Red Colony 3 Switch Review – Now With Androids! (NSFW)

And so the Red Colony story [thankfully] comes to a close with Red Colony 3. Red Colony 1 introduced us to a mother desperate to save her daughter while also being wildly irresponsible as she dealt with a zombie uprising on a Mars base called Red Colony. Red Colony 2 took place not on Red Colony but the other base called Blue Colony, this time with more zombies and even dinosaurs!

Now we are here to turn the final pages of this wild, over-sexualized indie series to see yet another story featuring a bulbous lead character who somehow out-boobs the previous two protagonists. *sigh* Yeah, trust me, this doesn’t get much better.

So does Red Colony 3 improve upon the formula of the first two games, or is this final chapter simply banking on the adolescent hormones of its target audience? Let’s find out.

WARNING: This whole review is NSFW.

You play as Mina, an android from a place called Titan. Apparently, droids like her have been sent to other planets around the galaxy to collect different life forms to appease “The Queen”, and if Mina completes her task, the “Turning Process” will begin and she will become a “Titan” (AKA Human?). Well, Mina is tasked with getting cloned dinosaurs and zombies from colonies on Mars, and she makes her way back to Titan in order to deliver and begin her “Turning Process”.

Unfortunately for her, things do not go as planned, and The Queen prevents her from entering Titan. Once Mina wakes up, she finds herself in a scrap yard of sorts, and zombie robots are after her. Oh, and apparently she is wanted and has been dubbed “The Queen Slayer” (Excellent name, but that is Anna Jay). Mina is confused and goes on to figure out what is happening to her and everyone on Titan, and she does all of this to feel love for the first time… because of course she does.

Look, I appreciate the attempt at trying to connect the stories from Red Colony to Red Colony 3, but sexy, large-boobed droids? Zombie robots? Dinosaur clones? It’s like the Red Colony 3 team watched too much SYFY Channel and figured, “We can do crazier. No problem.” This is a beyond convoluted story that is baffling from beginning to end, and instead of a human to feel sorry for, this time around we have a droid and… no offense… they are expendable by nature. Despite that, the extreme sexism and male-chauvinism oozes throughout, and it somehow still feels disgusting at many points in the game, especially Mina, who is helplessly “in love” with some Martian dude and calling him “Master”. Ugh.

If you have played previous Red Colony games or saved yourself by reading our reviews, you will know that this is an awkward side-scrolling adventure game. Red Colony 3, despite the different setting, still looks and feels too much like the previous two. Sure, there may be some new skins and textures, but that’s about it.

One horrible thing that is back this time around is the beyond obscure “puzzles”. I hate to even call them that, as there really isn’t any skill or thought when it comes to solving. These “puzzles” are basically you wandering around an area like a chicken with its head cut off in search of some random “clue”. In Red Colony 1, this was not a problem, but it became one in Red Colony 2 and made the experience unbearable. Unfortunately, these “puzzles” might be the worst yet, and there are some that are so bizarre that it makes you wonder if they are inside jokes or what, as they rarely-to-never make sense (I solved a few by just guessing).

One change this time around is the ability to sneak past zombies by crawling under them, but this can only be done if the room is dark. You can either turn off the lights or shoot them, and this is such a weird predicament because bullets are like diamonds in this game, as in super-rare. That means sneaking around is a primary method in Red Colony 3, but I still find the Resident Evil-esque level of scarcity to be an absolute pain. Bullets and “save drives” are rare to come by, and the fact that saving once again is subject to this archaic method is infuriating. Not only that, but even if you die, you don’t spawn at the save station as expected. Instead, you spawn somewhere else that honestly makes no sense. If you die without saving, well, good luck getting back into this game.

Combat is once again a nightmare, as aiming Mina’s gun never feels comfortable, and since bullets are near-impossible to come by on this Titan planet, your aim needs to be stellar… or else. Not only that, but many enemies require 3-5 bullets to kill, which is insane considering how many bullets you are given throughout Red Colony 3. I honestly do not know what was going on during development to land on such an awful design decision, but the fact that accidental deaths are so detrimental, it makes the experience feel abusive.

The area that kills me the most, though, is the aggressive sexism and disgusting use of male chauvinism. As I mentioned before, it is laced throughout the entire game (And series), and considering the main character is a big-breasted android, it is obvious who this game is targeted for. It is difficult to even take the story seriously when the dialogs are so juvenile that it seems like it was written by a 12-year-old boy.

This time around, there is a “journalist” named Juli that keeps trying to take your potential lover away, umm “Mortal host”, and she is dressed like a sex worker… not a journalist, but this is how Red Colony has always treated their female characters. Mina is jealous of Juli for being “turned” and trying to hit on Leon, but androids are not supposed to feel jealousy. Ugh. Instead of Juli and other female characters being allies and helping Mina, they are all just bullying her and trying to sleep with her “sexy” Leon. That means in Red Colony 3, not only are the men disgusting because of their extreme sexism, but the women are also terrible for their wicked manipulations and bullying. I mean, is there any character to like in this series?

Red Colony 3 thankfully closes the book on a series that never should have been opened. Although the variety of enemies was nice, the reliance on archaic gaming ideas is a huge letdown. Not only that, but we have another bad story, more abysmal characters, a continuation of an archaic and awful saving method, beyond stupid puzzles, bland graphics and designs, clunky and poor controls, and ugly pause menu user interface, and a forgettable soundtrack.

The fact that the gameplay is that bad in addition to the blatant patronizing, disparaging, and denigrating of the main character this time around kills the overall experience and basically leaves me no choice but to put this series to rest. There is no way in hell I can ever recommend Red Colony 3, and I don’t care if it is affordable and has a couple decent scares. This is a game better left for dead, and it does not belong on anyone’s Nintendo Switch.

It would be one thing if Red Colony 3 improved upon any one certain area, but it somehow manages to be more frustrating in each place this time around. Somehow this is the most sexist. Somehow this is the worst gameplay. Somehow these are the stupidest puzzles. And somehow I managed to review this entire series. I have a headache.

Red Colony 3 Switch Review provided by Nintendo Link
Review also found on OpenCritic
Publisher: Shinyuden
Developer: RunicCodes
Release Date: February 17th, 2022
Price: $6.99, £6.29, €6,99
Game Size: 1.2 GB