We move towards salvation which can be given only by escape. Without spoiling too much, your presence in the computer is directly tied to a mysterious entity called Janus, which acts as a kind of psychopompic guide as you repeatedly die and rise again, in slow motion. Here, it’s worth noting what a recompile actually is. Recompile’s juxtaposition of the natural and the artificial is perhaps its greatest artistic strength, especially due to its subsequent integration with the game’s clever thematic core. Dividing this world into various digitized but unnecessarily natural biomes is another thing entirely – there are airy blues and ethereal greens, thundering yellows that rock the sky and raging flames of rich reds. It’s one thing to establish a distinctive, technophilic aesthetic that clearly expresses your presence as a program in a machine. Speaking of which, although Recompile is noteworthy for a number of reasons, the art of the game is out of this world. RELATED: Twelve Minutes Review: A Top-Down Time Loop Thriller With a Killer Cast
Why do you need to know what to do or where to go, as opposed to needing to re-apply malware and chart paths through vast walls of disarmament code? In the early hours of the game, this can seem hopelessly arbitrary – but what else would you expect? You are a program living in a vast, abstract megalopolis of computer corrupted software.
Like any good Metroidvania, backtracking, sidetracking, and upside down-tracking are essential for proper progress. In fact, it is generally quite aimless for a significant portion of the experience. And yet, Recompile is refreshingly novel, a real trailblazer between games that feel tentative by comparison. It seems so obvious now: the idea of designing a Metroidvania where you hack and slash your way from inside a computer, undoing the almost catastrophic damage to your system done by an unruly AI.