The game is set in some kind of post apocolypse where you are tasked with getting to some island that's protected by a big storm in order to stop The Root, tree people that seem to enjoy human murder. What follows is, a shameless Dark Souls clone with the twist being that the game focuses on ranged combat which, at first, starts out somewhat interesting. For the first few areas of the game there's some degree of intensity to the gameplay. The enemies are dangerous and resources are scarce so exploring the environments for healing items and ammo boxes so that you can free up your currency for upgrades is fun. But then, after a boss or two, things start to go downhill extremely quickly.
As you kill enemies and gain experience you gain "trait points" which you can put into a variety of skills in your menu. The most obvious thing to do is max out HP and stamina because having more numbers to get hit and dodge with in a game where damage values are so high is pretty valuable. Once you do this, however, and max those values a lot of things in the game become trivial and when the challenge starts to die in a game like this, it's the beginning of the end.
What then makes things even worse is that after the initial area of levels set on Earth, you are transported to different, alien worlds on your quest to stop the Root and it's when you get to these areas that a lot of shit in Remnant is re-used. In the desert area known as Rhom I think I went through the same dilapidated set of corridors about 6 times. Not as backtracking during exploration, I mean that on the foward path, en route to new areas, the same indoor environment had been copy pasted that many times but just with the enemies shifted around slightly. It was in this world, the second of 4, that I basically vowed to stop exploring anything because having to endure the same area over and over again was just mind numbing.
Not that the vow I made meant anything in the end because not only is area re-use up the wazoo but after the first area things get extremely linear. Like, Final Fantasy 13 levels of linear. By the end of the game I was rushing through every zone just so I could get to the final boss as fast as possible and I STILL managed to find a ton of rings and trinkets that I basically had no use for because there are two very good rings and then a bunch of trash which will just take up space in your inventory.
What makes the game completely unbearable though is how, after a certain boss in the second world, the game becomes COMPLETELY braindead. One of the bosses grants you a beam rifle weapon that is so significantly better than every other weapon that you get your hands on that regular enemies won't even have a chance to get near you, let alone hit you with anything. It also makes bosses a completely joke because you just aim and hold down fire which allows you to dedicate 100% of your brainpower to dodging the incredibly easy to avoid and heavily broadcasted attacks that they do. By the end of the game, between trait points making everything a joke, overpowered weapons and boss design that felt like the devs just gave up, you're playing Remnant in a sort of mindless haze that fails to engage or entertain in any way at all.
There is a heavily emphasized multiplayer component that I didn't touch because who the fuck is playing Remnant: From the Ashes in 2024, really? but I can't image that having an extra person in my game would make things any more fun. It would just be a second drone to mindlessly beam down all the enemies with and, if anything, would make procedings even easier.
So in closing, I fucking hate Remnant. I always say that bad games have value because at least in getting mad about them or finding them funny in some way you are getting something out of it. But Remnant is boring. A game that you will play, finish, feel nothing while playing it and then never think about it again after the credits roll and that is way, WAY worse. A truly miserable game made by truly soulless people to ride an action RPG wave they didn't understand. Sad and embarassing
