Re:Initiate Red

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Re:Initiate Red
Re:Initiate Red
Released November 19th, 2021
Preceded by Re:Initiate Episode 3
Followed by Re:Initiate Visions
Developer SUNSHADOW

Re:Initiate Red is a role-playing video game developed by SUNSHADOW for PC and Mac. The game is the fourth installment in the Re:Initiate series, and the first in the series to break away from the initial interconnected trilogy of numerically named episodes. Much like Re:Initiate Episode 2, the game, while taking place in the same world and using some of the same characters as the original 2014 Skype logs, consists of entirely new events and a fully original story. Re:Initiate Red takes place two months after Episode 3, focusing on the newly discovered destructive item Apex Red and its impact on the game world.

Gameplay[edit | edit source]

The game is a standard turn-based role-playing game, featuring a top-down view of characters and events along with a separate battle screen where the player and enemies take turns attacking each other. Items can be found along the way or purchased using in-game currency to affect the player's status. The game frequently switches perspective between characters, with the three main acts of the game featuring three different player characters, along with several additional non-player characters who join the player's party. There are also hundreds of non-player characters to talk to that make comedic, often fourth wall–breaking comments.

Red made further improvements to the gameplay of the series, and was the first game in the series to feature a widescreen HD resolution.

Plot[edit | edit source]

On March 16th, 2023, Hidenobu and Reo meet with a mysterious man in a casino. Hidenobu and Reo are members of the Green Discipline, a guild that has gained significant power and reach over the game world since the events of Episode 3. The group is dedicated to combating any perceived evil, essentially acting as a police force. It is revealed that Hidenobu and Reo are going undercover and meeting with this man under the pretense that they are buying Apex Red off of him, an item that gives users a high that seems to simulate psychoactive drug use. When Hidenobu and Reo go outside to the back of the casino to buy the Apex Red, they quickly pin down the man once he reveals his possession of the item and take him to the guild HQ.

At the Discipline HQ, Hidenobu and Reo present the Apex Red dealer to Kazu, the leader of the guild, along with a court of other high-ranking Discipline members. Kazu lectures the man about how dangerous Apex Red is, telling him that it has "killed people" and showing disgust that he is "making financial gain" off a deadly glitch. Kazu orders that the man be taken to their prisons, and when the man shouts that they don't have the authority to do that, Kazu argues that they are the authority. The man is taken away, and Kazu releases Hidenobu and Reo.

Hidenobu and Reo go out for a "night on the town," and eventually stop to eat at a restaurant. Reo briefly questions why the man they captured hated the Discipline so much, but Hidenobu assures him it's just because they are stopping him from getting more money. Suddenly, the duo is confronted by an out-of-breath man named Zenzo, who, after bursting through the door, pleads them to help him find his sister, who was carried off by a monster in Matasay Forest. Hidenobu and Reo oblige, following him deep into the forest, where they are assaulted by Fearsome Ghouls (who Zenzo recognizes as the monsters who took his sister away). After a long and grueling walk through the forest, the trio find Zenzo's sister dead on the ground, prompting Zenzo to fly into a rage. However, it is soon revealed that Zenzo is playing a trick on them, as the corpse vanishes and his demeanor abruptly changes. Zenzo spirals into an insane tirade about how he is going to kill and eat Hidenobu and Reo, after which Hidenobu tells Reo to run so he can fight Zenzo himself. Reo reluctantly escapes, leaving Hidenobu to fight Zenzo -- but he is clearly no match, and he loses the fight. Zenzo suddenly changes shape, changing his hair color and entire physique, before brutally slaughtering Hidenobu.

Re:Initiate Red

Zenzo leads Hidenobu and Reo to his "sister."

Shion is awoken by a noisy system alert from the Green Discipline that informs him of the murder of one of their members and gives identifying information regarding the murderer. Shion notices that no one else in the cabin with him (Natsumi, Fukigen'na, or Karuban) woke up from the alert and exasperatedly wakes them all up, with a little extra effort having to be put in to get up Karuban. Karuban expresses his distaste for the Discipline after Shion informs them of the system alert, while Fukigen'na expresses a desire to join someday. The group leaves the cabin and starts their search for the Divine Orb, an item needed to complete the quest that has led them to the tropical island where they stayed for the night. They run into a girl on the coast named Ume, who explains to them that the orb they're looking for is actually on a smaller island south of the island they are on and offers to give them a ride on her ship to that smaller island. Everyone in the group agrees, except Karuban, who seems to be hiding a fear of the ocean.

Shion, Natsumi, Fukigen'na, and Ume leave Karuban behind and sail to find the Divine Orb. Although they eventually locate the orb, an enormous monster appears to guard it. The group manages to defeat the monster and obtain the item.

Meanwhile, Karuban encounters Zenzo, still transformed into his blonde-haired, bulkier physique to avoid identification. Zenzo tells Karuban the same story he told Hidenobu and Reo about his sister getting lost in Matasay Forest, and manages to convince Karuban to go there and help him by bribing him with money. However, before they depart, Zenzo's form starts to falter, as he turns back into his old self. Karuban realizes that Zenzo is the murderer identified in the system alert and promptly kills him, saying that he's dealt with one too many "creepy, monologuing serial killers."

