R.E.P.O.
Factors | Rating | Description |
🎮Gameplay | 9.5 | Carry loot, break loot, get yelled at, repeat. |
📷Graphics | 8 | Goofy little robots stuck inside creepy, grainy levels. |
🎧Narration/Audio | 8.5 | Proximity chat makes every scream and argument twice as funny. |
😮Variety | 8 | Four maps for now, but 29 monsters keep you guessing. |
🎰Re-playability | 5 | Random layouts plus a chaotic friend group means no two runs match. |
💲Price | 9.5 | The base price for this many laughs is a steal deal. |
A whole group of us went in completely blind on purpose. We hadn't watched a single video and didn't even know what to do in the games, what the bloody objective was, how to crouch, and tbh that made it so much better.
📝Story/Plot without spoilers
🔸 You play as a Semibot, a little tin-can robot working for the Taxman. Your team gets dropped into creepy places like an old manor, a magic school, an arctic research station and a museum, and your job is to grab anything valuable and haul it out. There's no real plot past that, just a lot of monsters who aren't happy you're there.
🎮Gameplay
🔸 First impressions? Total confusion, in a good way. The tutorial only covers the basics, so our first level was mostly picking up random stuff and asking each other what we were even supposed to do. Figuring it out together was half the fun.
🔸 Once it clicks, the idea is simple.
------🔹 You find valuables around the level, grab them with your physics grabber and load them into the cart. Then someone has to push that cart to the extraction point without ramming it into every door frame.
------🔹 Anything you damage loses value, and you see it instantly as minus dollars floating off the item. There's always one clumsy friend who clips a vase on the way past a table, and the second those numbers pop up, everyone's shouting at them.
------🔹 Heavy stuff like a piano or a big painting needs a few of you lifting together. Carrying a TV as a team down a narrow hallway goes about as well as you'd expect.
------🔹 Once the quota's filled, step off the platform fast, because a wall slams down and crushes anyone still standing there.
------🔹 The worst moment is when you're basically done, someone bumps the pile, and a whole bunch of minus dollars float up at once. We'd just look at each other like oh sh*t.
🔸 It's still a horror game, and some of the monsters are creepy for real. You learn to crouch fast, since it turns your flashlight off and makes you quieter, and hiding under tables becomes a lifestyle. There's a blind Huntsman with a shotgun who hunts by sound, and a Clown that fires a laser at you. And then there's a cute little duck you should never, ever touch. Some of the smaller ones, like the gnomes, you can pick up and throw.
🔸 Dying doesn't stop the fun either. Your teammates can carry your head back to the extraction point to revive you, and yes, you can still talk while you're just a head. If everyone dies, you all get dropped into an arena to fight it out for a tiny gold crown, which is somehow just as funny as the main game.
🔸 Between levels you stop at the Service Station and spend your money on upgrades for things like strength and stamina, plus weapons and grenades for when hiding stops working.
🔸 How much fun you have depends a lot on your friend group. With a big group and nobody quite sure what they're doing, somebody's always trolling, running you over with the cart or 'accidentally' dropping your loot. That's the fun part though. You could probably play it seriously and clear levels clean, but our best moments came from messing up, and every session had at least one moment where we were all crying laughing.
🔸 The levels are well designed and the layouts change every run. Controls are easy and I didn't run into many problems. For a goofy friend-group horror game, the balance feels right to me.
📷 Graphics
🔸 The Semibots are so funny to look at especially when they are talking, most of all when they're flopping around after getting knocked over. The levels are dark and grainy, and a few rooms are properly unsettling. By default there's a lot of film grain and pixelation, so turn those down in settings if it looks fuzzy to you. Audio's great too, and proximity chat is what makes it work, because you hear your friends' voices fade as they wander off and then their screaming from down the hall.
📝Main Pros and Cons
🟩Pros-
So much fun with a group of friends
Physics turn every carry into a group project
Proximity chat makes everything funnier
Easy controls, easy to jump in
Reviving your friends by carrying their heads around
Cheap for how much you get
🟥Cons-
Only four maps so far
🏷️Tips for beginners
🔸Learn to crouch right away, it turns off your flashlight and makes you quieter. Cups, bottles and anything fragile should go straight into the cart. Lift heavy things from the bottom, and grab a friend for the big ones. Before extracting, check that nothing is sticking out past the barrier, because anything poking out gets damaged when the wall comes down. If someone dies, pick up their head and take it to the extraction point. And put money into strength and stamina upgrades early, since the later levels get rough.
😇 Verdict
🔸 R.E.P.O. is what a funny friend-group horror game should be. It's scary enough to keep you on edge, but the physics, the fragile loot and the proximity chat turn every session into chaos. Even on runs where we failed over and over, the moments kept coming. If you've got a group of friends who don't take things too seriously, get it, and the more chaotic they are, the better it gets. Playing solo? I'd skip it.
Rating: 9/10
Whoever broke the vase, we know it was you.
