Review - Citizen Sleeper... "More Human than Human."

Image credit: Jump Over the Age

"'More Human than Human' is our motto," Tyrell says with a mixture of matter-of-fact clarification and barely contained pride.

    Deckard scoffs at the very idea that one of these replicants could be anything like a human. 

    Let alone more.

    Blade Runner is, and probably always will be, my all-time favorite movie. It combines the raw human emotion I love in films alongside great sci-fi action. I could go on for hours, but we're not here to talk about Ridley Scott's masterpiece. We're here to talk about the one created by Jump Over the Age.

    You read that right.

    In Citizen Sleeper, you play as a "sleeper" on an almost-forgotten space station in a remote corner of the galaxy. To figure out just what the hell I'm talking about, let me clarify a few things. First off, in this distant future AI has been outlawed entirely. Perhaps not such a bad thing... Either way, it is illegal for an AI to run a robot's body, so in typical cyberpunk fashion the megacorps have finagled their way around this. The biggest one mentioned in the game, Essen Arp, has started a program where they will take a person and put them into what amounts to an induced coma, using their consciousness to run a robot wherever they need it to work in the galaxy. After a certain amount of time/value has been paid off, the "sleeper" will be able to wake up and enjoy the perks that they signed their consciousness away for. In theory. In reality, Essen Arp is a little less willing to let those sleepers wake up when they have a workforce that has to respond and continue doing what they need.

    As a sleeper, your robot form wakes up on Erlin's Eye, that space station that I mentioned before. Memories are nearly nonexistent, so you have to piece together what has happened to you as time goes. The game uses an interesting system of dice rolls in order to get the answers you need, and your body continues to decay and degrade with every cycle. It's up to you to make sure that you stave off the problem of shutdown, get a bounty hunter off your back, and aid your fellow citizens on the station to earn your keep. Of course... earning that keep eventually turns into earning a friend or two in the dog-eat-dog world of Erlin's Eye.

The Good

Narrative is key here. The entire game relies on a strong narrative. You'll be doing a lot of reading. Luckily, Jump Over the Age handles this by providing top-notch writing. The story is incredibly thought-provoking. It is heartwarming at times, and heartbreaking at others. Citizen Sleeper essentially leans into the characters that your titular character will be running into along their way. Dragos, the scrap scavenger, Feng, the engineer, Peake, Eshe, Emris, Tala, Lem & Mia, Sol, Petr, Aki, Riko, Bliss, Moritz, Rabiah & Sabine, and hell... even Yannick. The list goes on. Each one of these characters comes with their own unique flavor that doesn't just fall into an archetype. They have genuine motivations and even contradictions within themselves that make them fleshed out.

    Visually the game shines as well. Artwork for the characters is simple and fun, and the Eye itself is well-constructed for us to know exactly what it is we're looking at. Could there have been a bit more here? Perhaps. But the game runs on its simplicity, and that's one of the reasons that I put that cozy/casual label on this post.

    The gameplay stays grounded with simple motivations called "drives" that push your character forward. You have a set number of dice based on the condition of your decaying frame, with the maximum being 5. These die help you to complete tasks around the station, with the higher numbers yielding better results in a game of chance as you use them. I originally thought that this would get boring, but it really didn't. Granted, the game clocked in at a 15 hour runtime, so maybe it would get that way eventually... I doubt it, though. There's a level of strategy to using those die so that your sleeper maximizes the advantages they have without decaying too much. But even if you do... there's no death in this game. You might get set back a little by decaying all the way before the game gives you a boost back into playing again, but you'll never actually face the music.

    Now for the audio component. You like that transition? I do what I can, people. The music in this game is incredible. It matches the cyberpunk flair composer Amos Roddy strives for, coupled with a bit of mystery that keeps you wanting to pursue a little more. It all adds to the worldbuilding that Jump Over the Age has created here, and every bit of it works. Is there voice acting? No. But I wouldn't have expected that from an Indie title and you don't really need it with all the reading you end up doing anyway.

The Bad

Very little actually belongs here. For a game as unique as this one turned out to be, I wouldn't really change much. Maybe the visuals could have been a bit better, but even that would potentially be unnecessary. This game is a must-play.

The Legend

It's been a while since I granted a 10, but I'm doing it today. Citizen Sleeper is one of the best games I've ever played, and I firmly believe that Jump Over the Age has an incredible IP on their hands. I can't wait to play the second one and see what they've done with it. For now, for you, if you're still here... Citizen Sleeper is free on PS Extra and more than worth every minute you'll put into it.

10/10

Legendary

To check out my other reviews on Cyberpunk worlds, look here and here.