Hitman: Blood Money - Reprisal (Nintendo Switch) Review

In Hitman: Blood Money - Reprisal, players engage in the embodied experience of Agent 47, a genetically engineered operative traversing the globe to fulfil high-value contracts for the International Contracts Agency. Don't expect first-person shooter mechanics - this is an immersive sim with roleplaying elements and strategic decision-making, inviting players to step into the shoes of a professional assassin.

Agent 47 will navigate labyrinthine mini-sandboxes that range from opulent Parisian opera houses to sun-drenched Miami penthouses, all painstakingly rendered to facilitate player immersion. Each mission presents a discrete target, demanding elimination through methodical planning and improvisational execution. Unlike overtly action-oriented titles, Hitman: Blood Money - Reprisal emphasizes stealth, finesse, disguise, and environmental manipulation as primary tools of the trade. The player becomes a master of infiltration, seamlessly blending into social settings and exploiting available resources to orchestrate the target's demise. Agent 47 is a lot like a cold James Bond and less like a daring Solid Snake.

The true brilliance of the game lies in its refusal to constrain player agency. Unlike linear narratives, Hitman: Blood Money - Reprisal empowers players to approach each contract with their own unique style. The classic silent takedown is a swift and clean elimination for the standard assassin. Another gamer might revel in the elaborate poisonings; a method that demands patience and macabre artistry. For the true showman, accidental mishaps offer the thrill of orchestrated chaos, where a chandelier strategically loosened or a cleverly tampered car brake becomes the instrument of demise.

This emphasis on player agency fuels the game's extraordinary replayability. Each target presents a multifaceted puzzle, begging for deconstruction and creative solutions. Uncovering hidden pathways, unlocking new disguise opportunities, and refining execution techniques incentivize multiple playthroughs, ensuring no two experiences are quite the same. Blood Money becomes a playground for experimentation, rewarding careful planning and improvisation with the exquisite satisfaction of a perfectly executed contract like a diabolical Machiavellian mastermind.

The notoriety mechanic was intended to add consequences for reckless play and incentivize stealthy execution. However, the system falls short of its aspirations, ultimately proving superfluous and failing to offer meaningful penalties for deviating from the game's intended approach.

The premise is logical: high notoriety, accrued through excessive violence and public exposure, should raise the stakes for 47 in subsequent missions. The implementation undermines this potential. The cost of reducing notoriety through bribes or witness elimination is negligible compared to the substantial sums accumulated throughout the game. Going in recklessly incurs minimal financial repercussions, rendering the notoriety meter almost irrelevant.

This undermines the system's potential to promote tactical decision making. Players are rarely constrained by the fear of financial hardship due to notoriety, and thus have little incentive to adopt a consistently stealthy approach. The penalization becomes more of an inconvenience and is easily remedied with huge sums of readily available funds that the games throws at 47.

Hitman: Blood Money's conversion to the Nintendo Switch offers a portable extension of the beloved assassination sandbox. While the core experience of executing carefully planned hits remains largely intact, the port is not without its blemishes. One of the primary concerns lies with the flawed save system. The original Blood Money had a save limitation based on difficulty and Reprisal retains the warning messages but allows limitless overwriting of existing saves. This unintended exploit dramatically diminishes the strategic dimension of the gameplay experience.

Visual fidelity also presents limitations. While the environments retain their distinct stylistic charm, graphical downgrades are evident compared to other platforms. Textures display reduced detail, lighting effects appear less nuanced, and framerate drops can occasionally disrupt the flow of gameplay. These technical concessions, while understandable for the Switch's hardware limitations, may disappoint players accustomed to the visual richness of other editions, which is surprising for a game from 2006.

Reprisal deserves commendation for its smooth controls and refined user interface. The original's control scheme has been adapted to the Switch's unique button layout, ensuring responsiveness and precision during execution, and there are even gyro options available. Navigation menus are streamlined and optimized for the handheld mode, offering a comfortable experience for on-the-go assassins.

The portability factor itself stands as a significant advantage. Reprisal's ability to deliver a portable Hitman experience, offering bite-sized assassination thrills during commutes or breaks, is genuinely appealing since there is nothing else like this on the console.