Recent reviews by Vitharr

DEMOCRACY PREVAILS!!

Almost a full improvement over previous titles, though they absolutely butchered the formation system. You can't assign specific types of troops to a formation, rather, you have to put a very weak filter, and then divide them between formations using a ratio slider (hope you remember exactly what number of troops ya had), and hope that the troops you wanted in your shield-wall actually all have shields, and didn't instead get swapped out for a unit that doesn't even have a shield. You can't even separate crossbow men from regular archers, with this system. I keep losing troops, and sometimes battles, because the game has lost features that were critical to the gameplay of previous titles.

It gets worse in sieges, where, regardless of what you selected at the start of battle, the game will create new formations, and mush together your other ones. Took my formation of archers, split it into 4, and threw some of them into a group of melee units. That's just when I'm the only party on my side, during a siege. When you have friends, joining you, or are aiding another party, the units they bring just get melded in, even worse. If you happen to be working with an army, and you're not commanding it, I hope you didn't have any expensive units with you, because you probably just lost control of them, for that battle.

Mid battle formation position control is also finicky. Gone is the ability to tell your units to just advance a few paces, you have to manually tell them where to go, or just send them to advance towards, "the enemy". Great if the enemy doesn't have cavalry, an eminent disaster if they do, because your two formations making up a wide shield wall are now melded together and facing the wrong way because a lone dude on a horse got behind them. There is a mod that allows you to activate a free camera, that makes life a lot easier. No idea why this isn't included in the base game.

I really, REALLY wanted to love this game, but the way they destroyed a system that worked in the previous games, that now causes just frustration in what should be the most enjoyable part of the game, just saps the fun out of it. I just wanted to be able to have my units, who don't have shields, be able to go around the back of the enemy when my shield units engage, or have my more survivable crossbow units infront or on the flanks of my regular archers, stuff you were able to do in the previous games. It's almost entirely impossible, now.

So, 25 hours in, and still finding new stuff in the first world. To summarise the experience, thus far, Remnant 2 is everything that was fun about the first game, with a lot more polish, and a MUCH more fleshed out character build system. The gun-play feels smooth, the skill systems is transformative, and the melee doesn't feel as clunky as it did in R:FtA, where I find myself actually falling back on it quite often. The UI is much more informative, as well, and the map tool improvements are very welcome.

If you didn't play the first game or its DLC, there is a lot of optional dialogue to go through, in the main hub, that goes over events from the previous game and its DLC, so that should help with getting caught up with the story.

Still a lot more to play, but so far, easy recommend.

I grabbed the game when it launched into early access, and even bought a couple more copies from friends, but after a number of, at best, meh updates, I gave up on it. I like to check back in, from time to time, but other reviews and discussions confirm my last experiences still hold true. On top of that, 8 months later, and the weapons and changes I recall hearing about being in development have still not been released.

To start, I don't believe there has been a single update to the game since December. According to the official Discord, there was supposed to be an update in mid April, but that was then walked back, with a secret new date set, known only to the dev team. To add to the lack of clarity on all of this, the official Discord has the latest update being back in early December with the 2.2.3 update, whilst Steam instead lists the latest as being the 2.2.4 update, which was late December. The last thing shared through the game's Steam page, at the time of this review, was back near the end of February, detailing the public application period for their feedback campaign.

Concerning the actual game, itself, it went from a fun, frantic, game, with all the groundwork set for a solid squad focused shooter, into one where roles were being lost or diluted and weapon balance was non-existent. It often felt like you were being funneled into using only a couple of the different weapons provided for a given role, or, in the case of Support, you were literally restricted to only using a couple of weapons, with Support still being limited to 4 primary weapons to this day. For comparison, Recon gets 10 primaries, Squad Leader gets access to 18, and the 3 other classes get access to about 2 dozen or more weapons, Engineer getting nearly 30.

Another example of frustration was with the RPGs, and how there was no reason to use anything other than the HEAT variant. Not only could it destroy cover and vehicles easily, but it absolutely destroyed players, as well, and it would not be uncommon to run into the same players, over the course of many days, who just used it exclusively for getting kills. It made the Fragmentation version, which is supposed to fill that anti-infantry role, redundant, with the other launcher feeling too specialised to be an alternative.

The devs also have a strong opinion about not adding Shotguns, which is fair, given how hard they could be to balance, if it weren't for the fact that folks, last I player, would often gun down entire squads with a single mag of a fast firing, close quarters weapon, such as the P90 or Vector. It begs the question of why a high burst damage, slow firing CQB weapon doesn't have a place in the game, where weapons like the Scorpion EVO, P90, and Vector (among others) hold a role of a high burst damage, fast firing, fairly high capacity weapon exist. It could be the solution to solo SMG players rushing your squad, by being able to damage them heavily, but not having fast follow-up, bringing balance to CQB.

This game could have been a massive win for everyone, but right now it feels like it has just been a squandered opportunity.

Game was already kinda buggy, with not uncommon crashes, disconnects, and other quirks, but, in the most part, it worked, and was quite fun to play with friends. Now, with the latest update, more frequent crashes, even in single player, more frequent connection issues, UI bugs that are brand new, and all just so they can have cross-play with Epic Games Store. What a joke.

I own this game on three different platforms. Simply fantasticly frustrating.

Was mining copper, when Papa Smurf tried to murder me with a tree. 10/10 would poop myself again.

Edit: They improved the connection quality, and disconnects are less frequent, but they still do happen. Game is coming a long way, but boy, was it rough at launch. Changing to a positive review.

Absolutely love the game, perhaps From Software's best yet.

That being said, I bought it with the plan to play with a couple of my friend's, and we are constantly getting disconnected from each other. We all have high-end internet, and we don't have any lag when co-oping, it just randomly but consistently boots us. We spend more time re-summoning each other than playing the game, at this point. Happens with other folks, or when invading/invaded. It's absolutely unbelievable how unplayable multiplayer is, which is a main reason I bought the game.

Addicting. It takes a moment to get into the RHYTHM of things, but once you get a good run going, you feel unstoppable... up until those bloody shield guys at the end, at least...

Greatest hunger suppressant I've ever come across. I'll go an entire day, playing this, before realising I need to eat.