Red Colony (Switch)

Also available on Windows

Red Colony is the first in a trilogy of ecchi horror games that plays like half Resident Evil and half Sakura Swim Club with a pinch of Senran Kagura for good measure.  Well, for measure, at least; the game certainly isn't what I would describe as good, but it's not awful, either.  It's solidly "meh."

The game takes place on the Martian Red Colony, a communist colony bordering Mars's capitalist colony, Blue Colony.  You play as Maria, the CEO of a major research company on Red Colony and wife of the colony's mayor, during a zombie virus outbreak that has ravaged the colony.  The game is 2D, so you'll make your way through the game in a generally left-to-right manner with the occasional backtracking.  The zombies are a pain to fight, but they're not hard, per se; if you have a good feel for controls, you can kill them all with the knife and never draw your gun or take any damage (although if you take damage, your clothes tear like in Senran Kagura, so who wants to avoid damage?).  This is good because ammo is in frustratingly short supply.  You can craft ammo, but the crafting materials are frustratingly scarce.  The scarcity is done in a way that, thanks to the knife, the game isn't hard, it's just irritating.

The story is actually pretty decent even if totally and utterly cliché.  You can zip from start to finish in under an hour if you want, but if you take the time to explore and dig through the various lore drops, it's a fairly entertaining albeit unoriginal narrative.  I'm hoping the two sequels improve the story because while it wasn't boring by any means, it also wasn't exciting.  It was a resounding okay.

Unfortunately, that also describes the entirety of Red Colony - "okay."  The game is inoffensively bland and safely uninspired.  If you like Resident Evil style stories and 2D games with big titty anime girls, then you might enjoy this.  If that sounds as contrived and worn out as it does to me, then maybe skip this one.  It's not a bad game, but you'll certainly not miss anything by not playing it.

My Rating - 3 Neps