Remnant 2. This is tough one for me. I went in expecting a nice improvement over the first game, and while for most things this is true, in terms of certain aspects, I was left more frustrated than happy.
Sometimes going in with high expectations can cause disappointment, this wasn't the case with Remnant 2. I had heard online that because this game was made in Unreal Engine 5 there was certain performance issues, especially on console. I waited over 3 months before finally buying the game during a sale. I went in knowing very little about the game except for short sequences I had watched from people like Shroud the twitch streamer.
I began playing and was very impressed with the graphics. While they're not earth shattering, compared to the first game they are simply miles better. I visited the base and learned the location of each of the NPC's who offer things such as weapon mods, weapon upgrades, trinkets, consumables etc. It was especially good to see most of the characters return, even people who played smaller roles in the first game such as Brabus, someone you could have missed entirely in the first game. I chose my class or "archetype" and then I set off on my first mission into the world stone and loaded into my world. This is where the good... and bad revealed itself. Let's do something a bit different, start with the bad and move to the good.
The Bad: I loaded into Losomn, a beautiful palace area that is filled with many secret passages and angel like enemies. This is one of the few random worlds that I could have got, meaning someone else could have loaded into a completely different world when they started playing their game. This sounds good in theory, but in practise this is my main issue with Remnant.
You see my biggest issue with Remnant is actually one of its core mechanics, RNG. Both games employ randomly generated worlds, meaning you could play the entire campaign multiple times and still not experience or play through every section of the game. Now while this sounds good in theory and seems like it adds extra replay ability, what it also adds is frustration and drains so much of fun out of the game. Knowing there is a certain sequence of events in order to get a certain weapon/ring, or trophy/achievement and slowly realising that your particular "world" doesn't have that section of the map is extremely disappointing because you now have to make a choice, forget the trophy or item you were trying to get or "Reroll" the entire campaign/adventure, resetting your entire progress, in the hopes you get that particular map to spawn in. Rerolling means you then have to start from the very beginning of that world and retrace your steps all the way back in the hopes that this world contains what you're looking for. This means fighting the same enemies you've fought multiple times before and going through most of the map that you've already played, this is not my idea of fun. Maybe it's an accumulation of RNG frustration but I do feel like Remnant 2 is more egregious of this than the first game.
This particular mechanic is honestly a lesson in how much patience you have but more so, it pushes casual players away from wanting to attempt even the simplest of tasks that are off the beaten path, and boy is there SO much content hidden off the beaten path in Remnant 2. While the choice is yours if you want to reroll worlds and go for certain things, as an Achievement/trophy hunter, this is a real pain as it adds so many more hours of repetitive gameplay for little reward. I guess when playing Remnant you constantly have to weigh up if the juice is worth the squeeze.
I understand that one of the reasons Remnant employs these RNG elements into their game is to keep players engaged and playing their game for longer, but again, it pushes the casual players away and makes even players like myself who normally thrives in hunting down every trophy and finding secrets of a game very fatigued with the whole process. With every boot up of the game seeing how much I have to do and in a particular sequence, I become a little more fatigued each and every time. It sometimes felt like a slog to play when trying to accomplish certain things and that's something no one wants when playing a form of entertainment that is meant to be fun. The key example I could give for someone to look into is "the backrooms." this is more of an Easter egg than anything else and one of the more egregious examples but there are many collectible items in this zone, and in order to get to this area you have to complete an exhaustive list of things that all have a chance to not spawn in your particular world. This is so bad it almost puts me off wanting to play the game at times.
My last "Bad" point on Remnant 2 is the bosses. I feel like the first game done a far better job at structuring the layout of bosses, making better zones to fight them in and most importantly, just simply making better bosses. For example, in the first game the first boss I fought (after gorefist/shroud) was a gigantic dragon who spewed fire at me, had waves of fire root enemies and in a zone where walls could be destroyed by the dragons tail and or fireballs. This made for a truly great fight and a memorable one at that. Remnant 2's first boss was memorable but for all the wrong reasons. One of the first bosses I remember fighting was a giant orb that had zero mechanics to beat and was set in an arena where you spend 90% worrying about where you stood vs actually fighting the boss. There was nothing to learn, it was simply shoot the orb until it dies. The second boss I fought was faelin or the impostor as I remember it. A giant knight like enemy who had a sword... and swung it, that was it. It was in an open room with nothing in it so you could simply run around the room and shoot him from a distance, not great. As we go further into the game the bosses improve, both in their actual mechanics and in the arenas in which you fight them in. There is some that are more frustrating than fun like the giant cube but some are genuinely fun to figure out how to takedown so it's not all bad.
The Good: Now while most of this review has been me hating on RNG I want to talk about how fun the gameplay is for the most part. As someone who considers games such as The Division and the first 2 Gears of War's as some of the best games I've ever played, the movement mechanics and feel of Remnant really makes it some of the best gameplay around. While most people drool over FPS games, Third person has always been my favourite. The dodge rolls and evading takes practise and its so enjoyable because once you master the timing you're proud of yourself for learning and understanding the game more, this is of course something that constantly has to be relearned as you face different bosses with different attack patterns and attack delays.
