Remnant 2

publish #mediareview Opened 2023-07-31.

This game is so bizarre and not actually that fun imo. It really is just Destiny with dodge rolling and a less cohesive art style (despite stellar environment design).

Specific stuff I have gripes with:

• Progression is a stupid grindfest.
  • Items give you the tiniest buffs imaginable like “+2% stamina recovery while engaged in combat”.
  • Contrast this to Zelda where the progression in gear is like: “this icicle sword freezes your enemies”
    • “But it also has low durability”
    • “And it keeps you warm in hot climates”
    • “But also the icicle can melt under high temperatures”
    • Like when something happens in Zelda it MATTERS and makes you think
• Enemies are bullet sponges with high damage, so you can’t zone out while killing them because two stunlocks are enough to end your life, yet simultaneously they take FOREVER
• The devs painstakingly rendered out every item in the game in 3d
  • “Anti curse balm” has a 3d model of a fancy ornate metal jar of cream with a swirl in it
  • You can left click this item to cure curse
  • You can right click it to inspect the high resolution model and rotate it around to watch it reflect the light
    • Wtf is the point of this feature in a game about shooting aliens and why does EVERY ITEM IN THE GAME have it?
• Why are there 6 voice actors (12 if you count both genders) for the main character?
  • Seriously, why re-record all the lines 2x as much? My experience is not going to be ruined if my character doesn’t sound exactly the way I imagine him to.
• Also, the writing sucks.
  • You know when you read a fanfic and every character is written the same way because the author is a 13 year old who can’t write a character with a different personality than themselves
  • That’s every character here.
  • They’re all stuttery, nervous, and routinely make awkward quips of the type you’d see in a Pixar trailer (e.g. “wow, that just happened”, “ahh, this doesn’t look good”)
  • Despite supposedly being some of the last surviving humans on planet Earth
  • I swear to God practically every time you’re given a dialogue choice, one of the options boils down to “uhh, I don’t know”
    • Who tf wants to play a game where you keep saying “idk” and characters say “idk either, I guess it must be magic” at you for the whole game
• Grindfest progression is controlled by the most absolutely brain numbing materials possible: iron, scrap, mini boss crystal, and big boss crystal
  • These are legitimately the only currency that matter.
  • Every gun upgrade is iron + scrap
  • Every new ability is {mini, big} boss crystal OR scrap
  • So enemies are basically all the same since they drop all the same shit
  • A new weapon costs $1000.
    • Like 1/5 or 1/10 of the time, an enemy drops $50.
    • So that’s like 100 enemies to get a weapon.
    • And you aren’t allowed to demo weapons so you don’t even know if it’s any good.
• Not to mention, the enemies are also basically the same. There’s only 3 archetypes:
  • Flying dude (to kill, go hide at a choke point and aim up)
  • Fast dude with melee weapon (just unload your whole magazine into him and if he somehow makes it to you alive, run away while reloading and repeat)
  • Ranged dude who shoots or throws knifes at you (just strafe to the side whenever you see their windup animation)
  • That’s literally it.
  • And the enemies all look the same too, e.g. sword dude villager with pitchfork fire elemental with flame sword

This game is actually so disappointing holy moly.

More issues I have on 2023-08-01 after watching some YouTube videos on it:

• It’s not realistic to expect to progress without trawling over every single inch of a map to get all the upgrade materials
• It’s not realistic to use new weapons when you get them, because the only way to keep up with the growing enemy difficulty is by upgrading a single gun or two to the max. You’ll run out of materials if you upgrade multiple guns
  • So the game DISCOURAGES exploring new playstyles. Who thought this was a good idea?

2023-08-12: Actually, there was a decently neat boss fight just now. A big cube guy in the labyrinth where his rolly attacks 1HKO you, and your shots on his two dozen or so weakpoints also 1HKO them. And the fight is deterministic (he always makes the same moves, at least he seemed to), so it was basically a roguelike puzzle combat sequence that I beat on my 5th try or so. It was refreshing.