Welcome to our “Is that a good premium mobile game series“. In this series we look at games from both the App Store and the Play Store and review them. At the end of the article we try to answer the question – Is the current game a one of the best smartphone games? Is it a good free mobile game? For this review, we’re looking at Repulze by Pixelbite!
Part of the reason we’ve checked out Repulze is that we’re waiting or the Wipeout Rush soft-launch to end and to have it available in our Region. Our hands were itchy for a Wipeout Clone on our devices.
Your Answer Upfront:
Repulze is, despite all of its bad decisions, a great fast paced racing game that reminds me of Wipeout and would definitely have earned its place on many of my past devices had it been less aggressive (for a lack of a better word) with its shortcut IAPs.
Today’s review is a bit of an odd one. Swedish dev team Pixelbite released Repulze in late 2012 (or early 2013, depending on your platform of choice) as what seems to be a (very big) nod to Psygnosis’ hit PlayStation (yes, the ORIGINAL PlayStation) Wipeout all the way back in 1995! That’s nearly 30 years ago (at the time of writing this)!
Unlike most of our reviews that focus on more current titles, Repulze is definitely nowhere near that category, yet it’s often still featured in Top 150 Games lists. How did a nearly 10-year-old title manage to stay (somewhat) relevant in an ever-changing market? What secrets does Pixelbite hold that have managed to make sure that Repulze is still worth checking out?
What is Repulze? Is it a Wipeout Clone?
Repulze is a fast paced, futuristic racing game that has you piloting “experimental Repulze hovercrafts”. Or at least that’s how mostly everyone describes it. I’ve got a slight correction to make to this: Repulze is a fast paced, futuristic time-trial racing game.
I have got to admit that the game has quite a bit of difficulty behind it, at least for me. The fast pace really has me finding myself hitting walls way more often than I’d like to and the game makes sure to penalize me for it.
Each race has its own set of objectives, usually in the form of a set time to beat, a number of boosts to complete and a maximum number of collisions (which I usually fail). This is far from being a bad thing, since it keeps me playing and trying to get better.
Even though there is no controller support (official or otherwise), Repulze offers pretty much all the possible control schemes: tapping, tilting and swiping (unfortunately you don’t have all three available at the same time. I could see myself using tap and tilt a lot).
Of the three controls, I’ve found tilting to be the best fit for myself, since the other two lack feedback and tactility (please note that this may just be my personal preference and that I may be biased when it comes to on-screen controls and their lack of tactility).
Does Repulze have good graphics?
Now, given the age of the game, I personally expected it to not have aged well in the graphics department, specially when playing on a high-resolution device like the iPad. Boy was I wrong! Repulze looks stunning on the 6th generation iPad and, to my eye, there’s little to no graphical difference compared to what I’m seeing on an older, now completely EOL iPhone 6.
Glancing over the compatibility, its age definitely shows. On the Apple side of things, you’ll need iOS 8.0 or later (which was released in 2014!) and, on Android you’ll need Android 2.3 (which is even older, having been released in 2011).
This is a somewhat amusing thing, since it gave me the chance to play Repulze on devices I’ve retired years ago (going back almost all the way to my second oldest Android smartphone, the Samsung Galaxy S 3 from 2012).
It’s not often that I get the chance to put these devices to some use, but this was definitely a fun blast from the past.
So far, I’ve had nothing to say except good things, but now comes the part of my review where I start ranting about microtransactions.
Does Repulze feature any Microtransactions?
First of all, Repulze isn’t a free game. Sure, it has a minimal price-tag at $0.99, but it’s still not free. What does this dollar game get you? Potentially endless hours of fast paced racing. Maybe.
The decision to add IAPs to a game with a price-tag that isn’t FREE still bothers me. What bothers me even more is that these IAPs have been active since 2013, probably generating hundreds of thousands of dollars (or not. We can’t base a conclusion just on a partial data.
