Here's a confession which may shock and alarm, so those of a faint disposition may want to sit down for this. I've never seen the original Star Wars trilogy. Over-dramatics aside, this still elicits a surprise from people even whom I never would of thought would enjoy the series. Apart from having the displeasure of seeing the prequels, it's a universe I've never had much stake in (Most likely because the Force become the main 'thing' about the series, with the actual gritty stuff getting pushed to the side a bit) With this in mind, I never really had much interest in checking out LittleWhiteMouse's Star Wars: Chibi Rebellion, which was a mistake - packed inside this cutesy mod is a seriously original and fun game.
You play Jaiyl, an engineer set out for revenge against the empire on the planet Nothoth - a snowy landscape occupied by starports, imperial facilities, and pirate hideouts. If you're not familiar with the phrase Chibi, it's a Japanese term for a sort of cute deformed art-style that used to be fairly popular back in anime's glory days. All of the characters in the mod are in this art style; it works well and as soon as you get adjusted to it, it becomes part of the mod's charm. The structure of this mod however is extremely innovative - rather than having a rigid set of levels, the game is divided up into chapters. Each chapter is built of maps from a large pool of over 100 maps, randomly selected - there's a specific layout to the episodes which never changes but what maps you will play changes with every playthrough. The maps won't repeat until you get right towards the end of the mod. Each map is fairly short, with the biggest only taking about 5 minutes. Due to the tiny size of each map, the vast majority of them offer something new and interesting with only a couple being fairly generic.
You'll have to tackle many different scenarios such as puzzles, luring AT-AT walkers into traps, fighting enemy re-enforcements that have dropped off troops in areas you've cleared, walk around a town fulfilling little quests for certain people, escaping from a prison outpost, sneaking on-board an Imperial destroyer dressed in disguise...the variety on offer is fairly huge. The decision to make each map a smaller one paid off since it means there's little filler in each map. The only downside to the game is that each tech facility does get fairly samey and the planet's surface is always snowy. This can't really be avoided with the slot-together nature of the maps, but it still can wear thin after a while. The levels have light detail, but this goes well with the style of the mod. For the most part they're simple to navigate and explore, but some puzzles will have you scratching your head until you figure out the trick to them.
Enemies are of course Star Wars stalwarts the Empire - you'll fight Storm troopers, the AT walkers, as well as a variety of droids and not to mention a few fairly neat boss battles. Due to the projectile nature of Star Wars weapons, you move a fair bit slower than default and Jaiyl can't take too much damage. There is a variety of armour and shields that will protect against damage however. The guns are somewhat similar, with your familiar blasters and rifles before branching out a bit with a laser sniper-rifle and a charge-able shotgun. These latter guns are not found however - dotted throughout the game are boxes called Holocrons which can be used on a crafting table (either back at the Chibi base which serves as a hub map or dotted throughout various installations) to build new weapons or upgrades for previous ones. Upgradable equipment always work well with hub maps, so this was a really welcome feature. There's also a shop to restock on ammunition and supplies (and thankfully if you find yourself running short on blaster ammo the shopkeeper will give you some on the house) as well as sell scrap which is picked up from various destroyed enemies. One of the coolest items is an an airstrike beacon, which is functionally a set of binoculars you can use to call down a rebel attack (which is a dab hand at taking down the walkers) The weapon graphics are fairly simple but fun to use - however they're not widescreen compatible, so if you run at a widescreen resolution the guns will have fairly jarring cuts to the sides.
One of the neater features is your engineering tool, which not only does a lot of melee damage but can also be used to sabotage enemy robots so they'll rush and explode towards an enemy. They can also be used to overload certain conduits to create traps - finally there's a small mini-game of sorts you play when repairing something in a level. You have to hit the highlighted spots with your tool on broken paneling (signaled by smoke pouring out) to repair certain things, and it can be surprisingly tough if you try to rush it (but you can't go too slow either) It's rewarding to finally fix the device as well, and Jaiyl even makes a little comment when done.
