VideoGame One of the shoddiest, laziest attempts at a Soulsgame I've ever seen.
Basically, this game shares the same structure of Sundered, in which it was inspired by Dark Souls but it tries a post-apocalyptic semi-fantastic eldritch route with procedurally generated maps.
It also shares many, many of the problems of Sundered, without many of the features that at least alleviate said problems.
Basically, the structure of a Dark-Souls-esque games isn't derived just from the high lethality of enemies attacks, it's also the map that requires cautious exploration and bosses that need memorization of patterns. If you want to experiment, be my guest! Gaming would still be pong if there wasn't any experimentation or tweak of the known formulas! The problem is, you need to re-work the whole engine instead of just replacing a few cogs and hoping that it will 'fit'.
In this and Sundered case, the fact that the maps are procedurally generated wouldn't be so bad... if the enemies kept spawning relentlessly in order to compensate for the fact that they can't be specifically placed to make traps or use tactics against the player. And much like Sundered, every once in a while (faster the more you kill foes) the game will toss a mini-boss against you (that also spawns even more normal foes), in order to keep the stakes high and not let the player relax. This is where problems start.
Since the maps are procedurally generated and the look is randomly placed, you'll have to search every nook and cranny, while being constantly harassed by a mob that keeps spawning, and everything you'll do will grind to a halt when you face a mini-boss, which will slow the pacing to a slog. And this is where it separates from Sundered and gets worse.
The bosses are insanely easy, even in the highest difficulties, so in order to keep the 'challenge' they will constantly spawn minions with the excuse of 'replenishing your ammo' through kills even if A- in the arenas there are always lots of breakables and B- there are Ammo Boxes consumables that refill your reserves. This basically turns most of the fights into frustrating battles of attrition (and many of these bosses are just reskinned normal foes). The 'procedurally generated' maps are continuously recycled to the point where you might get lost due three or four areas of the map looking the same. And the worst thing is the progression system. I sundered through a lot of the game with a starter character without using points in traits... because the enemies progress with you A La Skyrim. Meaning, a Lvl 1 character will kill a lvl 10 enemy easier than a lvl 20 character against a lvl 21. This alongside the dull colors and the lack of a good soundtrack made me nearly sleep through the first levels.
This game may be fun if you go with a L 4 D expectation and play with friends, but other than that, nope. At least Sundered had beautiful hand-drawn art and an epic soundtrack.
VideoGame A Fundamentally Sound, Fun Game Undermined With a Lot of Trendy Bullshit
At its core, Remnant is actually a pretty fun little dungeon shooter experience, which it then proceeds to systemically undermine with a bunch of design choices I wish I could say I found baffling.
Said core is a hybrid of third person shooting with Dark Souls style slots for upgradable equipment, healing item scarcity, and so on. Weapons can be slotted with "mods" that charge up special attacks for extra damage, summon allies, cause buffs, and so on. As you advance through a map, enemies will appear, with special "elite" foes randomly spawning, but clearing an area out means they won't come back until the next time you die or refill your health, ammo, and so on at a checkpoint. Said checkpoints are relatively generous, positioned at the start of every dungeon and every boss fight, although only the ones outside of dungeons can be freely travelled between.
It helps that some of the game's stupidest design decisions are partially counterbalanced by good ones. The baffling gear level system and attendant rubber-banding effects on difficulty are stupid and confusing, but at least no level cap or XP scaling ensures the player's constantly getting a drip feed of small incremental power increases to help work around it. The randomly generated and procedural maps are boring, repetitive, and make actually getting a lot of the better items (or solving some of the more-interesting quests) more of a test of luck and patience than thought or skill, but at least penalties for death besides lost progress are relatively light, and many of the various items, guns, and weapon mods are fun to fiddle around with, even if I often find myself coming back to a handful of personal favorites.
While the ending (pre-DLC at least, stay tuned) is a bit short and perfunctory, and while too many of the characters are too shallow for my liking, at least the conceptual bases behind the various mysterious alien worlds the player can visit and people they meet are actually kind of fun and interesting. Although, again, the randomized nonsense sacrifices much of the nuanced environmental storytelling present in games like Myst or Dark Souls that it's clearly aping, it is still fun to read diary entries and explore around nooks for special treasures or well-hidden environmental puzzles, and the handful of non-randomized dungeons do have some of it.
I suppose some of the reason was probably cost-cutting related, but I think shorter, more intricate dungeons could more than make up that difference, so a player wouldn't have to throw dice trying to get stuff that might make the game more fun in Adventure mode. And I don't even know where to start with everything wrong with gear levels and what I understand about how they work.
Ultimately, though, while I did have fun with the game, and I do sort of recommend it, I resent that it felt the need to throw in all this randomized, procedural garbage that actively makes the game worse.