Tron: Identity - Review
41 years ago the world changed when Tron booted up on cinema screens and for the longest time that was the only entry into the digital world. Then in 2010 came Tron Legacy and that quickly spawned a wave of content to help bring users into the Grid. Videogames based on the digital world have been around since the 80s, but the last dedicated game was back in 2016 and was an endless runner. Can Tron: Identity boot up the series once more, or is it in serious need of a defrag?
Tron: Identity is a visual novel based game, so unlike the first person shooter from 2003 or the racing and battling found in 2010s Tron Evolution: Battle Grids, everything here is focused on character and story. You are Query, a perfect name for a program that acts as a detective and you have been requested by the Core to investigate an explosion at a facility. Query and those programs of his kind are Disciple of Tron and while people respect the position, the program is another story. The reason why people like the position is that DoT are known for their non-interference, they seek out the truth and only the truth. The reason for your call into the facility is that an explosion has torn a massive hole out of the side of it and given the information that is held there, the source of it must be found and contained.
It is very hard to explain the story in any further detail, without stumbling into the who and the why of things, because as a story focused game, everything comes down to choice. The first choice you can make as you enter is as a pair of lightcycles come barrelling down the road towards you. You can dive out of the way or try to stop them by standing your ground and while it seems like a simple choice, even that can have an impact on events down the line. The first program you meet at the facility is Grish, the head of security and someone who is more blunt than anything else. They insist that they don’t need you around, but as its not their call, they will just follow orders. The conversation you have and the choices you make can earn the trust of Grish or the suspicion and depending on which, events later on may play out differently.
Playing out is not a literal term as the game is very much a visual novel, apart from two reoccurring segments. You can move from place to place within the building, but each location is navigated to via a menu, there is no free exploration. Conversations take place with static camera views, though the world is always in motion in the scene, so you have to be aware of things going on. One of the times you can ‘move’ around is when there are small dots on the screen, if you move the cursor over them, you can select them and learn more about the item, world or whatever it was. The game provides an autoplay function for the speech though and if that is on, you can easily miss some of those dots, so just be aware of that.
The only real game play is the defragging of the identity discs, something that occurs quite frequently as programs attempt to understand what is going on. These sections are actually quite compelling and fun to play, though it does take a bit to get used to the mechanics of them. Each disc has a random assortment of cards around them and those cards are defined by a symbol and a number. The goal is to match symbol to symbol or number to number and the card you move, will push the other card off the disc. There are restrictions of course, you can only move one space in either direction or three and you can’t jump the break in the disc at the top. As you defrag more and more discs, you will also start to discover more unique code elements that change the game, as it were. These range from cards that spawn in more cards or cards that randomly swap position. The main goal of each defrag though, is to get the disc down to a set number of cards and if you can complete the secondary objective, you can unlock more detail. At first all of that sounded super confusing and it really didn’t gel with me, but the more I played them, the more it started to make sense and the more I enjoyed it. But thankfully the developer understand that they are not going to be for everyone, so you can skip them entirely if you want.
As a visual novel game, the visuals could have been very basic, just like most but instead the developers opted for a breathing world. What I mean by that is that there is always motion in the scene, from rain falling outside, to the pulsing lights of the grid and beyond, there is always something moving. This also applies to the various characters that you meet, when you ask questions, their eyes might look away or at you, depending on the events leading up to it. Sadly characters tend not to walk around the place, you will get a description about how someone walked and the game will just cut to the new scene. It’s a bit of a letdown, but it does fit within the context of a visual novel.
The games audio is perhaps the weakest aspect, it isn’t bad of course, it just doesn’t stand out as much as the rest of the game. The soundtrack was created in house, so those hoping for a Daft Punk reunion are going to be let down and while the music isn’t by them, it is clearly inspired by them. I do love that the music for the Tron world is now electronic based and while there are elements of that here, it only really surfaces in key moments. The rest of the audio comes from background noises, wind from the outside, rain, clothes rustling and that sort of thing.
As a story and choice driven game, how things played out for me, won’t be the same as everyone else and that makes it a little harder to quantify. Tron: Identity does however include a mystery that keeps revealing enough breadcrumbs to keep you hooked, plus it has a cast of characters that even with a second look, may still have secrets buried in their code. The game doesn’t take long to finish but given that your choices may lead to outcomes you don’t like, replaying is certainly an option. For fans of the world of Tron, this is an amazing way to experience a new part of it and while there are a lot of call outs to Flynn, Tron, Clu and Users, for newcomers it won’t feel like you are missing out. Tron: Identity has managed to reboot my love for the world of Tron and if you login as well, you won’t be let down.
The Score
8.5
Review code provided by Bithell Games
The Pros
+The story has enough layers to it, that even with a second playthrough you might miss something
+The world feels alive, even though it doesn’t move a lot, it doesn’t feel like its just a series of still images
The Cons
-The defrag game can take some getting used to and for some, it might be a little too complex
-The short runtime may deter some players, even with the replayability of it
