Since I’m a huge fan of the Dark Souls series, I was very excited to see a game similar to Dark Souls, but using mostly guns. There were many things similar to Dark Souls, but also many things to make the game very unique.
Although I enjoyed the time had with the game, there were a few things that Remnant didn’t do well in. Is Remnant: From the Ashes worth it? I’ll give you my thoughts and let you decide for yourself!
Classes
After beating the main intro of the game, you’re given the option to choose which class you’d like to use. I chose the Ex-Cultist class, while my friends each chose one of the other 2. Surprisingly, we found that there were very few differences between us, especially later on in our playthrough.
Each class comes with its own starting abilities and weapons, but later on, you’re given the option to purchase or craft the same items for any class. Even the armor is up for grabs later, so you won’t ever have to worry about choosing the wrong class in the beginning. Even with the few differences, they all seemed so much alike that the choice of class ultimately didn’t matter
Here is a quick breakdown of each class
- Hunter – a long-range sniper class that focuses on critical hits and weak points
- Scrapper – a heavy, close-range class that focuses on dealing the most damage
- Ex-Cultist – a mid-range class that focuses on healing and using weapon modifications
Interestingly, we found that the most effective gear against most bosses was the gear used by the hunter class. The sniper rifle did wonders against most enemies, especially in co-op.
On the flip side, I used the Ex-Cultist class, and it was very difficult to heal friends as well as fight enemies during difficult boss fights. It was very effective for healing myself, but you shouldn’t expect a healer to be a necessary addition to every team.
Just choose whatever class you think looks cool and run with it. Don’t worry about making the wrong choice, since you’ll have new gear soon enough.
Combat
The combat in this game was much better than I first anticipated. My friends and I all played the intro separately (you can’t play co-op until completing it), and we all came to the consensus that the guns felt really good to shoot.
You start off with only a sword, but melee isn’t really the greatest in Remnant. When you’re not aiming your gun, pressing the fight button will automatically swing your melee weapon. The problem is that you take so much damage at close range that you kinda want to stay as far back as possible.
As for the guns, there are a huge variety of them to use, and all of them are unique. For example, one gun shoots a bunch of spores that will continually damage the enemy. The game has some basic guns like pistols and an assault rifle, but most of them have a creative twist.
Killing bosses and completing areas will give you the ability to craft more weapons, though it will take some grinding to get enough materials for all of them. Each of the people I played with made different weapons, so we all had some nice variety to our builds.
But, nothing really beat the old fashioned sniper rifle. I’m sure the other weapons can do just as well, but it seemed like we always beat a boss when we switched to a sniper. Being too close to enemies seems to always end up hurting you too much to make it worth it unless you’re playing a tank build.
Abilities and upgrades
Besides all the cool weapons, there are a ton of awesome weapon modifications to outfit your guns. Each class comes with its own weapon mod, but you can craft them all later in the game.
One ability I absolutely loved was one that lets you shoot fireballs out of your gun, which then starts enemies on fire and deals a lot of damage. When you equip a new weapon mod, it changes the way your gun looks. There are so many of these mods, I probably didn’t even try out half of them.
One thing I thought was kind of annoying was the trait point system. Trait points are basically just attributes that you level up, increasing certain abilities by small percentages at the time. The big problem is that you are literally receiving new traits to increase until the end of the game. I felt like we were constantly getting new ones, most of which we would never use. Also, we didn’t even have enough trait points to spend on these attributes.
Other than the trait points, weapon modifications were an awesome part of the game. I wish I had tried out more of them, but then I would have had to spend more time grinding.
Worlds
Every single world we explored was unique and enjoyable. Each time we found a new area, everyone in the group would remark about how cool this area was. The areas all have unique enemies as well as new guns and items to find.
The music of the areas was really good too, and I don’t think there were any areas we disliked. The variety of the worlds kind of reminded me of Dark Souls, with the exception that you don’t spend that much time in them. When playing a Dark Souls game, you die many times and spend a long time searching for the way out, so you get to know the area very well. In Remnant, you’re in each area for such a brief time that you barely remember the name of the area.
I absolutely loved the world of Remnant, but my only gripe was that there isn’t a lot of things to do in each area.
Enemies
I mentioned the enemy variety before, and I absolutely loved fighting the huge array of monsters. Before we beat the game, we went back to areas that we had previously completed, and we found many enemies we hadn’t encountered the first time through.
There are giant beasts, magic-wielding foes, human enemies, and lots of little grunts to destroy as you explore the world. I’m unaware of if the number of enemies in an area changes based on the number of co-op players, but there seemed to be a ton of enemies everywhere we went. All the enemies we fought were awesome and I didn’t really have any complaints about them.
Bosses
If you’re a fan of Dark Souls, then I’m sure you know what makes a good boss. Unfortunately, the developers seemed to take everything that was hated about Dark Souls bosses and make a full game about them. There were about 4 bosses that we really enjoyed, but the rest were more annoying than fun.
No one wants to fight off hordes of enemies as they also attempt to fight a boss. It’s almost like the enemies weren’t formidable enough on their own, so the developers had to have hordes of random grunts attack you at the same time.
I won’t spoil it for you, but the final boss was an utter disappointment. It didn’t even seem optimized for co-op, as it made 2 players walk around aimlessly while a randomly chosen player does the fighting.
You definitely shouldn’t buy this game for the bosses. Some bosses seemed like blatant ripoffs of Dark Souls bosses such as the Moonlight Butterfly or Curse Rotted Greatwood, except somehow they messed those up too. I had a lot of fun in Remnant, but the bosses are a drag.
Story
I won’t say too much about the story because I didn’t really pay attention to it, but it ended very abruptly. It’s not a long game at all, but we were extremely surprised when we got to the final boss after only 11 hours. From the small bits I paid attention to, the story has the potential to be intriguing, and I’ve seen many people online who enjoy it.
Conclusion
You might feel differently after reading my review, but I’d say that Remnant: From the Ashes was a great game that’s worth buying on sale. It’s not worth the $40 you normally buy it for, and I’d say it’s even a bit of a stretch buying it for $30. The game would be perfect for $20, but even if you buy it at a higher price, I think many people will love it.