Resurrection Gate by Grim Baccaris
I originally played this during Ectocomp, and I faced the same mental roadblock trying to review it then as I do now: it’s a demo. It’s not the only one in RAT 2025, granted, but a review for a demo is going to look very different from those for both currently finished games and its own future self. Sure, you can get a sense of the game’s quality, gameplay, tone, aesthetic, and so on, but it still feels a bit like counting the chickens before they’ve hatched. What if the developers take early feedback and end up fixing notable issues? What if a frustrating new mechanic turns up later in the game? What if an appealing story goes off the rails in the third act, or a story that seems shallow reveals something much more interesting later on? (There’s a reason movie reviewers don’t go off the first twenty minutes, and why at least one reviewer regretted basing a rating on solely the first half of BoJack Horseman’s first season.) Sure, an IFDB review can be edited as the full game is added to the listing, but are you fundamentally reviewing the same game at that point?
So, what DO I know enough to talk about?
- The design and interface are beautifully polished, as is a foregone conclusion for a Grim Baccaris game. Art, music, and other aesthetic elements are appealing. I noticed some minor bugs in the “mirror” frame (Yasha having objectives both listed and crossed out before the relevant event happened in-story; Laurence’s Mirror loading with Yasha’s Traits and a stray HTML closing tag), but everything worked smoothly otherwise.
- The character creation is streamlined, with only one stat-altering choice to be made per character, affecting 2-3 stats. This affects the actions available at key junctures, though there was one point where I found myself wondering if the listed stat wasn’t the only thing in play. When Yasha confronts Besarion, even with “Very High” (i.e. max) vigilance, he’s still unable to spot their wounds. Too anxious for eye contact? I relate, buddy.
- The story feels like it opens in medias res, which is a bit of a double-edged sword for a demo; you gain player investment through immersion, but may lose it through disorientation with so much being dropped on them at once. I remember finding the number of introduced characters and backstory elements, as well as the multiple POVs, a bit jarring for such a short demo when I first played this, though on a replay it holds together better. More importantly, it manages to stay on the right side of “I am engaged with these characters and the threats they face” vs. “too much is happening and I don’t care about any of it as a result.”
- I enjoyed the writing and felt like it mostly nailed a “fantastic but not overwrought” tone, though a couple turns of phrase hit weirdly (at one point a character “lifts his face to his hands,” which made me pause for a moment trying to visualize it before concluding it probably should have been the other way around).
I think the core question for a demo review is: does this make me curious enough to play more? In that sense, Resurrection Gate succeeds. It’s a shiny game that gets a few good plot hooks in and builds enough stakes for the characters that I want to see what happens next, and I’m looking forward to writing a full review once I do.