A week later, Kazu addresses the members of the Green Discipline at the weekly meeting, assigning all of the members missions. Reo and fellow guild member Asao are assigned a mission to go back to the city and arrest a businessman who is secretly dealing Apex Red under the table. Asao sympathizes with Reo, saying he understands if he is not ready for another mission so soon after the death of his friend, but Reo agrees to join him on the mission anyway. Before they go, Reo realizes they need to stock up on items, and tells Asao he'll collect the items and catch up with him in the city later. In the storage area, Reo unexpectedly uncovers the room in which the Discipline stores confiscated Apex Red, and ends up trying some for himself.

Later, Reo meets up with Asao in the city, and the two set up a meeting with the businessman they plan to arrest using a secret code word. During their wait in the lobby for the meeting to start, Reo starts to experience overwhelming hallucinations that start to completely cloud his senses, featuring exploding horses and everyone around him in the lobby turning into slime. Eventually, the effects wear off, and Reo and Asao successfully apprehend the businessman. However, Reo stays behind, telling Asao to take the businessman back to HQ alone while he recuperates, as he feels sick.

Reo encounters Hidenobu's girlfriend, Jitsuko, at a restaurant. She cries at the table while talking about Hidenobu's death, and Reo attempts to reassure her by explaining that there is a rumor going around of an item that can grant wishes, meaning she could possibly bring Hidenobu back to life. Reo buys her a room for the night as a positive gesture, and the two spend the night talking about Hidenobu and what they miss about him. Reo ends up falling asleep in Jitsuko's room in the other bed, but, suddenly, the effects of the Apex Red he took kick back in, and hallucinations of slime creatures appear urging him to sleep with Jitsuko in the other bed. Reo then hallucinates Jitsuko herself telling him to do it, which effectively makes him walk over to the other bed. The screen fades to black as Jitsuko lets out a scream.

Reo is kicked out of the inn and sleeps on the ground of the city for the night. In the morning, he is found by Asao, who tells him that he has been removed from the guild under the suspicion that he was the one who removed Apex Red from the storage room the previous day. Reo resists, but Asao handcuffs him and takes him away.

Two weeks later, Shion and Ume have a pleasant conversation on a beach, and it seems that the two have become romantically involved. After a brief run-in with a monster, they walk around the beach and continue their conversation. When Shion brings up the fact that Karuban received an award from the Green Discipline for killing Zenzo, the two have an argument about the importance and status of the Discipline, with Ume discarding them as "manchildren LARPing as if they were the police." Shion wants to change the subject, but Ume is unable to move past it, and storms off.

Asao walks out of the Discipline HQ and expresses his desire to quit. Suddenly, Bunpo runs up to him and tells him to "take it off" -- it's revealed that Asao is actually a girl named Ai in disguise, and is Bunpo's girlfriend.

The next day, Shion is brought into the Green Discipline's prison, accused of being in possession of Apex Red. The corruption of the Discipline becomes apparent, as high-ranking guild officials are in the prison viciously abusing prisoners and even doing Apex Red themselves, going directly against what the guild supposedly stands for. Reo is in disbelief of this, and the guild members he used to work with seem to act like they never knew him. Blue-haired Discipline leader Arata laughs at Shion's pleas that he is innocent, paralyzing him and saying that they are going to "have fun."

Re:Initiate Red

The Green Discipline's brutal prison.

A woman in a black dress dances briefly in a green room with futuristic-looking technology before disappearing.

Re:Initiate Red

The bizarre and controversial ending sequence.

Development[edit | edit source]

Although Episode 3 was met with universal critical acclaim, SUNSHADOW did not return to social media after its release, and many fans thought that Episode 3 was the final game in the series as a result of the nature of its release, narrative conclusion, and subsequent return to social media silence from the development team. However, Kyle Layton and his team got right to work on a fourth episode for the series after Episode 3 was released. Again, since there were absolutely no updates or activity from the SUNSHADOW team online during the development of Red, it is impossible to know when development started and ended.

Re:Initiate Red notably deviates the most from the original source material out of any of the games in the series. A considerable amount of the game focuses on characters that were fully invented by Layton and his team, not ever being mentioned in the 2014 chat logs. Also, the ideas of a drug-like item (Apex Red) and a police-like guild (Green Discipline) were never remotely touched on in the original source material, and were wildly new ideas for the Initiate series.

Release[edit | edit source]

Re:Initiate Red was released for free on November 19th, 2021 for PC and Mac. Unlike Episode 3, the release was more theatrical: SUNSHADOW changed its profile picture on Twitter daily in the week leading up to the game's release, each time increasingly getting into a deeper shade of red. This was not noticed by the Initiate community until two days after it started. On November 18th, the SUNSHADOW Twitter account made its first tweet since the link to Episode 3 was posted by releasing a short teaser video for Red that featured music from the game and psychedelic red imagery, ending with the date "11.19.21" flashing on screen. The following day, the game was released, again causing a frenzy within the Initiate subreddit and larger community as everyone raced to get their hands on the new game, which most had thought would never arrive.

Response to the game was largely positive, with huge acclaim directed at the new widescreen resolution of the game and smoother battle system. The new original characters, Hidenobu and Reo in particular, became instant favorites, with artwork and cosplays based on them being posted on the subreddit mere days after the game's release. However, some were disappointed by the game's unusually abstract and "up for interpretation" ending, calling it "rushed" and "nonsensical." The large amount of cliffhangers at the end of the game was a stark contrast from the satisfying conclusion of Episode 3, which wrapped up all the characters' arcs that they had been developing since the beginning of the trilogy. In spite of the lukewarm reaction to the ending, fans were generally impressed with Red and anticipated another installment.