The shooting feels crisp and weapons have their own unique style and substance to them. Then you factor in the MANY additions like weapon mods, weapon mutators, rings which enhance certain stats or add abilities, the new relics which can heal or add even more to your gameplay with bonuses/buffs, all this without mentioning the plethora of classes to chose from... and the fact you can now have two classes or "archetypes", there is so much to absolutely fall in love with the gameplay of Remnant.
The archetype I chose was Handler, a wonderful choice for solo players as you have a dog that comes with you wherever you go, that fights alongside you and even revives you if necessary. This is something that Remnant 2 does a lot better than the first game, making each class play and feel completely unique compared to the others. The addition of the dog is just such a cool thing and I seriously enjoyed the heck out of rolling into deep water with my trusty pet fighting along side me. Another great thing is the elemental options, while this was present in the first game I feel like they improved upon it here and offer guns that do specific element damage and also lots of rings that can be purchased right at the start that improve the damage/resistance to these elements. All of what I just said add up to this.... The gameplay is fun, really fun.
The UI is something that is vastly improved from the first game and the character screen in particular is especially beautiful to look at. The way they separated the armor to one side, the rings/amulet to the other and added the weapons to the bottom all while making the slots curve round your characters body just simply looks awesome. 5 stars for the layout and design. The addition to undo your previous upgrades on guns is a welcome bonus but I would have loved the option to sell guns we don't use, however I know this is something that isn't really doable considering the rarity of each weapon in relation to that RNG I hate so much.
The collectibles in Remnant 2 are plentiful and offer some real unique builds as a result, while I don't enjoy picking up these rings/amulets etc as much as the first game because at times they can fell a bit bland and most offered nothing new or better than what I already had equipped, however you can't beat choice and having them there was always a comfort knowing that if I wanted to change my build I could do so and have a strong set of items to boost my layout.
Overall: I feel like despite Remnant 2 improving upon many things such as the UI and graphics, the core game has suffered slightly as a result and at times felt out of balance compared to the well paced and quite frankly better first game. While Remant From the Ashes will remain as one of the best games I've played, Remnant 2 unfortunately just didn't do enough to make me fall in love with it and despite it being a really good game at times, it seems to lack that certain essence to make it special, or maybe I could find that essence if I just reroll the map one more time.....
Sometimes going in with high expectations can cause disappointment, this wasn't the case with Remnant 2. I had heard online that because this game was made in Unreal Engine 5 there was certain performance issues, especially on console. I waited over 3 months before finally buying the game during a sale. I went in knowing very little about the game except for short sequences I had watched from people like Shroud the twitch streamer.
I began playing and was very impressed with the graphics. While they're not earth shattering, compared to the first game they are simply miles better. I visited the base and learned the location of each of the NPC's who offer things such as weapon mods, weapon upgrades, trinkets, consumables etc. It was especially good to see most of the characters return, even people who played smaller roles in the first game such as Brabus, someone you could have missed entirely in the first game. I chose my class or "archetype" and then I set off on my first mission into the world stone and loaded into my world. This is where the good... and bad revealed itself. Let's do something a bit different, start with the bad and move to the good.
The Bad: I loaded into Losomn, a beautiful palace area that is filled with many secret passages and angel like enemies. This is one of the few random worlds that I could have got, meaning someone else could have loaded into a completely different world when they started playing their game. This sounds good in theory, but in practise this is my main issue with Remnant.
You see my biggest issue with Remnant is actually one of its core mechanics, RNG. Both games employ randomly generated worlds, meaning you could play the entire campaign multiple times and still not experience or play through every section of the game. Now while this sounds good in theory and seems like it adds extra replay ability, what it also adds is frustration and drains so much of fun out of the game. Knowing there is a certain sequence of events in order to get a certain weapon/ring, or trophy/achievement and slowly realising that your particular "world" doesn't have that section of the map is extremely disappointing because you now have to make a choice, forget the trophy or item you were trying to get or "Reroll" the entire campaign/adventure, resetting your entire progress, in the hopes you get that particular map to spawn in. Rerolling means you then have to start from the very beginning of that world and retrace your steps all the way back in the hopes that this world contains what you're looking for. This means fighting the same enemies you've fought multiple times before and going through most of the map that you've already played, this is not my idea of fun. Maybe it's an accumulation of RNG frustration but I do feel like Remnant 2 is more egregious of this than the first game.
This particular mechanic is honestly a lesson in how much patience you have but more so, it pushes casual players away from wanting to attempt even the simplest of tasks that are off the beaten path, and boy is there SO much content hidden off the beaten path in Remnant 2. While the choice is yours if you want to reroll worlds and go for certain things, as an Achievement/trophy hunter, this is a real pain as it adds so many more hours of repetitive gameplay for little reward. I guess when playing Remnant you constantly have to weigh up if the juice is worth the squeeze.
