When I first saw the trailer for Hindsight 20/20: Wrath of the Raakshasa, I thought it looked like a really interesting game. The combat looked interesting, the art style looked amazing, and it looked like it had an interesting story. I was given a review code for it immediately jumped into it. I don’t know if I’ve ever been more let down in a game though.
Gameplay
The game is centered around an outcast in his village. His father was killed by the king’s guard. There are a series of dungeons and upon entering one, you choose either the lethal weapon, sword, or the weapon to subdue your enemies, stun rod. These deal damage that either kill or subdue the enemies you face. The first dungeon, I picked the sword and killed the guy’s wife that had been possessed by evil spirits. The guy that sent me into the dungeon lost his mind and refused to talk to me because I killed his wife. She wasn’t the same person he married and a threat to society. The next dungeon I went in was to rescue some kids. I figured I would use the stun rod to avoid killing the kids. Makes sense, right? I got all the way to the end of the dungeon and needed the sword to unlock the cages the kids were in. I threw my hands up in the air. I felt like it was a case of “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t”. Each dungeon also has a series of keys that you find by defeating enemies and using the key to move. The dungeons do get longer, but adding length to something that isn’t fun to begin with really doesn’t help the cause. This gets repetitive really quick. The combat is very bland. Overall, the game play didn’t do a whole lot for me.
Visuals
The art style is pretty cool. I liked the vibrant colors and the characters look interesting enough. There character models aren’t very smooth though, The pixels that are on a character where they are shaded doesn’t look good. It’s almost as if the shadows don’t fully render. I will say this, it runs very smooth on the PS5. I don’t know the exact frame rate because I can’t measure that, but I didn’t experience any issues in that department. The visuals were really the highlight of Hindsight 20/20: Wrath of the Raakshasa, but that bar is set really low.
Overall
I wasn’t really impressed with Hindsight 20/20: Wrath of the Raakshasa. I got about halfway through and realized it wasn’t doing anything for me. It became a chore to play and that’s not a good sign. I would rate this somewhere between Bad and Ok. I wouldn’t recommend it.
