Rebel Transmute [Review]
Rebel Transmute is a difficult but rewarding metroidvania.
Rebel Transmute, from Evan Tor Games and publisher JanduSoft, is a retro-styled metroidvania. It’s an excellent game for lovers of the genre, with a steeper difficulty curve than many similar games.
You’re Moon Mikono, a space scrapper on a mission to discover the fate of her mother after a tragic disaster. Moon travels to the now condemned research facility where her mother worked, only to crash and wake up after a 12 year stasis. Now she’s got to puzzle together what happened at the facility and find a way to leave, while meeting strange creatures and AIs along the way.
The game most clearly takes its inspiration from Metroid, in that the hero wears a power suit and must traverse a maze of interconnected biomes. Moon shoots out of a gun arm and will gain abilities that will help her traverse the terrain and get to new areas.
Rebel Transmute offers a particular spin on the genre formula in the form of augments. You’ll find augments with various bonuses that you can equip to suit your own play style. Augments have a point value and the maximum number of points you have available is upgradable over the course of the game.
The steeper difficulty of the game comes from a non-standard HP system and healing. Rather than having the usual health gauge, the player has a limited number of hit points; at the beginning of the game you can only be hit three times before death. To heal, you must fill a special gauge by damaging enemies, and when it’s full you can use it to recover a single hit point. If you die, you’ll drop a health capsule, and must play with reduced HP until you’re able to recover it. I was mixed on this system at first, but grew to appreciate the way it made me change the way I play. It’s especially challenging because your arm canon’s limited range forces close-quarters fighting, and healing takes a moment during which you’re totally vulnerable.
Art and sound in Rebel Transmute is top notch, perfectly fitting the game’s retro style. I appreciated how colorful the game is, when games like this can often be very brown.
The game has over 80 unique enemies and 10 bosses, a really decent variety of baddies. The world is large with plenty of secrets to find as you explore. You’ll likely have over 20 hours of gameplay on your first playthrough as its easy to get lost in the world and sometimes the path forward isn’t abundantly clear.
There’s plenty to love in Rebel Transmute, though some players may be frustrated with its difficulty at first. If you love metroidvanias you owe it to yourself to check this game out.
Rebel Transmute is available now on PC (Steam), PlayStation 4 / 5, Nintendo Switch, and Xbox One / Series X|S.
Overall Score: 7/10
Played on: PS5
