Hindsight 20/20: Wrath of the Raakshasa Reviews
Hindsight 20/20: Wrath of the Raakshasa is an intriguing game that plays with the idea of cause and consequence. Due to decisions clearly affecting the world, I found myself agonizing over choices to ensure the safety of the kingdom. Although the combat alters depending on whether you are merciful or ruthless, it lacks the nuances to sit amongst great action-adventure titles. However, with its endearing design and brilliant premise, fans of narrative-driven, action games will enjoy carving their own route for a nation in need.
Hindsight is a poor game on a promising foundation
Hindsight 20/20: Wrath of Raakshasa tries to convince you that your choices matter and that you should feel bad about some choices and good about others, but they don't matter because you don't connect with the characters or the world they inhabit. Your choices change outcomes, but many of them feel unnatural or contrived, and most are signposted making it feel like the game is trying to tell you that choices matter rather than letting you experience the impact. Tack on an awful presentation and bland combat and you have the recipe for a game that ultimately doesn't matter.
Not particularly offensive, but too repetitive, poorly written, and dull to inspire much admiration. Hindsight 20/20 has some nifty ideas, but they're not enough to act as a lifesaver.
Triple-I Games offers a morality tale for fans of decision-based gameplay in Hindsight 20/20: Wrath of the Raakshasa. The action-adventure also ties this moral choice to its combat system. Can the interesting design make up for some combat flaws?
The development team does have some names from studios like BioWare and others, but they clearly need to further hone their craft. Their past successes might have left them overconfident. Their chops for decisions and choice creation might be better suited to another genre or require a more established functional setting. Wrath of the Raakshasa has some good ideas but it never delivers on its potential.
It has merits, but there is still a long way to go before it becomes what it should be.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
If you can put up with what feels like the same fight over and over again, there's something cool here, but that repetition can be a bit of a hurdle, and then another, and another.
Hindsight 20/20: Wrath of the Raakshasa has some good ideas, such as choice and decision, as well as the theme of morality versus society. Unfortunately the gameplay is on a fairly low level. For the first ten seconds of the game, I managed to get to a point of no escape and shutting down was the only option. After an hour of playing, you realize nothing happened and just kept doing the same thing over and over. The option to make a decision in text form is there, but you always usually have to give the one answer that is expected of you anyway. For a €12,49 game I would have expected more and I certainly don't think it's worth investing both money and time in.
Review in Czech | Read full review
There's something both exciting and sometimes heart-breaking when you get to play early versions of games and get filled in on what they want to be and then see them finally released some time later...
Hindsight 20/20 – Wrath of Raakshasa is honestly a strange one. On the one hand, there is a great story here with some relatively dynamic decisions to make that will alter the course of things to come. The ability to decide what weapon to use in a given moment is an awesome mechanic that really puts your enemies’ fate in your hands. On the other hand, though, the overall combat and dungeon system is a bit repetitive and drags the experience despite the well-told story.
After three playthroughs, I’m still having fun trying to decide the proper choices for every situation. I’d say that’s a true testament to the quality of the game’s story. Hindsight 20/20: Wrath of The Raakshasa is fantastic, with fun mechanics and a surprisingly great narrative that’ll leave you questioning what you believe in.
Player choice has a profound effect on the narrative in Hindsight 20/20 – Wrath of the Raakshasa. Even the choice of weapon can have unexpected consequences later down the line. The game occasionally struggles to wrangle all of this in a coherent way and there are some rough edges but for those that like a game that gets better the more you replay it, this is certainly worth your time.
Though it features an interesting approach to choice and consequence, the rest of the game doesn’t have the substance to support it, majorly diluting the impact of its choices and experience overall.
The game falters somewhat under the weight of its ambitious premise—the various ramifications of killing or sparing certain NPCs in each five-hour playthrough probably won’t wow you to your core—but fun combat, charming visuals, and thorough commitment to its namesake elevate Hindsight 20/20 – Wrath of the Raakshasa to a unique experience that’s absolutely worth a playthrough (or three) to see what it has to offer.
Hindsight 20/20: Wrath of the Raakshasa is an average throwback action adventure with promising choice mechanics that are undermined by dull characters and shallow world-building. If you are interested in the pure mechanics of seeing how your choices branch, there may be enough here to enjoy. If you are like me and you need a better reason to replay to see the choice mechanics at work, there is still a competent, old-fashioned game that you can complete quickly and still have time to dive into a visual novel afterward.
Hindsight 20/20: Wrath of the Rakshasa sets out to deliver an engaging action story that forces the player to make important moral choices that will determine the shape of their world. And despite some moments where the combat struggles and some less than clear decisions the game presents players with, it largely succeeds. Given its short playtime and unique approach to both combat and choice-driven storytelling, I would say the game is certainly worth a look if what I have said about it intrigues you.