After the success of the Kickstarter campaign earlier this year, the developers of Jutsu Games have recently made available on Steam (for free) the Rustler’s prologue demo, a title that aims to bring back to players’ screens the light-hearted spirit of the first two Grand Theft Auto, all within a medieval setting as improbable as it is hilarious. After spending some time mistreating cows and burning villages, we can tell you that production seems to have taken the right course, along a path strewn with tavern jokes and recreational chaos. Let’s start well, in short.
Criminal Middle Ages
It only takes a few moments, the echoing sound of a gastric warbling, a rundown on the unlikely consequences of an alcoholic night, to capture the deep essence of Rustler, the backbone of the concept created by Jutsu Games: juggling in the wild.
On the other hand, the sources of inspiration for the title speak for themselves: Rustler (for friends “Grand Theft Horse”) is a heartfelt – and very foul-mouthed – love letter to the beginnings of GTA, at the time when the flagship series of Rockstar Games was still in the hands of Lemmings authors, Scotland’s DMA Design (now Rockstar North). From these solid “old school” foundations, the Polish team has built simple but effective gameplay, which invites players to give their worst in the setting of a medieval world full of anachronisms and pop quotes, where the law is always and only a mild suggestion, and every opportunity is good to sow a little healthy superviolence. The game puts us in the shoes of Guy, a low-level henchman “whose parents were so lazy they couldn’t even find a decent name for them“. After having regained consciousness in the queue for yet another good night, our darling’s first task will be to bring his drenched limbs back to his mother’s hovel, to allow himself some relief from the after-effects.
This is not before having settled the accounts with a local farmer, the owner of the cow who, following our nocturnal revelry, now finds himself grazing on the roof of his farm. The time of a quick fist fight, followed by the theft of a shabby gig, and we find ourselves driving a plow, busy drawing a huge “pod” (winks, winks) on the field in front of our mansion.
Fast forward, and here we are ready to commit our first crime – of the day – by stealing a steed from its rightful owner, then reaching the nearest “Catch your horse” to give the proud quadruped a coat of paint, in order to confuse the gendarmes on Guy’s heels. The next step? A treacherous crossbow between the eyes of a poor squire, closely followed by his knight, immediately handed over to a strangely enthusiastic gravedigger.
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From him we learn that the collection of corpses is a business in full expansion, ready to welcome – as a secondary activity – new recruits with a good nose for business … and putrescence. For our part, however, we prefer to dedicate ourselves to mixed martial arts of the Middle Ages, which include a rich bouquet of swords, blows, spear thrusts and halberd slashes, without too many rules to interrupt the flow of blows. The only dogma, in fact, is the dear old “whoever leads first, leads twice”. Another ten minutes of jokes and wrongdoings, and we find ourselves defending John the bard from an impromptu stoning triggered by the blasphemous implications of the verse “imagine there’s no heaven“, perhaps a little too progressive for the canons of the dark ages.
After silencing the reactionary audience with blows, our new friend takes us to meet an exceptional forger, the only one capable of counterfeiting the noble certificate we need to participate in the Grand Tournament of the kingdom, and start like this our climb to the top of feudal society.
As you may have guessed, in short, the Rustler prologue (now available for free on Steam) clearly reveals the aims of the Jutsu Games project: to offer the public a light and fun product, which never takes itself too seriously by focusing on pleasantly tacky comedy and “old school” gameplay. School of thieves, of course.
Grand Theft Horse
Taking into consideration all the elements just mentioned, it is immediately evident that Rustler is a low budget title but with good potential, supported by a creative vision that seems adequately balance the limits and ambitions of production.
The isometric view, sometimes alternated with a classic top-down perspective, manages to hide rather well the edges of a technical sector that is certainly not amazing, but still capable of enhancing an identity proudly over the top. Even from an artistic point of view, Rustler is not particularly brilliant (also as regards the portraits of the characters), yet each element proves to be functional overall to those that are the distinctive features of the game, to its laughing and fracassone character. A personality that emerges strongly thanks to a hilarious and irreverent writing, which sometimes gives rise to Monty Phyton-style “nonsense” sequences, often exploiting the historical inaccuracies of the setting to maximize comic effects. In this regard, the Italian translation of the dialogues surprised us positively, with some passages in which the adaptation even manages to amplify the effectiveness of the lines, accompanied by a series of disconnected vocalizations that recall the language of the Sims, but in hangover version.
It goes without saying that at the moment it is difficult to evaluate the long-term “resistance” of this aspect of production, as well as that of a formula that, in order to work properly, he must be able to count on a good situational variety, on found able to mask the repetitiveness of the gameplay.
Speaking of the gaming sector, the game faithfully reworks all those present in the classic GTA, including horses – and carriages – to steal, gendarmes in pursuit (complete with levels of suspicion), pedestrians to overwhelm, melee with white weapon, clashes in dart tip and crimes at various levels of brutality. If the driving system seemed a bit awkward but all in all effective, the combat system still needs some significant tweaking, especially as regards the management of the aiming and the reactivity of the controls.
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The short duration of the Prologue did not allow us to deepen that much the good Guy progression system, who can spend the money and points accumulated from assignment to assignment to enhance elements such as health, stamina and damage (melee and ranged), or unlock additional skills, such as the ability to collect items without getting off the horse. In general, it seemed to us a secondary but stimulating component, which could be further expanded between now and the launch, scheduled for the first quarter of 2021. Considering the small size of the game map, in effect a small open world, we are also very curious to find out how wide the range of activities will be (main and secondary) proposed by the title, as well as that of the scenarios that will be the theater for our rascals.
Obviously, we do not expect record longevity, also because the studio must do everything possible to optimize resources e keep the overall quality of the experience intact. A result that we hope will be fully achieved, also because we can’t wait to find out what great destiny awaits the brave Guy at the end of his underworld epic. In closing, the soundtrack of the title certainly deserves an honorable mention, which moves easily between Polish rap and medieval melodies to feed the hilarious dissonance of Rustler’s narrative framework.
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