Residual Review (PC)

A purple plant that hangs from the ceiling grabs my intrepid explorer. He doesn’t die but a campfire is needed to replenish my energy while a big orange drives up my health. I have plenty of suit power left to explore this underground area, as long as I avoid any other encounters. I should remember to pick up vines, which I need to make at least a ladder and a few bombs. Once I feel I have enough of them (along with other supplies) my trusty teleporter can quickly move me to my ship and, more importantly, my crafting station.

Residual is developed by the team at Orangepixel and published by Apogee Entertainment, on the PC via Steam and on the Nintendo Switch. The title aims to take procedurally generated worlds and mix them with survival and puzzle ideas.

The narrative setup starts off with the player character crashing his exploration ship into a planet and then waking up with a limited number of resources and a trusty bot as a companion. There’s little in the way of classic story in the game but a central question does guide much of the exploration. The Personal Disaster Bot is a chatterbox that can drop some useful hints but mostly simply offers snarks and engages in weird asides. This element of the game is a little bare bone but it’s intriguing enough to keep players moving forward.

The core of Residual is exploration and crafting. The recently crashed astronaut has very limited supplies and stepping out of his ship is dangerous. The world is hostile and there’s no high-powered weaponry to strike back. All one can do is find the resources required to thrive while finding ways to explore more of the world.

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Eating local fruit, sleeping at a campfire or in the captain’s chair, and spending time in the sun will allow our hero to replenish resources. But most of the time players will move around the pixelated space, trying to find the items required to power machinery, reveal new locations, and craft tools, from bombs to mineral extraction apparatus.

Movement is always brisk (teleportation is an option), although swinging from vines sometimes feels weird. It pays to make sure you only use resources when actually required. The game is not about extensive building and terraforming. There’s no pickaxe to dig through layers of soil to reach the underground. The focus is on solving puzzles that open access and that means careful use of all obtained vines and fruit and minerals.

Residual does not have any base building, which could have added another layer of interesting decisions, and the crafting interface and choices are a little limited. The puzzles that lock new areas of the world never feel difficult, which is good because it limits frustration.

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The biggest problem with Residual is that it becomes repetitive pretty fast. Get resources to open up an area. Investigate, maybe die because you forgot to set good teleportation options and see where the next puzzle should take you. Dig into the central mystery a little. Then do it again. The game offers a feeling of freedom and fun at first but does not manage to sustain it.

The procedurally generated worlds should also have more of an impact on the experience of playing. I like the variations in fruit and minerals, but more interesting twists were needed to make them truly stand out. I wanted to see truly massive creatures or big deep caverns from time to time. The generated planets need more personality.

Residual fully embraces the pixel art approach to graphics. The generated worlds look alien indeed and they manage to blend cuteness with peril. It’s not hard to recognize potential hazards or opportunities quickly, which is great given how quickly the player can move through the world. The interface, including crafting and resource use, could be a little more functional but it mostly does the job. The soundtrack suits the game very well and I suggest pushing the volume up a few notches while taking down the one that governs the voice of the Personal Disaster Bot.

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The Good

The Bad

Conclusion