews

Ja

I remember being extremely confused.

I've really loved playing Reus - it is unlike almost any other game I've ever played! It's essentially sort of a rogue-like puzzle game wherein you control four natural forces or "gods" that each have unique powers that can create (or destroy) resources that are consumed by human settlements. The gods can enhance their creations over time, tuning the output of the town to meet timed goals. Completing these goals allows you to level-up your gods in a variety of ways, and over multiple sessions you can unlock new resources! It's really elegant game play, and a single playthrough can be finished in as little as thirty minutes (the default play time is 60 minutes). You'll likely want to pause to plan how you want to develop your little world! It's very cutely animated, plays smoothly and intuitively, and is very replayable! I haven't played the successor to this game (Reus 2), but I think this is the kind of game that rests well on its own merits; even if a new version is available.

I bought this games years ago but never understood it. I decided to give it a try again, and I still don't get it. I can't seem to advance to the longer game modes no matter how hard I try (I need to make advancements to unlock them but I guess I must be misunderstanding how it works because I can't get it done). I think I've given this game a solid try, and it's just not for me.

Too boring and difficult. Not many options for game play.

I dropped this years ago for reasons I couldn't remember, and after reinstalling and running though the tutorial I remembered. The side-to-side scrolling around the planet makes me sick like no game ever has. The zoom function is incredibly finicky and has no in-between places from completely zoomed out to very close in.

[i]Reus[/i] is not for me. The graphics and music led me to believe this would be a chill god game in which you gradually improve life for your planet's inhabitants by enriching the environment with goodies. That is not what this game is. While the presentation is charming, if a bit simplistic, I deduced this wasn't what I thought it would be while playing the tutorial and noting the always ticking clock. The standard game mode has a time limit, there's a pause mechanic which allows you to stop time while you formulate a plan and issue orders but that only worsens the issue of making me overthink everything I do. If this were [i]SimCity[/i] I would spend time just admiring what I've created, maybe scrap some old roads and try to think up something better just for fun; But this is much more a puzzle game in which you can definitely make the wrong choice but not know it until it's too late. I don't think [i]Reus[/i] is bad, but I do think there is a mismatch between its art style and gameplay. The former is cute and inviting while the latter is meticulous and obtuse. The obtuseness comes from clunky controls that make it difficult to move your four giants around and unpredictable AI villages that often do the exact opposite of what you need, with little to no options to influence them. It's also not helpful how much game knowledge is needed to reliably make good decisions when actually getting that knowledge is next to impossible without simply playing the game from start to finish over and over again to memorize everything, which gets boring quickly. There's enough depth for those looking for this style of game but I'm not one of 'em.