Esse Proxy - What kind of Pokémon is this? Do you recognize it?

Every game has a certain, immutable formula. Some games are easy to figure out, some have been puzzled over for years. The secret of attraction is always simple, just like any recipe of a culinary dish - the trick is an unusual combination of ingredients.

After getting acquainted with Esse Proxy, we can conclude that the developers from FromSouthGames are either very talented or they personally know Devolver Digital, Dennaton Games and Abstraction Games B.V.. I could find no other explanation for the phenomenally accurate hit on the emotional response of the game without a hundred percent plagiarism. And that's taking into account the fact that Esse Proxy is FromSouthGames' debut, and the first pancake didn't go out wrong. Of recent works, Ghostrunner was the closest to the "formula", but it wasn't as close as Esse Proxy. But enough with the fawning, it's time to talk about the game...

Attempts of a graphomaniac

Esse Proxy's scenario is not player-friendly at all. Every story is written according to one of the models: it can be a storyline where we observe the main character from his childhood until his old age - it was in Fable; the storyline can be based on amnesia - the player learns the world simultaneously with the protagonist - hello, Disco Elysium and Fahrenheit; or it can be built around the interrogation, where events are just memories of the interrogated character - hello, Midnight Fight Express and the old Call of Duty: Black Ops. Let these story patterns do not shine with originality, but it works like a Swiss watch. FromSouthGames wanted to go further and write a truly original script. They divided the narration between three protagonists and did not care about the chronology of events. There is no sequence of events in Esse Proxy. In fact, the entire plot is exhaustively described by a single meme:

All you can get from the visuals: the action of Esse Proxy takes place among the scenery of classic cyberpunk. "Among the scenery" - because even in terms of visuals, the game sometimes treats its own setting disparagingly: here you have the usual rain-soaked back alleys, warehouses, and rooftops of high-rises. The cyberpunk itself remains somewhere behind the scenes. There are too few integrations of the genre, and the only thing the developers came up with - is throwing the player from the past to the future for a week, then back for two years, then forward for two hours...

One gets the impression that the entire plot of Esse Proxy is a thick book by an inexperienced writer firmly convinced of his genius, for, as the writer himself believes, he has invented a whole new way of telling stories. This is not so. Esse Proxy's plot is impossible to follow. It is too chaotic and disjointed, although in some places you notice some familiar plot twists:

Closer to the middle of the story (which is very short here - only three hours) you finally get indifferent to what is happening and perceive everything as levels detached from the narrative. In terms of gameplay, however, Esse Proxy did not lose face.

The formula is revealed only 10 years later

Esse Proxy brings the same feelings that Hotline Miami brought to many. Here you have the "one shot, one corpse" rule. The protagonist is no exception" and the recognizable ultra-violence, the camera - view from above. But few realized that all these components are just a framework. The formula for Hotline Miami lay a little deeper.

Thus, many missed the point that the opponents should move at the same speed as the protagonist and not inferior to him in anything except predictability and a slightly slower reaction speed. No one took into account the fact that the camera has to zoom out at the touch of a button, and a distant camera does not mean a better camera: the protagonist suffers from either nearsightedness or farsightedness. The use of the remote camera should only be used situationally. Few people took into account the fact that the enemies are obliged to react to the shots and run at the protagonist, pouring lead on him or holding a cold weapon at the ready. Few understood exactly how the enemies should behave. In this respect, Esse Proxy is the first game that absorbed the entire Hotline Miami, rather than individual, hackneyed components.

In addition to the careful transfer of all components of its ideological inspirer, Esse Proxy also offers its chips. For example, the artificial intelligence of the enemies is much smarter than it was in Hotline Miami: the enemies do not just run to the noise, but also skillfully use the surroundings, come from behind and do not rush to the trouble. Sometimes when you see the protagonist, the enemies shoot through the partners - this is the only drawback of the local AI. Otherwise, sometimes you'll forget that you're playing against bots, and not against real people. And what's a player to answer to such a hardcore game?

The player, in addition to firearms and permanent melee weapons, has a short-term time delay and, oh my!, a one-time ability - each of the three protagonists has its own.

There is often not enough time to use all the features, so each level turns into a walk in the fog until you learn it by heart. All the timings, all the enemy positions, all the weapons on the map - you have to keep everything in mind, no level to pass upright. You have to act as quickly and accurately as damn John Wick!

However, sometimes the game changes the concept from systematic shootouts and dilutes the gameplay with chases, then puts the player in a huge robot, and sometimes even makes you recall the gameplay design of the eighties.

But it's better to see once than read a hundred times...

Is it worth buying Esse Proxy?

Esse Proxy can be safely advised only to Hotline Miami fans, because paying even $10 for 3-4 hours of gameplay is not a good deal. However, as a valuable adjunct to the bundle, Esse Proxy looks decent. The 3-4 hours you spend in the game will be spent with excitement if you don't get tired of dying every ten seconds...