I understand that one of the reasons Remnant employs these RNG elements into their game is to keep players engaged and playing their game for longer, but again, it pushes the casual players away and makes even players like myself who normally thrives in hunting down every trophy and finding secrets of a game very fatigued with the whole process. With every boot up of the game seeing how much I have to do and in a particular sequence, I become a little more fatigued each and every time. It sometimes felt like a slog to play when trying to accomplish certain things and that's something no one wants when playing a form of entertainment that is meant to be fun. The key example I could give for someone to look into is "the backrooms." this is more of an Easter egg than anything else and one of the more egregious examples but there are many collectible items in this zone, and in order to get to this area you have to complete an exhaustive list of things that all have a chance to not spawn in your particular world. This is so bad it almost puts me off wanting to play the game at times.
My last "Bad" point on Remnant 2 is the bosses. I feel like the first game done a far better job at structuring the layout of bosses, making better zones to fight them in and most importantly, just simply making better bosses. For example, in the first game the first boss I fought (after gorefist/shroud) was a gigantic dragon who spewed fire at me, had waves of fire root enemies and in a zone where walls could be destroyed by the dragons tail and or fireballs. This made for a truly great fight and a memorable one at that. Remnant 2's first boss was memorable but for all the wrong reasons. One of the first bosses I remember fighting was a giant orb that had zero mechanics to beat and was set in an arena where you spend 90% worrying about where you stood vs actually fighting the boss. There was nothing to learn, it was simply shoot the orb until it dies. The second boss I fought was faelin or the impostor as I remember it. A giant knight like enemy who had a sword... and swung it, that was it. It was in an open room with nothing in it so you could simply run around the room and shoot him from a distance, not great. As we go further into the game the bosses improve, both in their actual mechanics and in the arenas in which you fight them in. There is some that are more frustrating than fun like the giant cube but some are genuinely fun to figure out how to takedown so it's not all bad.
The Good: Now while most of this review has been me hating on RNG I want to talk about how fun the gameplay is for the most part. As someone who considers games such as The Division and the first 2 Gears of War's as some of the best games I've ever played, the movement mechanics and feel of Remnant really makes it some of the best gameplay around. While most people drool over FPS games, Third person has always been my favourite. The dodge rolls and evading takes practise and its so enjoyable because once you master the timing you're proud of yourself for learning and understanding the game more, this is of course something that constantly has to be relearned as you face different bosses with different attack patterns and attack delays.
The shooting feels crisp and weapons have their own unique style and substance to them. Then you factor in the MANY additions like weapon mods, weapon mutators, rings which enhance certain stats or add abilities, the new relics which can heal or add even more to your gameplay with bonuses/buffs, all this without mentioning the plethora of classes to chose from... and the fact you can now have two classes or "archetypes", there is so much to absolutely fall in love with the gameplay of Remnant.
The archetype I chose was Handler, a wonderful choice for solo players as you have a dog that comes with you wherever you go, that fights alongside you and even revives you if necessary. This is something that Remnant 2 does a lot better than the first game, making each class play and feel completely unique compared to the others. The addition of the dog is just such a cool thing and I seriously enjoyed the heck out of rolling into deep water with my trusty pet fighting along side me. Another great thing is the elemental options, while this was present in the first game I feel like they improved upon it here and offer guns that do specific element damage and also lots of rings that can be purchased right at the start that improve the damage/resistance to these elements. All of what I just said add up to this.... The gameplay is fun, really fun.
The UI is something that is vastly improved from the first game and the character screen in particular is especially beautiful to look at. The way they separated the armor to one side, the rings/amulet to the other and added the weapons to the bottom all while making the slots curve round your characters body just simply looks awesome. 5 stars for the layout and design. The addition to undo your previous upgrades on guns is a welcome bonus but I would have loved the option to sell guns we don't use, however I know this is something that isn't really doable considering the rarity of each weapon in relation to that RNG I hate so much.
The collectibles in Remnant 2 are plentiful and offer some real unique builds as a result, while I don't enjoy picking up these rings/amulets etc as much as the first game because at times they can fell a bit bland and most offered nothing new or better than what I already had equipped, however you can't beat choice and having them there was always a comfort knowing that if I wanted to change my build I could do so and have a strong set of items to boost my layout.
Overall: I feel like despite Remnant 2 improving upon many things such as the UI and graphics, the core game has suffered slightly as a result and at times felt out of balance compared to the well paced and quite frankly better first game. While Remant From the Ashes will remain as one of the best games I've played, Remnant 2 unfortunately just didn't do enough to make me fall in love with it and despite it being a really good game at times, it seems to lack that certain essence to make it special, or maybe I could find that essence if I just reroll the map one more time.....