Chibi Rebellion was a pleasant surprise - as someone who's not a big fan of Star Wars I enjoyed it a lot and even if you don't consider yourself a fan of the franchise either, CR packs a great deal of surprises and innovations that make it worth playing regardless. There's a decent amount of re-playability and even a semi-hidden final mission when you recover all secret rebel pilot helmets throughout the episodes. Definitely give this a try.
Link to Chibi Rebellion idgames mirror
You play Jaiyl, an engineer set out for revenge against the empire on the planet Nothoth - a snowy landscape occupied by starports, imperial facilities, and pirate hideouts. If you're not familiar with the phrase Chibi, it's a Japanese term for a sort of cute deformed art-style that used to be fairly popular back in anime's glory days. All of the characters in the mod are in this art style; it works well and as soon as you get adjusted to it, it becomes part of the mod's charm. The structure of this mod however is extremely innovative - rather than having a rigid set of levels, the game is divided up into chapters. Each chapter is built of maps from a large pool of over 100 maps, randomly selected - there's a specific layout to the episodes which never changes but what maps you will play changes with every playthrough. The maps won't repeat until you get right towards the end of the mod. Each map is fairly short, with the biggest only taking about 5 minutes. Due to the tiny size of each map, the vast majority of them offer something new and interesting with only a couple being fairly generic.
You'll have to tackle many different scenarios such as puzzles, luring AT-AT walkers into traps, fighting enemy re-enforcements that have dropped off troops in areas you've cleared, walk around a town fulfilling little quests for certain people, escaping from a prison outpost, sneaking on-board an Imperial destroyer dressed in disguise...the variety on offer is fairly huge. The decision to make each map a smaller one paid off since it means there's little filler in each map. The only downside to the game is that each tech facility does get fairly samey and the planet's surface is always snowy. This can't really be avoided with the slot-together nature of the maps, but it still can wear thin after a while. The levels have light detail, but this goes well with the style of the mod. For the most part they're simple to navigate and explore, but some puzzles will have you scratching your head until you figure out the trick to them.
Enemies are of course Star Wars stalwarts the Empire - you'll fight Storm troopers, the AT walkers, as well as a variety of droids and not to mention a few fairly neat boss battles. Due to the projectile nature of Star Wars weapons, you move a fair bit slower than default and Jaiyl can't take too much damage. There is a variety of armour and shields that will protect against damage however. The guns are somewhat similar, with your familiar blasters and rifles before branching out a bit with a laser sniper-rifle and a charge-able shotgun. These latter guns are not found however - dotted throughout the game are boxes called Holocrons which can be used on a crafting table (either back at the Chibi base which serves as a hub map or dotted throughout various installations) to build new weapons or upgrades for previous ones. Upgradable equipment always work well with hub maps, so this was a really welcome feature. There's also a shop to restock on ammunition and supplies (and thankfully if you find yourself running short on blaster ammo the shopkeeper will give you some on the house) as well as sell scrap which is picked up from various destroyed enemies. One of the coolest items is an an airstrike beacon, which is functionally a set of binoculars you can use to call down a rebel attack (which is a dab hand at taking down the walkers) The weapon graphics are fairly simple but fun to use - however they're not widescreen compatible, so if you run at a widescreen resolution the guns will have fairly jarring cuts to the sides.
One of the neater features is your engineering tool, which not only does a lot of melee damage but can also be used to sabotage enemy robots so they'll rush and explode towards an enemy. They can also be used to overload certain conduits to create traps - finally there's a small mini-game of sorts you play when repairing something in a level. You have to hit the highlighted spots with your tool on broken paneling (signaled by smoke pouring out) to repair certain things, and it can be surprisingly tough if you try to rush it (but you can't go too slow either) It's rewarding to finally fix the device as well, and Jaiyl even makes a little comment when done.
Chibi Rebellion was a pleasant surprise - as someone who's not a big fan of Star Wars I enjoyed it a lot and even if you don't consider yourself a fan of the franchise either, CR packs a great deal of surprises and innovations that make it worth playing regardless. There's a decent amount of re-playability and even a semi-hidden final mission when you recover all secret rebel pilot helmets throughout the episodes. Definitely give this a try.
Link to Chibi Rebellion idgames mirror
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