Tron: Identity review: a sleek, cerebral noir visual novel

The question of identity, what makes a person who he or she is, is as much a question of the perspective of the person asking it as it is of experience. This is just as true for life as it is for The Grid, the spectral digital dimension in which the Tron series mostly takes place.

in the world of Tron: IdentityA new visual novel adventure game by , Underground circular and john wick hex Developer Bithell Games developer The Grid takes on a whole new perspective when seen through the eyes of lead designer Mike Bithell and company. It’s a noir-like mystery drama of half-truths, hearsay, and conspiracies lurking in mystery. My time with the game was relatively short, but the experience nonetheless left me with an overall glowing impression, eager to dive into another playthrough to uncover any clues to the questions that still remain. Was.

Set after the events of the 2010s Tron Legacy, Tron: Identity Players take the role of Query, an intuitive program that investigates mysterious explosions. The explosion occurred at the Repository, a towering, fortified link of highly sensitive classified information maintained by the governing bodies of high-level programs collectively known as the Core. However, there is something else wrong. The entire facility is empty except for a few suspects. The explosion that rocked the facility wiped the memories of several field programs, jeopardizing the credibility of their testimony. None of the facility’s managers, in particular, seem particularly reluctant to say what, if any, was taken, even though the explosion was supposedly set off to cover up the robbery.

As a member of the “Apostles of Tron”, a program command that operates independently of the System to seek truth in Capital T, you are to observe and investigate only. But before night falls, some difficult choices must be made. Your choices affect not only your own future course, but the course of the grid as a whole.

As for how the game stands alongside other visual novels, Tron: Identity It’s a fairly straightforward experience. No left wing fourth wall breaking twist. Doki Doki Literature Club Or romance subplot dream daddy: Dad Dating Simulator, rather purely focused on the basic core of the genre: form your character’s personality by reading the text and choosing from dialogue prompts that branch out into more possibilities. , a program that is more or less a blank slate at the start of the game and whose overall method of operation is defined by fairness and non-interference. But in order to develop a rapport with a suspect and negotiate to cooperate with an investigation, sooner or later you have to break one rule. them and their goals. The overall experience of playing the game is intuitive and fun, save for the only mechanic, the optimization puzzle.

Image: Bissell Games

As a follower of Tron, you have the ability to do things other programs cannot. It’s about rebuilding and restoring the “identity disk” of the program whose mind was wiped after the explosion. ID disk optimization takes the form of an elaborate card game, where players remove cards by moving them to the bottom of a ring-shaped interface. To advance, the player must eliminate enough cards until the number remaining matches the number of prerequisites listed in the corner of the screen.

This minigame is more frustrating than novelty, with increasingly elaborate rules as you have to redo previous moves over and over again to find the right combination of cards to meet the required order. is becoming more and more burdensome. Tron: Identity Remind the player of these issues, including allowing the game to automate the removal of at least three cards per puzzle, or choosing options from the game’s menu screens to skip these puzzles entirely. It offers several opportunities to minimize.

Image: Bissell Games

As someone who didn’t particularly enjoy these puzzles and found the challenge of interacting with them to be more sluggish and frustrating than satisfying and intriguing, I decided to use them to get back to the actual detective work of the game. I decided to skip it completely. The option to avoid these puzzles entirely was welcomed and appreciated, but nonetheless makes the optimization puzzle feel like a bullet point element. Tron: Identity rather than a meaningful addition to the overall design of the game.

Tron: Identity It’s a visual novel adventure, and one that’s particularly well-written and immersive. A creative take on the series with a challenging story and engaging characters that take the universe in adventurous new directions. Defragmentation puzzles aside, it’s a dramatically exciting and entertaining story worth experiencing whether you’re a Tron fan or not.

Tron: Identity Released April 11th for Mac, Nintendo Switch, and Windows PC. The game was reviewed on PC using a pre-release download code provided by Bithell Games. Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These do not affect editorial content, but Vox Media may earn commissions on products purchased via affiliate links.discoverable Additional information on Polygon’s Ethics Policy can be found here.