Apple doesn’t give number of installs or downloads and the Google Play storefront only shows “10.000+” installs). The biggest problem I have with these IAPs is that they are somewhat game-breaking. Let’s look at what these IAPs are and, hopefully, you’ll see my point.
For simplicity, I will be using the App Store’s excellent feature that shows you what IAPs the game has (although without description and it seems to be limited to just a few of them).
The greatest offender stands proud as a headliner. The “Hovercraft SYN-1101” is the end-game ship which… you can just straight-up buy without having completed a single race.
Skipping along the list, written in bold, “CHEAT: Unlock Phase Two” seems to have been long removed from the game, yet still shows up here. I can only assume that you needed to complete Phase One in order to move forward. That no longer seems to be the case, as you can play the Phases in any order you chose.
The next offending set of IAPs are the “Gold paint set” ones. Deceptively, there’s only 3 of them listed, however, the in-game store lists no less than 7 golden paint sets and we also find out what they do. They give double XP when used.
I will, however, play devil’s advocate and say sure, these aren’t as bad as being able to buy the top-tier ship and will probably benefit those that don’t have hours to spend in the game to level up.
The rest of the IAPs, however, aren’t going to get the same leniency from me. Toolkits are used to upgrade your ship. And you need to upgrade your ship if you want to stand a chance at completing the challenges.
This may sound like another shortcut designed for those that don’t have the time to play through the game, but, think of it like this: You’ve paid $0.99 for the game to begin with. You started the game and found that it’s not exactly easy or that you aren’t skilled enough to even get past the first map’s challenges.
Why not just… upgrade your ship with some toolkits you’ve purchased for real money? While you’re at it, why not just buy the top tier ship, give it a nice golden paintjob and buy some upgrades for it?
Well, you’ve basically bought your way into the endgame for, let’s say, $30.
How exactly does that sit with you? Having fun “playing” the game, yet? No? Well, I don’t think the developers had playing the game in mind anymore when they decided upon these IAPs. They were probably dreaming of sacks with dollar signs on them.
Reviewing Repulze was a bittersweet reminder that mobile games aren’t necessarily bad. They weren’t bad 10+ years ago when smartphones truly started to become the norm and they’re not intrinsically bad today, either. It’s the decisions that publishers (usually) and/or developers (with some exceptions) make that turn a potentially hit game to miss entirely.
Is Repulze anything like Wipeout?
Do not, for one second, get me wrong. Repulze is a true spiritual successor to the Wipeout series, but it suffers greatly from these bad decisions. It’s a 10-year-old game that somehow still shows up in lists and tops as a Wipeout-like game to check out. Unfortunately, the practices that plague mobile games today show up in it and make some steer away from it.
I can’t say for sure if Repulze was a financial success for Pixelbite or not, but what I can say is that it would have been better suited with a slightly higher entry price and no IAPs.
Having said all this, what is the final conclusion?
Repulze is, despite all of its bad decisions, a great fast paced racing game that reminds me of Wipeout and would definitely have earned its place on many of my past devices had it been less aggressive (for a lack of a better word) with its shortcut IAPs.
As it is right now (and has been for some 10 years), Repulze gets a respectable 3.5/5 starts from me.
How To Download Repulze
You can download Repulze for the iPhone and iPad from the App Store. The game is also available on Android via the Play Store.
Please note that even though the game can be purchased on Apple Silicon Macs, the game won’t launch at all. It freezes as soon as it tries to create a window and remains like that until your Force Stop it. Buyer Beware.
Where To Next?
Congrats, you made it to the end of the article where we answered the question: Is Repulze a good premium mobile game? I hope it was beneficial to you. It’s also beneficial to us to have you stick around the blog more.
We have more reviews of good free or premium mobile games, such as Metal Slug Attack or QB Planets! We also have other articles with tidbits and interesting facts, like this one – which answers the question “What is the Number 1 mobile eSports Game” sorted by the prize pool.
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