16.8 hours played
Written 8 days ago
I want to like this game, I REALLY want to. But I just can't.
On the surface, it's a good game. The systems work (relatively) well baring a few hiccups here and there (mostly the dodge, sprints and movement speed) and the idea of "Go out there and gun down hordes of monsters with your gun in a souls-like adventure!" is as good a hook as the previous game's.
It's in how everything interacts that the game just falls apart at the seams.
To give an example, I like wearing heavy armour in games. I like the survivability that having metal plates bolted to my body brings. So, I picked the heavy class at the start of the game... and kneecapped myself as a result.
The first world was filled with shielded and ranged drones, robots, and more, that turned my starting shotgun into a liability, while my armour did precisely nothing at all of value. Not only did the heavy roll dodges make getting into shotgun range incredibly dicey, the armor itself is made of cardboard. My health just kept melting away in every encounter I went through.
Now, to be fair to the game. Apparently your starting world might be random? And I was just unlucky in rolling that one first. But the fact that it's even something that can happen is VERY telling and should have been my clue to refund the game right then and there.
But no, bought a new primary gun and pushed on. For a while the game was actually kinda fun. Going in with a HMG and blasting away at robots and zombies and other what have yous definetely has a charm to it.
I was going through the world, getting mildly annoyed at how since it's a randomly generated layout it always meant that I was definetaly missing out on stuff, or how some event could only be triggered once, and if you messed up, you'd never be able to try for the goodies unless you rerolled the world, or made it into an adventure (looking at you, flooded room!). But yeah, for the most part things were pretty good.
Then the bosses happened. OH BOY THE BOSSES!
In all Souls-like, the bosses are the highlight, right? Where you fight them mano-a-mano (most of the time), figure out what makes them work, what sort of telegraph they have in order to be able to dodge, or endure, their attack in order to get a window of opportunity for damage.
Well, forget all that. Remnant 2 is here and it's bringing none of the telegraphing, tons of unneeded mooks and all of the jank!
Rather than be a fight where you can properly focus on what the boss is doing, the game will just throw heaps of random distractions your way. If these enemies were weak and easy to kill, it wouldn't be an issue. Except they're not. They're as dangerous as the ones roaming the dungeons, the same ones that can wreck you in only a few hits. So you have to deal with them ASAP in order to not get overwhelmed. Which is fine, in theory at least.
The issue comes from the lack of proper telegraphing from the boss proper.
As an example, the world boss I had to deal with at the end of my first world was a weird, giant ghost thingy. It had a move where it'd go invisible and send little seeking balls of energy your way. Lots of them, and to deal with them you had to shot them. The issues with that attack were twofold.
First, the balls did damage on contact, but also shot beams at you. Those were telegraphed by a small line before going off. Which in theory meant you could dodge them, but you couldn't. Because after dodging, there's a window in which your character is still getting up, but is still vulnerable. Meaning that since there's a ton og those attacks, and therefore beams, you get light up like a chrismass tree. So just shot the all right?
Yesn't. Because the second issue comes in right then and there. The boss will thrust it's hands through the floor to try and grab you, or punch you. Never really got hit by those, got clipped plenty of time though, and they hurt. Mostly by staggering your and making it so you can't shoot, or dodge the balls of energy while you are!
Just dodge them, right? Well, yeah. Except that there's little to no telegraph on when they're about to come out (the where is 'always under you').
That leaves two options: either you have to keep running around like a headless chicken, hoping that you won't get hit too many times. Or you stand your ground and blast away at the balls, while also doing your best to dodge the hands.
Problem with option A: you don't have a ton of stamina. So you'll run out, and even if you maxed out the max stamina+ trait, you're probably dodging like crazy and that really chunks your bar no matter what.
Option B: you're taking a lot of chip damage, getting staggered and using up a limited resource (ammo). But wost of all you're... aiming?
You'd think that's not an issue, but it's a huge one. You cannot hip fire in the game about taking horrors beyond man's comprehension with guns. No, for some reason, rather than put the melee attacks on a separate button and allowing you to hip fire at things coming your way. You MUST first aim in order to go-a-blasting with your pew-pew guns. Theis is a problem on multiple fronts. It means there's always a delay between noticing a threat, or a window of opportunity, and sending lead downrange; more insidiously, it also makes it harder to see what's going on. See, aiming zooms your camera, going from an almost full body view, to a right above your shoulder view. Which, yeah, it's a TPS, of course it does. That's what aiming is like in those games.
Problem: you can't see SHIT anymore. Peripheral vision? Never heard of it!
Now, it come back to the boss. Dealing with the balls now mean that you're removing a good 50+% of your FoV to try and deal with them. And SURPRISE! There's another attack in that sequence! The boss'll slam down a fist on the floor and create a black hole that will suck you towards it and deal massive damage if you stay near it.
Here's the problem! with A, you've been dodging so much that you don't have the stamina to get away properly! With B, the boss just dropped it right on top of you and now you have to srambled to get away before it chunks your health down to nothing! Oh, and did I mention that there's no telegraph for it? There's no flickering field of green energy, no swell of dark mist under your feet, no nothing. It just happens!
I beat the boss. But dear lord did it not feel good. It wasn't a glorious victory, earned by me learning how to deal with him. It was solely a DPS check to see if my gun was gunny enough to kill him faster than he could kill me, while I ate all the damage ever.
Not fun.
Then I got to the labyrinth. Where every issue I had so far just got so much worse.
First off, it's boring as can be. It's a labyrinth made from shifting stones. But there's nothing interesting to the place- as a dungeon I should say. As a one off place you go to for a big "Woooow" factor? Yeah, it does the job. It's pretty good actually. But as a place to explore? There's nothing to tickle your interest there, no little bits and bobs that draws you in and makes you want to figure out more of the place.
Enemies were pretty bad in the previous world, but they're just so much worse here. But not as bad as THE C U B E.
So, the boss of the labyrinth? Cubes the size of a house. Sounds kinda boring? Don't you worry, the devs had the best idea: They'll just roll on top of you and instant kill you!
Did I mention this game has an hardcore mode where you only have one life?
The issues with the cubes are many. But heres my prblem with it. they (surprise) don't give an indication of where they'll move next. But also fast they don't stay on of face for long and will quickly roll onto a new one. If you've picked wrong?
*squish* GG and you get to restart. You *can* make safe spots by shoting weak spots. But that doesn't change the incredibly trial and error nature of it.
I could go on, but limited characters and all that.
Anyhow, that's when I realised that I made a mistake.
Don't make the same.
