And now for yet another title that I dipped my toes into eleven years prior and came back to 100 % now! Rise of the Triad was originally released in 1995, shortly after Doom, and is made by some people from the same team. This remake is to my understanding taken in quite a bit different – and more modern – direction, so if you're interested in experiencing the original, there's the Ludicrous Edition released in 2023, which seems to be quite polished.
The 2013 version of Rise of the Triad is sadly an okay first-person shooter, at best. I can see and appreciate what the developers tried to accomplish, but the amount of bugs, glitches and frustration that is present does not really make for a truly enjoyable experience. The level design is also something that could have used a bit more work, as, for example, it's multiple times not even apparent which way is forward, so you might easily lock yourself out of exploring side passages.
As I've understood, there were originally only checkpoints and no saving. A while after release they added a quick save/load system into the game. Considering how easy it is to die from random glitches or from getting one-hit by almost anything on Ludicrous difficulty, this game [i]really[/i] benefits from being able to save on demand. Thus it's extremely annoying that every single time you load, you get to choose 0–4 items from the following list:
[list]
[*]You can't progress, e.g. the door forward doesn't open
[*]Objects like traps simply stop working
[*]Some enemies don't spawn
[*]Secrets you find don't register
[/list]
Sometimes the game will randomly just get stuck on "you can't save in this area" until you die or finish the level. Even choosing to spawn at the previous checkpoint made coins I had gathered respawn before the point of no return of that checkpoint on a certain level – which was [i]very[/i] frustrating, as the previously mentioned glitch occurred simultaneously. Because of all this it's very much preferable to just not die or screw up in any way ever! This brings me to my next point...
The achievements in this game can be – depending on your luck – extremely agonizing. A third of them involve getting all the levels in each episode to 100 % completion, which means getting all kills, collecting all coins and discovering all secrets. Easier said than done, as there is always a chance that a secret just doesn't register or some enemy doesn't spawn. Some enemies also require you to for example pick up a certain weapon to spawn and/or to not pick up an item too fast etc. Meanwhile, some coins that are not even secrets can be nefariously hidden between a wall, some boxes and the door that you just came through, so you end up with 523/524 after tediously making sure you grabbed every secret and got all enemies to spawn. This forced me to often repeat a level three and sometimes even up six times until I hit that mythical 100 %.
Despite all the bugs and unpolished design, there's still quite a bit of amusement to be found, if you decide to stick with it. The core gameplay works pretty well, when it works. The secrets are often well hidden and fun to try to spot. It's cool that all the five characters you can play as have an inverse relation between their speed and hardiness, which gives the player some agency regarding their playstyle. The music is super fun and playful – I could still keep on listening to and playing the end-of-level tune even after hearing it over fifty times! The humour doesn't always land, but occasionally there's something ludicrous that really makes you chuckle.
Sadly, it also feels like the developers were short on time, as especially the last episode seems to have even more janky geometry than usual, and it sucks to get stuck to the ground while walking through a corridor full of traps that can and will one-hit you. The bosses of each episode are also pretty tame on normal difficulty, while you can prepare yourself to get ganked dozens and dozens of times on the highest difficulty, until you come up with some specific, gimmicky strategy that you need to execute to a T for any chance of survival.
All in all, Rise of the Triad is a modern yet unpolished homage to the original game, and can offer you multiple hours of silly shooter fun if you play on a lower difficulty and try not to die too much or aim for 100 % completion. You will still encounter some glitches and frustration, but for the most part it's a decent game that works.
[h1]6 / 10[/h1]
