Gunfire Games attempt at a Souls-like, Remnant: From The Ashes, first launched for consoles and PC back in 2019. Instead of attempting to make another melee Souls-like, Gunfire Games chose to make a projectile Souls-like instead, embracing the use of firearms as your primary method of attack with a simple melee system as your last resort if anything made it past your ballistic barrage.
At the time, the take on the genre was certainly unique as the game sported multiple play modes and crafting elements that most Souls-like hadn’t considered. Running on Unreal Engine 4, Remnant showed an intriguing world that suffered from frame drops and stutters.
This makes its jump to the Switch all the more intriguing as the Switch and Unreal Engine 4 haven’t exactly had a copacetic relationship. The engine, as many would say, is just too much for Nintendo’s little wonder machine to handle. So the real question for this review is, just how well Remnant has handled the migration from more powerful machines to the Switch’s hardware.
Before we get to the technical side of things, we should look at what Remnant is all about.
Set after the apocalypse, you take on the role of a nobody whose job it is to make it to a lighthouse that just may have the answer to deal with an invading force known as The Root. But before you can do that, you’ll have to delve deeply into The Root’s effects upon the world, confronting the monstrosities it has birthed across a multitude of worlds. What The roots are, where they came from and what exactly they want beyond the destruction of the human race, are just some of the questions you’ll discover the answers to.
Remnant is structured a lot more closely to a standard 3rd person shooter than a Souls-like, even though that is the bulk of its design. You have a hub area to sortie from, complete with NPC’s that you can get side-quests from, answers and buy or sell merchandise along with upgrading your kit. Large, mostly linear levels await you when you travel from your base, known as Ward 13, into the broken worlds beyond.
Levels are somewhat procedurally generated, with the idea that each run or world reset will be different. Though in my experience I’ve found that certain basics remain the same, though my starting points were sometimes different and the bosses could be randomised. My play-through for the first world, for instance, on PS4 had me starting in a different section of the level and fighting a different boss than my Switch run did. The area and certain landmarks remained consistent, however. How much more varied it could be, I’m not certain, as I didn’t feel like rerolling the campaign to see how vastly different an experience it would be or to fight those bosses again.
You can wield two guns, one sidearm and something with a bit more punch, and a melee weapon. But close-quarter combat really is a last resort as you can only dodge roll and not block. You really do want to blow things away before they can get to you. All of your gear can be upgraded, though the resources to do so don’t come cheap. And you do need to upgrade if you want to have any hope of surviving. Weapons can be equipped with mods that can make your next couple of rounds flame rounds or spawn a healing pool at your feet. There’s a large variety to choose from, each with its own perks and drawbacks, while special mods can be crafted from various boss body parts they drop on death.
Every enemy killed gives you XP and once you level up, you’re given a talent/ability point to spend on 4 disciplines; health, stamina, elder knowledge for XP boosts and ability regeneration speed. These talent points can also be found in the world when you pick up hidden Tomes scattered around. Death pops you back to a checkpoint which respawns all enemies. By now, we all know this particular mechanic well enough.
At Ward 13, the massive checkpoint and teleport crystal will let you travel back to the various worlds you’ve unlocked, your last checkpoint and will also let you choose from three different game modes. You’ve got the campaign, which you can reroll, an Adventure Mode that sets up a campaign based only on one world if you’re looking to complete a certain quest or kill a certain boss and a Survival Mode whose difficulty increases over time.
Combat, of course, is what it all boils down to and for me, Remnant is a bit of a mixed bag in this regard. Weapons look and sound rather meaty, but Remnant doesn’t operate like a traditional 3rd person shooter. You can dodge and crouch, but you can’t hug cover or slide along a barrier. There’s a very tank-like feel to your movements overall which makes the combat doubly frustrating as Remnant loves to throw hordes of enemies at you at a time.
Worst of all is that Remnant employs one of video games worst design features for me: Bosses with adds. The bosses can be pretty challenging b themselves, but coupled with the slow movement and the mobs charging your way, they become ingratiating, which is a disservice to their interesting design. Ultimately I found dealing with bosses to be a case of simply levelling up and increasing weapon damage, hoping to brute force me through them with heavy damage before the mobs did me in. Thus I never felt like fighting bosses again, even though the parts they drop could be used to craft some great mods or specific weapons that you can only get this way.
That said, Remnant doesn’t put its best foot forward with its first drab and dreary world, but once you start hopping between worlds, the world design and crazy guns elevate the game immensely.
To make the Switch package all the more enticing, Remnant comes with all of the game’s expansions, making this a complete edition to sink your time into. And if you have a Switch Online sub, you can play the game in co-op mode which will make dealing with the mob spawns easier.
But how does the game stand up on Switch technically?
The answer to that is, amazingly well. Remnant on Switch is easily one of the best port jobs I’ve seen for Nintendo’s machine.
It seems that every time I hear a complaint about the Switch’s visual prowess along comes a game like Remnant – or anything from Nintendo’s in-house stables – to make a point otherwise. And Remnant does so fantastically.
The game is beautiful on the Switch’s compact screen. And while it’s been some time since I’ve seen the game running on PS4 or Xbox, I’m inclined to say it looks just as good as both of those versions. Remnant sports high-quality textures, models and a high resolution that, as far as I can tell, never dips at all. If there’s any form of DRS, I couldn’t see it. The world design and detail for characters and enemies look exactly as I remember it, perhaps better thanks to the Switch Lite’s compact screen.
And, more importantly, the game runs at a rock solid, steady frame rate which is, I think, at 30fps regardless of what’s happening on screen. The stutters and frame drop that I experienced on the PS4 and Xbox versions are nowhere to be seen, along with some of the other UE4 problems that plague Epic’s engine, such as late texture pop-in.
The porting team have done an amazing job bringing Remnant: From The Ashes over to Switch, making this my preferred way of playing the game.
Remnant might not grab you immediately with its first drab and dirty world, but once you get used to compensating for the control system and start to hop to the more aesthetically pleasing worlds and pick up some of the game’s more intriguing weapons, Remnant becomes a must play experience. Sporting beautiful visuals and a rock-solid frame rate along with all of the game’s expansions, Remnant: From The Ashes on Switch is the best way to play this intriguing and somewhat Awkward Souls-like.
Grab your copy here https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Games/Nintendo-Switch-games/Remnant-From-the-Ashes-2338729.html
A code was passed to us by the publisher for us to review this game.
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