ReCore Review

Battlebots

(This review contains minor spoilers!)

          A small sidenote before we start: this review is based exclusively on the Windows 10 version of the game. From what I’ve heard, the game performs pretty differently on the two different platforms, so if you’re thinking of buying the Xbox One version of ReCore, this might not be the best review for you.

          I honestly had no idea what to think going into this one. A game mostly ignored by marketing (aside from a few really good E3 trailers) with a wide range of review scores ranging from 9/10 to 4/10, ReCore is an enigma in several ways.

          After playing it myself, I can clearly see where both ends of the score spectrum are coming from, but I feel like I have a solid grasp on what I think the game is. In all my time of playing, one consensus kept coming to me over and over again: ReCore is a great game that seems to be trying it’s hardest not to be.

          If anything, the game reminds me mostly of games from the Gamecube, specifically Super Mario Sunshine, as bizarre as that may sound. Everything about ReCore, from the graphics to the gameplay, feels like an homage to the sixth generation of video games. This isn’t a $70 AAA release, by the way. Instead, it’s a $40 release, which can be considered a budget price in the now frankly insane video game market. And by the time I got towards the end of the game, I really felt like I got all my money’s worth.

          At its core (pun very much intended) ReCore is a run-and-gun third person shooter with platforming and adventure game elements. It does all three of these extremely well, although not without a few issues. The exploration and adventuring in ReCore feels a lot like running around Hyrule Field in Twilight Princess, finding little secrets and trinkets hidden around the world and enjoying every minute of it.

          The overworld is pretty well designed, although I would’ve liked to see more variety than just desert and factory over and over again. There’s a lot of fun to be had just running around and hunting for buried treasure, especially in open terrain. Secrets and enemies are hidden all over the place, including secret dungeons. While it’s incredibly rewarding to find said hidden dungeons, however, sometimes they’re hidden a bit too well. In the second area, there’s a dungeon that I swear to god is inaccessible. I’ve looked at it from every possible angle, using every combination of robot and platforming technique I could think of, and I still can’t figure out how to get to it. Whether this is a case of bad map design or just the game outsmarting me is up to you, but I can’t figure out how to get there for the life of me.

          Speaking of the dungeons, let’s talk about those. They’re all very well designed, complete with puzzles, platforming challenges, and even bonus challenges if you’re a completionist, such as hitting a certain number of secret switches or beating it under a time limit. Accomplishing these nets you some hidden treasure, which is always fun. The dungeons were, without a doubt, the highlight of ReCore for me. I always felt excited going into them, regardless of the challenges I would face inside. Although I’m usually not one to redo things I’ve done before in games, I found myself going back into dungeons and replaying them to get some more of that sweet, sweet loot.

          The other major portion of the gameplay is the combat, which while fun, can be a little hit or miss, especially towards the end of the game. Sometimes it can feel either too easy or too unfair, with only some battles hitting that sweet spot right in between. Some enemies will just stand around while you walk backwards unloading your gun into their face. Others will one-hit kill you before you even have a chance to react. I’ve gotten pretty frustrated at how stacked against you some of the fights seem to be. I once defeated two enormous gorilla robots that could heal themselves and one-shot kill me after several deaths. My reward was the opportunity to fight the same apes again, except they were even stronger this time. Fortunately, these types of battles are usually optional, so you’re only risking missing out on some rare loot.

          Each enemy is represented by a certain colour: blue, red, or yellow, each with their own abilities. The quickest and easiest way to defeat them is to switch your gun to firing blasts of the same colour, which will deal extra damage. As the fight goes on, the enemies may switch colour, changing things up a bit. It’s an extremely simple system, but it works very well, especially thanks to the ease of pressing a button to change your gun’s colour. You can also perform a finisher by means of casting a rope into the enemy’s core and fishing it out, which always feels extremely satisfying.

