So I just heard about this game last night. I watched a few of FightinCowboy’s videos and this game looks like an interesting RPG shooter. I keep hearing it described as a Souls-like, but the combat looks pretty standard 3rd person shooter to me. Anyways, It comes out tomorrow. Is anyone picking this game up? Also, is it pretty much a co-op only game, or can it be played solo?
I’ve seen a few ads for it, it looks interesting but I know nothing about it.
2 friends of mine picked it up and are playing it pretty regularly. They burn through games like they’re going out of style, though, so by the time I’d get around to playing and getting leveled up, I’m sure they’ll have moved on already.
Curious how it is though, if anyone has tried it.
Had my eyes on this mostly because of the aesthetics, bought it day one and played it quite a bit. Ask away if you want to know anything specific:
So far I’ve played it solo as a third person shooter with some spells and melee mixed in. Gunplay is very satisfying. Combat is deliberate, with few enemies where even the “fodder” can hurt your character quite a bit so that is mainly where the label “Souls-like” comes from: you need to go for weak spots and dodge enemy attacks. (There is only dodging.) Enemy placement is random though and mini-“waves” can spawn on the fly. The waypoints are similar again in that resting there respawns enemies and replenishes your main method of healing. Melee has normal and charged attacks (no real combos afaik) but so far I’ve mostly ignored it. (Looking at armor/weapon stats going mainly melee is probably viable, don’t hold me to that though…) Mechanically bosses rely too much on adds, worst offender for me so far was a melee boss with suicidal spawns in a very unsuited arena.
Your character uses primary, secondary and a melee weapon. Each ranged weapon can slot 1 mod which basically just grants your character a spell when using the weapon. Spells are charged by dealing damage with their weapon. 3 armor pieces, 2 rings and a necklace make the rest of the equipment/build. All armor is set armor granting an additive passive bonus. Your character also picks up some 30+ passive traits that can be leveled along the way. Remnant is not a loot-driven game, everything has fixed stats. The pattern/frequency so far seems to be 1 component to craft a special weapon/weapon mod per boss/1 armor set per puzzle. Standard enemies just drop crafting materials used to level up your gear meaning you can finish the game with what you started. (Some bosses are way easier with certain weapon types though.)
The world/levels are randomly generated which also means you face 1 of 2 bosses in certain places in a given playthrough. The closest comparison I can think of is Hellgate London in that regard, Remnant does level generation much better though. Although there are a few setpieces, variety is rather limited in a given tileset of which there are 4 (with distinct enemies no less). You can reseed the world keeping your character progress at any point. There really is no plot to speak of, you can piece everything together from interesting lore bits which seems suitable for the type and scope of the game. Just be aware that there will be absolutely no urge to keep playing to find out what happens.
How long is the playtime, and how is the replayability? Is it like d3 with builds (everything is respecced in a flash), or does it primarily support multiple playthroughs like GD?
Playtime can vary drastically based on your skill I think. Since I’m not that good at the game, dying quite a bit (you don’t lose anything on death) and I usually want to try out new weapons/weapon mods I have farmed a bit to level up weapons/armor other than my main ones. So I sit at ~20 hours with nearly 3 of the 4 tilesets done. I really can not guess what it would take you if you hardly die, leave out a few dungeons and don’t farm at all. (Plus the choice to kill a certain boss means you may even skip 1 tileset.) Every tileset has 6 major waypoints and about as many bosses and optional dungeons. The dungeons and the distances between these waypoints aren’t that big.
Respeccing just means switching weapons/weapon mods, armor and jewelry - that after all is your build. Currently you probably will want multiple playthroughs as bosses do not respawn. Since you do not get every boss in a single world seed and bosses seemingly can drop 2 components based on mostly exclusive kill conditions you also do not get all components if your aim is collecting all the stuff. Which can be tricky of course since a world seed is random. With no “adventure mode” as in Diablo 3 and a manageable amount of loot I’m a bit wary when it comes to replayability but the moment-to-moment gameplay and style take the game some lengths.
One thing I forgot to mention, you have to select a “class” at the start but that just means different weapons/armor, a certain weapon mod, 1 “class” trait and differing levels in the 2 common traits. You can buy all class armor/weapons/weapon mods so that choice determines nothing.