Remnant: From the Ashes
Posted: February 16th, 2020, 4:55 pm
I downloaded this game because I heard people describing it as "Dark Souls if it was a third person shooter." While I agree that it shares elements with Dark Souls, now that I'm a good ways in I don't think that's really an accurate description.
You play as a nameless traveler trying to get to an old island lighthouse in the middle of a hurricane. When your boat is sunk, you wind up in a post apocalyptic city that's been overrun by plant monsters called the Root. After doing a couple favors for a small group of survivors, you're given access to a magic red crystal that can teleport you to other dimensions and are instructed to find "The Founder", the only person who really knows what's going on and might hold the key to stopping the Root once and for all.
So yes, first and foremost this is a third person shooter. It does have a stamina gauge like in Dark Souls, but it's only used for sprinting and dodging. Even melee attacks don't drain it. That by itself pretty much disqualifies it from being a Dark Souls clone, since stamina management is such a huge element of those games. Red crystals act as checkpoints, refilling your health and ammo but also respawning all the enemies you've defeated (y'know, like Dark Souls). The other main thing that differentiates it from Dark Souls is that while you collect XP from killing enemies, you don't lose it when you die. Again, huge key component of a Soulslike game, so getting rid of it makes it feel not quite like a Souls game.
That being said, not being Dark Souls doesn't make it a bad game. The shooting action is fun and satisfying. It's a lot more slow paced than any other shooter I've played, putting more emphasis on accuracy than randomly spraying bullets. Strategically picking off enemies at long range, and then making wise use of the terrain to kite the rest as you finish them off, gives R:FTA its own unique...what's the word...atmosphere? It's own unique thing that I don't think I've felt in any other game. Just because you have a gun doesn't mean it's going to be easier than Dark Souls, since you have to worry about ammo management. The enemies are more aggressive than in Dark Souls, and they offer a decent mixture between ranged foes and melee ones.
The story is told mostly through documents and old computer files you'll find around the world, and it's pretty interesting if you take the time to go through it all. Or you could skip it and just focus on killing enemies and beating bosses. Speaking of which, the bosses are one of this game's only letdowns. They aren't bad, per se, but there's nothing really memorable about any of the ones I've seen so far. They're just...there. And then you kill them, and they aren't there anymore. No especially cool designs, no interesting mechanics that you have to make use of to beat them, they're basically just normal enemies with really long health bars.
The only other complaint I have is that the environments aren't that interesting. Again, they're not bad, but the post apocalyptic city you start in is literally every post apocalyptic city you've ever seen in a video game. The second area is another post apocalyptic city, albeit in a desert with some neat skyscrapers in the background--key word, background. You don't actually get to explore any of them, and when you do go inside a building it's just a series of monster infested hallways without anything cool to look at. Not game breaking, but seeing as how it's trying to ape the Dark Souls style of storytelling, I think it's fair to say they should have given us some neat levels for environmental storytelling and whatnot.
One last thing that's worth noting is that there's a degree of randomization in this game. If you die, the level itself will stay the same but you might encounter different enemies. "Special" enemies will be spawned during big fights, and which one you get is also randomized. Also, I haven't tried this out yet, but you have the option to "re-roll" any level you want, which resets it from the beginning. There's a chance you might get an entirely different boss when you re-roll, but I don't know if that's a guarantee or just left up to luck.
Bottom line, Remnant: From the Ashes is a fun game that puts just enough of a spin on third person shooting to make it feel like its own thing. Just don't go in expecting it to be Dark Souls with guns. We already have that. It's called Bloodborne.
You play as a nameless traveler trying to get to an old island lighthouse in the middle of a hurricane. When your boat is sunk, you wind up in a post apocalyptic city that's been overrun by plant monsters called the Root. After doing a couple favors for a small group of survivors, you're given access to a magic red crystal that can teleport you to other dimensions and are instructed to find "The Founder", the only person who really knows what's going on and might hold the key to stopping the Root once and for all.
So yes, first and foremost this is a third person shooter. It does have a stamina gauge like in Dark Souls, but it's only used for sprinting and dodging. Even melee attacks don't drain it. That by itself pretty much disqualifies it from being a Dark Souls clone, since stamina management is such a huge element of those games. Red crystals act as checkpoints, refilling your health and ammo but also respawning all the enemies you've defeated (y'know, like Dark Souls). The other main thing that differentiates it from Dark Souls is that while you collect XP from killing enemies, you don't lose it when you die. Again, huge key component of a Soulslike game, so getting rid of it makes it feel not quite like a Souls game.
That being said, not being Dark Souls doesn't make it a bad game. The shooting action is fun and satisfying. It's a lot more slow paced than any other shooter I've played, putting more emphasis on accuracy than randomly spraying bullets. Strategically picking off enemies at long range, and then making wise use of the terrain to kite the rest as you finish them off, gives R:FTA its own unique...what's the word...atmosphere? It's own unique thing that I don't think I've felt in any other game. Just because you have a gun doesn't mean it's going to be easier than Dark Souls, since you have to worry about ammo management. The enemies are more aggressive than in Dark Souls, and they offer a decent mixture between ranged foes and melee ones.
The story is told mostly through documents and old computer files you'll find around the world, and it's pretty interesting if you take the time to go through it all. Or you could skip it and just focus on killing enemies and beating bosses. Speaking of which, the bosses are one of this game's only letdowns. They aren't bad, per se, but there's nothing really memorable about any of the ones I've seen so far. They're just...there. And then you kill them, and they aren't there anymore. No especially cool designs, no interesting mechanics that you have to make use of to beat them, they're basically just normal enemies with really long health bars.
The only other complaint I have is that the environments aren't that interesting. Again, they're not bad, but the post apocalyptic city you start in is literally every post apocalyptic city you've ever seen in a video game. The second area is another post apocalyptic city, albeit in a desert with some neat skyscrapers in the background--key word, background. You don't actually get to explore any of them, and when you do go inside a building it's just a series of monster infested hallways without anything cool to look at. Not game breaking, but seeing as how it's trying to ape the Dark Souls style of storytelling, I think it's fair to say they should have given us some neat levels for environmental storytelling and whatnot.
One last thing that's worth noting is that there's a degree of randomization in this game. If you die, the level itself will stay the same but you might encounter different enemies. "Special" enemies will be spawned during big fights, and which one you get is also randomized. Also, I haven't tried this out yet, but you have the option to "re-roll" any level you want, which resets it from the beginning. There's a chance you might get an entirely different boss when you re-roll, but I don't know if that's a guarantee or just left up to luck.
Bottom line, Remnant: From the Ashes is a fun game that puts just enough of a spin on third person shooting to make it feel like its own thing. Just don't go in expecting it to be Dark Souls with guns. We already have that. It's called Bloodborne.