          So what do you get by defeating enemies and running dungeons? Well, if you’re lucky, you’ll find prismatic cores. These serve basically the same purpose as jiggies in Banjo-Kazooie, in that once you have enough of them, they open up new areas to the game. There’s a lot of them hidden around, and some are definitely easier to find than others. However, without spoiling anything, I will say that the end of the game is especially guilty of using prismatic cores in the classic game trope of “you can’t progress until you get enough of these”, being frighteningly similar to the infamous Triforce Quest from The Wind Waker.

          The other things you find are spare parts and cores, which you use to power up your robot buddies. There are three major ones: Mack the dog, Seth the spider, and Duncan the ape. There are also separate forms you can use them in, but those are mostly used for locating hidden cores. Each of the bots have specific uses: Mack can dig to find hidden objects, Seth can grappling hook around on specific platforms, and Duncan can destroy large boulders. They’re all fun to use, but unfortunately Mack seems to have drawn the short straw, as I didn’t use him much after I’d recruited the other two companions.

          The friendly robots fight alongside you in combat as well, which is where the spare parts and cores come into play. You can use the spare parts to upgrade their appearance and stats, which is really cool, and you use the cores to slowly raise a meter that ups their stats, which…isn’t really cool. Aside from the obvious visual changes, I never really felt that my companions got any stronger as our adventure went on. Sure, they could handle bigger and badder enemies, but I never felt that they were growing stronger. It doesn’t help that you often lose sight of them during combat, so you never really get to see them in action.

          The best part of the corebots is undeniably their designs, and this is something the rest of the game really excels in: the art direction. The deserts of New Eden are both desolate and undeniably beautiful, if a bit cluttered at times. However, the designs of both the friendly and unfriendly corebots as well as main character Joule are fantastic and memorable. Joule herself is also a very enjoyable character. She doesn’t have much of a personality, but her cheery voice clips make her a fun character to spend time with. Props to whoever worked on character design for this game, because they really did a good job.

          The story, overall, is only just good enough to keep you engaged, and nothing really more. It follows the similar beats of a sci-fi post-apocalyptic story, with the familiar missing family member, big bad villain who wants to stop the hero because of his own machinations, token character of opposite gender of the main protagonist, the list goes on. It’s an enjoyable little story, but one I doubt you’d remember months after you finish playing.

          Unfortunately, the rest of the presentation is where ReCore really suffers. The music, while good, is nothing you’d write home about, and more often than not feels like just atmosphere, aside from the excellent Main Theme. Graphically, ReCore looks like a $40 game, nothing wrong with that. The real problem comes with the often choppy framerate, making it difficult to make precise jumps. There’s also a large amount of pop-in from great distances, as small bits of debris lying in the sand blinks into existence as you get closer. The cutscenes suffer the most, as here the jumpy character animations are given full spotlight, and you can really see just how unpolished they are. Mouths don’t sync up to the audio, and sometimes the framerate can slow to a crawl.

          There are also audio glitches abound too. Every once in a while, the sound cuts out briefly before reappearing with no explanation whatsoever. Another time, I was fighting a major boss battle with no music. I thought a silent boss battle was a weird idea, and I was right, because after dying and resummoning the boss no less than three times, the boss music finally decided to play.

          And then there’s the infamous ReCore loading times. In all honesty, they weren’t that bad for me, except when booting up the game. It took me two minutes total every single time, which is pretty annoying. The loading times ingame, while frequent, never went over fifteen seconds for me, which is a plus considering they were initially reported to all be the same as the startup time.

          However, despite all these glaring technical issues and occasional frustration with the gameplay, I still found ReCore to be a great experience. It really does feel like an old Gamecube game. The overworld and dungeons are excellently designed, and I think these characters really have the staying power to stick in people’s minds for a long time. Maybe if the developers had taken a little bit more time to fix the technical issues and iron out the bugs, I would’ve had fewer negative things to say about it. There’s very clearly a fantastic game trying to break free here, and while it clearly shines through in the gameplay, the glitches in the presentation really holds it back from reaching its full potential.

          If you think that this game looks interesting, please, please, give it a shot. I promise that you won’t be disappointed. If you’re like me in that you can look at games objectively, without being bothered by technical errors or presentation, there’s a lot to like in ReCore.

FINAL SCORE

8/10

Great