REPLACED

Replaced in many ways explains why it took so long to arrive. It pours most of its effort into art and world building, with top tier pixel visuals, cinematic framing, and a thought provoking setting all standing out as clear strengths. Beneath that striking presentation, however, the gameplay feels thin. Formulaic storytelling, repetitive level design, and a shallow combat system make its ten hour journey leave little lasting impression.

Despite its visuals that look like works of art, Replaced seems to have forgotten how to be a game. We can add it to the graveyard of wasted potential too.

Replaced is a breathtakingly beautiful and narratively riveting game that has engrossing world-building while also delivering solid combat. However, it’s held back by fickle platforming and dull side quests. Still, the memorable music helps elevate the entire experience, making this dystopian adventure worth playing.

The cyberpunk Replaced does its best to court its audience’s late-20th-century nostalgia for that era’s sci-fi visions of the future. It feels, for better or worse, like a Sega Genesis game made with current technology.

Replaced is a beautiful retro cyberpunk adventure, with visuals that suit it down to the ground and world-building that pleasantly surprises. Despite a few flaws, the combat and platforming sections are competent and satisfying, even if they fail to lend a more consistent pace to the narrative, which drags in its slower moments. Even so, Replaced isn’t long enough to irreversibly tarnish what is a highly recommended experience.

Replaced is spectacular in so many respects. It’s an audiovisual triumph, with best-in-class pixel art, animation, and cinematography, while its America, hardly a land of the free, feels real, dangerous, and all too familiar against today’s landscape, is a hotbed of fascinating history and complex characters. Disappointingly, combat and exploration don’t quite live up to what the game achieves in story and presentation.

You'll want to take in Replaced's retrofuturistic version of dystopian USA as much as possible, but the phenomenal visuals can only do so much to make up for the above-average combat and puzzle-platforming.

Replaced is a gripping and gorgeous 2.5D action platformer, even though this AI-based adventure could do with a system update to completely iron out the bugs.

At the end of the day, despite my issues with REPLACED, I can confidently say that the five-year wait was worth it. If you’re a fan of cyberpunk games or 2.5D action platformers, then you absolutely need to play REPLACED. Even though I’m in no rush to replay the game, I can’t wait to give it another shot after a few post-launch adjustments. While this may not be a masterpiece, Sad Cat Studios has managed to make a seminal title in the genre that is hopefully remembered for a long, long time.

A captivating universe and lore for those willing to read its codex and accept an imperfect gameplay.

REPLACED feels simultaneously over-scoped yet under-designed. An incredible visual style and rich world immediately catch the eye, but only the former holds up across the entire adventure. Likewise, the gameplay is initially rewarding, but fails to expand its simple foundations over a journey that’s far too bloated. REPLACED’s repetitive gameplay holds back the gorgeous aesthetics, but there’s still a charming core underneath the grime that may just win you over.

Rather than a spectacular journey across a ruined America, Replaced delivers an incredibly beautiful yet overly stretched story saddled with several poorly implemented gameplay mechanics.

Replaced is a visually stunning cyberpunk thriller that impresses with its detailed pixel art, fluid animations, and cinematic presentation, but is held back by repetitive combat and puzzles.

Replaced’s most memorable stretch sees Warren sneaking back into the heavily guarded facility where the adventure began. You crouch amid tall, swaying grass and boggy marsh while being stalked by futuristic choppers that can end your life with a single, booming bullet. A gigantic wall looms in the background, rendered as an imposing black silhouette. For much of its 10-hour run time, Replaced seems content with replicating cyberpunk leitmotifs in pretty pixel-art fashion without adding much of its own. But this supersized, militarised fortification sees the game extend its purview, powerfully evoking the Mexico-US border wall and the West Bank barrier.

Replaced is one of the most visually striking games in recent memory, but its obsession with providing a cinematic experience makes for a tedious, monotone, and frustrating cyberpunk thriller.

The key factor in Replaced is whether you’ll be captivated by the visuals and immersed in the cyberpunk universe enough for them to push you forward despite the setbacks – and there are plenty of those, as the repetitive combat and unresponsive controls in the platforming sections can really try your patience. Ultimately, this is a game that’s better to look at than to play.

REPLACED is pixel-perfect for players who want to immerse themselves in a rich, atmospheric cyberpunk world, yet Sad Cat Studios pushes it to the brink of being enjoyable. It’s a bit of a shame; REPLACED is only a few tweaks away from greatness, but right now it doesn’t quite get there, with slow pacing, sluggish gameplay, and a narrative that doesn’t always hold up. Add to that a fair number of bugs, from gameplay glitches to progression blockers, and it’s best to wait a few more months before diving into this visually stunning but not yet fully cohesive sidescroller.