Comment on Weekly Recommendations Thread: What are you playing this week?
_core@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Been playing Remnant 2 and its so bad I genuinely wish I never bought it. Archetypes locked behind world triggers that just don’t want to trigger, level design that is the same in each world, bosses that just spam the arena with summons and AOE attacks or have shitty gimmicks, enemies with shitty hitboxes, boringly repetitive enemy placement. Some of those things were there from the start but were put in the it’ll get better column (it didn’t) and others weren’t apparent until later in the game. I’m at the point where it’s shitty enemy swarm after shitty enemy swarm followed by shitty boss fights and I’m just done with it.
Quetzalcutlass@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
The Remnant games are a completionist’s nightmare. Want a specific weapon? Hope the right world generates, hope the right storyline for that world is picked, hope the side quest for that storyline that drops that weapon is picked, hope you don’t miss it entirely due to 90% of the world looking identical…
And it’s not just weapons. As you noted, the archetypes (your character class) are also gated this way. One of them was only found through data mining, the unlock criteria was so obscure. I don’t want to have to pass several dice rolls to have a chance at content I enjoy.
It’s telling that the class dedicated to exploration and level grinding is unlocked by beating the game. You’re expected to play through the campaign several times to see everything, but since it’s all random you’re just as likely to roll stuff you’ve already done. Which the developers clearly realized since you can roll individual worlds as side adventures.
_core@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Wow, I knew a decent chunk of the game relied on RNG but I didn’t know it was that extensive.
I got pretty lucky by getting the Nebula gun in my first world. It makes getting through trash mobs a lot easier. Its good even up to boss enemies since I can squirt them and duck under cover while the acid kills them.
I’m on Root Earth which I assume is near endgame and I’ve only unlocked one other archetype and found like three new traits. I was starting to wonder what I was doing wrong but it seems being a pain in the ass is just how the game is designed. I haven’t even found new armor yet! (I know there are two sets you can buy in Ward 13)
Quetzalcutlass@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I’m in the middle of a playthrough right now, and while I’m enjoying it (I originally came to this thread to post about Remnant 2, then read your comment and realized I agreed with every single thing you said), it’s frustrating how they chose to design things. The games had great intentions held back by poor implementation.
They wanted to make the game replayable, but they did so by artificially limiting what you could encounter in a single playthrough. For completionists this is torture. For one-and-done players it could be a deal breaker.
They wanted endless exploration, but the random maps make exploring unrewarding. I lost count of the number of interesting map features I explored that ended up being completely empty aside from common enemies and some smashable pots (which are empty 90% of the time and drop a paltry amount of basic currency when they aren’t). Remnant 2 is at least way better about this than the first, where the maps were a chore to get through.
They knew one of people’s favorite things about Souls games is piecing things together from obscure clues, so designed the game in a way that the entire playerbase would work together to learn how to unlock everything. The downside is that obtaining many basic things like classes and gear require ARG-level shenanigans (plus a hefty dose of luck), and if you don’t use a wiki you’ll miss some of the game’s best content.
I love the gameplay, the lore, the characters, the visual and sound design, but I’m left with the unpleasant feeling that these games would have been significantly better if they dropped half of what made them unique in the first place.