The 2019 Goaties: #7 - Remnant: From the Ashes
Did you think we’d get through a Game of the Year list without my love of Dark Souls being brought up? Nahhh.
Dark Souls is inarguably one of the most influential games of the decade, signaling both the ascendancy of FROM Software as a developer and a newfound twist on the language of game structure. Games big and small would go on to borrow from Miyazaki’s playbook to shape their own worlds: among others, Hollow Knight blended the checkpoint-laden, “currency drops on death” flow with more traditional 2D Metroidvania elements, while 2016’s Let it Die binds the structure to a level-based, online...roguelite...formula… In comparison, this year’s Remnant: From the Ashes manages to only casually invoke aspects of Souls lineage while carving its own, remarkably approachable path.
“REMNANT:
FROM THE ASHES
(Steam, Xbox One, Playstation 4)”
The similarities are actually fairly straightforward, so let’s knock them out for folks familiar with these conventions before digging into the meat of what makes Remnant stand on its own feet.
Bonfire and Estus flask equivalents. Remnant has floating crystals and a big magic gem.
Melee combat is heavily focused on animation priorities, and you can get chunked real fast if you miss a crucial strike.
Fog doors. Straight up wall of mist fog doors with bosses behind 'em.
Weapons and armor are upgraded using progressively rarer materials, and bosses will drop crafting materials for unique, themed items.
In short, the framework is there, but the meat of Remnant's bitter, shattered worlds is a little more amenable to folks who haven't delved into the Souls hole yet.
The gist: you are a person in a world ravaged by the trans-dimensional invasion of the Root, tasked early on with finding the Founder of Ward 13, which serves as your underground shelter from the nightmare of survival. You'll travel across a series of randomized worlds (with four distinct tilesets) in search of loot, allies, and, ultimately, a solution to the Root.
Just about everything in Remnant feels streamlined to make this trek approachable and possible. The combat skews heavily towards ranged weapons, all of which feel weighty and purposeful. There's no spells or real character builds to worry about messing up, though you do get a myriad of Traits that can improve reload speeds, reduce incoming damage, or close to twenty other obscure, specific stats. Most importantly, drop-in/drop-out co-op allows up to three players to conquer these disparate worlds together in (mostly) hassle-free fashion.
There isn't terribly much to speak of in terms of story, and what's there is mostly serviceable, though it lacks much of the forlorn, "we've already lost and we're just living in this stew of failure" nature that underscores the Souls lineage Remnant borrows from. The universe is interesting, filled with incredible art direction and some of my favorite monster designs in years. It starts off in a pretty boilerplate post-apocalyptic Earth, already ravaged by the Root, but things very quickly veer off-course and into some fantastical worlds and dimensions. With semi-randomized maps and dungeons, it's also a game that can warrant a few playthroughs to see every boss and sidequest, if completion is your thing.
Remnant is one of the only games this year I played through twice, with a solo playthrough at launch and a co-op game during seasonal Destiny downtime. While a solo game is plenty enjoyable and feels like a perfectly serviceable time, it largely feels too easy. When the difficulty spikes, it's completely unexpected and sort of obnoxious. In that vein, the co-op is the ideal expression of Remnant. Enemies are scaled appropriately, but you are able to coordinate with your allies, turn and burn the worst of the foes you'll face, and generally have a more enjoyable experience.
...I do, obviously, enjoy Remnant quite a bit, but I need to state how catastrophically, categorically, profoundly awful the game's final boss is. Every other boss in the game is fine: challenging at times, but never truly a roadblock. The last boss is inscrutable, obtuse, full of one-shot mechanics, and can only be lured into a damage phase by a separate mechanic that is not explained in the slightest. I put ten times as many attempts on the last boss as I did anything else in the entire game. It was such a disappointment that I never actually got around to writing a review I said I'd write back in…August?
The truth of it is, that tragic finale isn't enough to discourage me from recommending Remnant: From the Ashes to anyone who enjoys Souls-likes or folks looking for another 3-person co-op game. The combat is satisfying, the monster design is top-notch, and there's just a general flow to the whole experience that lets it occupy a nice niche between a proper loot game and a more forlorn dungeon crawl.
