Hitman Blood Money Reprisal Switch Review

There have been many ‘Hitman’ games over the years with the latest coming to the Nintendo Switch in the form of Hitman Blood Money Reprisal. Each Hitman game comes with its own approach to letting the player complete a mission objective any way they want. It’s a fun style of gameplay that can lead to some really stand-out and memorable moments.

For example, I distinctly remember in my uni days my flatmate challenged me to take down the king of Chinatown in ‘Hitman: Absolution’ on hard mode. He had tried many different ways to do it and could crack it. I decided to go a different route, doing reconnaissance and assessing the target. Ultimately I won the challenge by doing the silent route and tampering with the target’s food as opposed to the all guns blazing approach my flatmate attempted.

That’s the thing I love about the Hitman games and why they are so replayable. They offer you unlimited ways to how you would like to approach any mission. No two playthroughs are always going to be the same. You will have someone like my flatmate who favours the loud and fast route or someone else who prefers the silent but deadly route like myself.

Now out of all the ‘Hitman’ games both past and present, none of them compare to ‘IO Interactive’s’ magnum opus of ‘Hitman: Blood Money’. There’s something about the game that just hits right. It offered new gameplay mechanics that previous games never had and later games decided to take out. Everything from the ragdoll effects of moving bodies to the Immensely packed npc crowds felt perfect. So it comes as no surprise that one of the best regarded ‘Hitman’ games has made its way onto the Nintendo Switch and mobile devices courtesy of ‘Feral Interactive’.

So let’s take a look at how it holds up.

The story of ‘Hitman Blood Money Reprisal’ is told through the perspective of the former director of the FBI recounting the various assassinations by Agent 47 to a reporter to ensure that the public is in favour of cloning being a bad idea. The story overall is very political with the new Vice President attempting to stage a coup and enlisting the help of a rival agency called ‘The Franchise’ led by said FBI director.

The playable parts of the game are told via flashbacks where the director downplays Agent 47 hits, depicting him as less than the perfect assassin he actually is, twisting the truth to suit his own narrative. So it’s an interesting narrative device to use, making the story all that more interesting.

Gameplay is where ‘Hitman’ shines best and ‘Hitman Blood Money Reprisal’ is no exception. This has to be the most fun and most challenging ‘Hitman’ game I have ever played. You really have to think about how you pick out your targets. You can go in all guns blazing but where is the fun in that? Plus half the time that way gets you killed anyway. Playing the game as a silent assassin makes the gameplay all that more fun and enjoyable.

You can literally approach any mission however you want. For example, in mission 5 you have to make your way into a witness protection house which has guards everywhere. There’s a party going on so there are caterers and clowns present.

Now originally I tried taking out a guard and using the disguise to get myself into the house but I kept getting caught. So instead I decided to hide my weapons in the caterers’ food tubs when he wasn’t looking and then went to steal the clown’s disguise to grant entry into the building. Once inside I snuck into the kitchen, grabbed my weapons out of the food tubs, silently took out a guard and stole their outfit and then proceeded with the mission objectives.

As I say, you may not play it this way and you may approach a mission in an entirely different manner to how I play and that’s why I love the gameplay of ‘Hitman Blood Money Reprisal’ so much as it is endless fun.

The redesign of HUD brings Hitman Blood Money Reprisal a fresh modern feel from its original counterpart. On the left of the screen, you now have a circular mini map showing available targets around you with both the alertness bar and the health bar on either side. This is nice having it all in one place. Plus the health and alertness bars are more easily visible as opposed to the original small cubed-off section in the bottom left of the screen.

On the right of the screen, you have your weapon selection similar to ‘Hitman: Absolution’ but more subtle. It shows as transparent if you have the weapon holstered and then becomes visibly solid once equipped. It’s a more user-friendly interface as opposed to the original release and updated to be more recognisable for modern audiences.

Performance-wise I didn’t have any game-breaking issues throughout my whole playthrough. I did have one crash but that could be down to me having my Switch on constantly for a long time. Once rebooted Hitman Blood Money Reprisal ran fine. One issue I did have on the gameplay side was finding that the fibre wire would struggle to register a kill and would sometimes lead to the target turning around and noticing me trying to take them out and then all hell would break loose. Luckily I would just reload my save and start again.

Whilst on the topic of saves, use them wisely. You only get 7 saves per mission. I would use mine strategically to test out if a assignation method would work. If it didn’t and I was caught then I could simply reload and move on. So think about when you’re going to use them and how often you do.

Now I was most impressed by how well Hitman Blood Money Reprisal ran on the Switch both in docked mode and handheld mode. Not once did I get a drop in frame rate. Textures were smooth and crisp with little to no pop. For a game that originally came out in 2006 this port to the Switch looks absolutely gorgeous. I know there was an HD rerelease on Xbox One and PS4 but damn does this game look good. The only downside is the low-resolution cutscenes but the gameplay sections really make up for this.

I touched on this before, but the quantity of NPCs in the mission Murder of Crows left me dumbfounded as that level of detail of making a crowd system look that packed full of NPCs is the same as saying ‘Assassin’s Creed: Unity’ and that game came out 8 years later. And this game runs perfectly with no game-breaking bugs, just saying!

Overall ‘Hitman Blood Money Reprisal’ is a highly enjoyable experience and an absolute delight to return back to one of the best ‘Hitman’ games with the ability to play on the go. With absolutely stellar gameplay and infinite replay value, I cannot recommend Hitman Blood Money Reprisal enough if you are a fan of the franchise or a newcomer looking for a good entry point into the series.