Review - Remnant: From the Ashes... Dust to Dust

 

Image courtesy of Gunfire Games

Recently I reviewed Chronos: Before the Ashes and felt like it was good enough. It held its own in trying to pull a VR experience into a  more traditional hack n' slash. Remnant is the sequel to Chronos, and moves the series forward in every way.

    In Remnant: From the Ashes you play a nameless protagonist arriving at the same Ward 13 from Chronos with a mind to stopping the root that threaten Earth. The "root" is the name given to all the plantlike creatures that threaten every world in the series, and they have done so by eliminating certain guardians that were meant to look over these worlds. Your main goal in the game is to find Ford, the original commander of Ward 13 and a man who did more than simply witness the initial invasion of the root. You have to fight through an army of problems in order to get to him and solve the ultimate disaster across these worlds, destroying minions, mid-levels, and full-on bosses in the process.

The Good

Looking at the graphics first, I can say that Remnant is light-years ahead of Chronos. Chronos is technically a remaster, so it has that as an excuse, but nevertheless. All the enemies and background settings of Remnant look fully realized. There were only a couple of scenes where the choppiness of a character's design pulled me out of the moment, but other than that... Great job, Gunfire.

    And speaking of gunfire... Sound effects were well done too. This is another leg up on Remnant's predecessor, as I pointed out that the screaming of the protagonist in that one is piercing and annoying. In this, the protagonist has a few catchphrases used throughout combat and certain scenarios. Guns, swords, hammers, and explosions all sound great and help in the immersion. Of course, with the title of the game studio, it'd be a little embarrassing if they couldn't nail down the sound of blasting bullets.

    Combat is another plus for Remnant. The game acts similar to a soulslike, but the inclusion of automatic weapons adds a different flavor than Bloodborne or Dark Souls. There will be plenty of times that you will need to dodge and shuffle around, but a lot of combat can be done by simply keeping your feet moving and guns blazing. It's genuinely fun too when you have all sorts of different mods that you can place on weapons to turn them into flamethrowers, singularity generators, or healing circles.

    The world-building aspect of Remnant is the last plus that I wanted to add in here. It falls somewhere between The Last of Us and Stranger Things. That's not a bad thing, whatsoever. It adds to the visuals and the threat level therein of a post-apocalyptic world teeming with cretins of all shapes and sizes. And they all want to kill you. Some of them use melee-style combat while others will shoot their own weapons in your direction. Across the worlds that you'll visit there will be pieces of lore here and there that attempt to piece together what you're dealing with versus constructing a coherent narrative.

The Bad

It's difficult to place the narrative itself in The Bad, but I couldn't find myself placing it in The Good either. I would say it's okay, but there are parts that just don't make sense. Some things weren't truly clarified to the gamer, and I would say that this was part of the intention after Chronos but I think that would still be a mistake on Gunfire's part. We are owed a bit more of an explanation as to what's happening here. Much of this is due to that nameless protagonist I mentioned earlier. While it works in certain scenes to have a "Man with No Name" a la Clint Eastwood, it doesn't help Remnant push a cohesive storyline across. Your character says a few things here and there, or asks a few generic questions, but there is no personality to be had that would aid in bringing a more human element to a tattered world. And the same could be said for all the generic NPCs walking aimlessly around Ward 13.

    A lot of Remnant is run similar to The Division, Ghost Recon, or even Bioware's Anthem, but all those had narratives that were more fleshed out across their loot n' shoot worlds. I only bring these three up because an immediate defense for Remnant could be that the game is more geared to party dynamics. So are Anthem, The Division, and Ghost Recon. The difference lies in bridging party and solo gameplay to deliver no matter what. Remnant has so much here they could do with their narrative and its lore that would completely blow those other three IPs out of the water... but they stop short of making it happen.

    Soundtrack is another misfire. Once again, I can't hum a single hymn or melody from the game. There's nothing to create a sense of urgency throughout different boss fights or battles, at least nothing that I took notice of. While sound effects had greatly improved since Chronos, music did not. In my opinion, the atmosphere created by a game's music can make or break it often enough.

The Glory

I know. Big surprise, right? After all that bad... I'm still gonna' end on a positive note.

     The Good in this game outweighs The Bad in a grand fashion. While there are some qualms that I have, that anyone would have, the game is just too fun to dun it entirely. I'm still crossing my fingers that Remnant II will turn that fun meter up another notch while plugging in the gaps of the storyline. If you've never played it, Remnant is more than worth your time.

8/10

Glorious

To see a piece of my own world-building, check out the prologue to my book Severance