Written by Gobrul

Content warnings for the game: suicide, depression, domestic violence, cartoon gore, gruesome death, sexual references, mental illnesses and ableism, a bit of homophobia

Re:Kinder is a remake of 2003 RPG Maker horror game by Parun. Compared to other horrors on this engine it’s relatively unknown which may be due to the original never getting translated.

You play as a third grader who comes back to his hometown from a trip just to find it completely changed into a nightmarish version of itself. Along with a group of other surviving kids. You’re gonna have to work together and face the villain’s challenges so that everyone can escape this hell.                         

The gameplay is pretty much like in your average RPG Maker horror game – you explore, talk to people and solve puzzles however one key difference is Re:Kinder’s difficulty – it’s reminiscent of old adventure games where you can easily soft lock yourself (in this case just make your friends get killed and losing the chance of getting better endings) by not doing something or not doing everything in very specific order that you usually have no right to know. This extends to the battles as you are supposed to do specific commands or die in first or second round of the fight. So you should make use of multiple save slots and ability to save pretty much anywhere and anytime. You can also use a guide (the one written by vgperson – the person who translated the game is brilliant as it provides you with hints before showing you the solution).

I like the artstyle with its somewhat exaggerated proportions and really creepy locations. Not that much to be said in this department. Music was good but not very memorable.

And now for the atmosphere of the game – it’s weird, there’s a very big contrast between gruesome, grim and depresive town, omnipresent death and traumatic story, and somewhat childish, dark sense of humor, which was added in the remake to make the game seem much less edgy. In my opinion that is for the best especially because these out of the blue jokes feel strangely genuine. Also the game features a gay running joke which, especially for 2013, doesn’t feel meanspirited.

In conclusion I think Re:Kinder is a hidden gem of RPG Maker games that deserves much more recognition than it gets at the moment. I highly recommend giving it a go.

Link to the game and RTP required to run it: Re:Kinder - vgperson's Translations    

Playtime: 3-4 hours

Special thanks to vgperson for translating Parun’s work to English.