Hey all, I’m back with a walking simulator that is unfortunately a bit disappointing in terms of its gameplay. It’s Genie Reprise.
Plot and Gameplay: You play as Lula, a woman of indeterminate age who talks at you as she goes through a journey to find a Genie. Honestly, this is barely a walking simulator. The entire time (a grand total of about 1 hour and 10 minutes from start to finish) I was playing it, I had questions about why I should care about the plot, the characters, or anything in Genie Reprise’s odd walking simulator world.
There is almost no backstory or plot to tempt players to push through the many repetitive tasks that they are constantly asked to perform, and there’s not much of a reward for doing so even after completing them.
Each chapter in Genie Reprise begins with the players in some small location where they need to collect shiny rocks that are floating around the area. Then once all of the rocks have been grabbed, players stand on a shiny cobblestone platform to trigger a cutscene to head to the next area. That’s all there is in terms of gameplay.
And speaking of those cutscenes, when they happen you get to hear Lula talk at you about random things. To make matters worse, Lula talks in some sort of poetic form that makes little sense and is pretty bad as poetry goes. Then you’re off to collect more rocks, find another cobblestone platform to stand on, and look at yet another light so Lula can once more talk at you.
You repeat that gameplay over and over again until the area is clear. Then you repeat this entire process again 14 more times. By the time I was done, I still had no answer to my question of what was happening or why I should care. The tagline for Genie Reprise says you take on the role of Lula to “unlock mysteries scattered through time” and “explore a vibrant fantasy world.” That actually sounds really fun, but I never got to do any of that in Genie Reprise.
And to really make things worse, once Genie Reprise was over, I was told that it was essentially all meaningless and nothing that you did actually mattered. There was never a point. Honestly, by the end of the first chapter, about seven minutes into the title, I knew I was only going to get through this so that I could earn a platinum trophy to show for the experience.
Art: The art is not great. Sure, the locations could have been fairly interesting, at least when you are above ground, but you never get to really explore them. You are confined to pretty tight areas each time, and they are not all that interesting to look at. The levels are just bizarre and noninteractive for the most part.
Music: The music is at least somewhat nice. But honestly, it still didn’t help make the title any less pointless.
Overall: Genie Reprise is not really worth playing, unless you are really desperate for a platinum trophy, which you will have certainly earned if you are able to power through everything to the very end.
Developers: Eastasiasoft Limited, Tonguc Bodur
Platforms: PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X