Remothered Broken Porcelain - Review

I told you not to trust anyone. I told you do not touch anything. Why?! Why?! Remothered: Broken Porcelain is the sequel to the very well received Remothered: Tormented Fathers. I dived into this somewhat short experience to see how it held up, and whether the current community response is warranted.

One of the nicest things, if a “Previously On” style recap cinematic that you can watch, to fill you in on the story of the first game. It runs through it briefly enough but gives you a good insight into what is happening. It seems that this game, which is a technical prequel and sequel due to time jumps, took a basic enough concept and tried to extrapolate on it.

Let’s start with some positives, because unfortunately there isn’t many. Remothered: Broken Porcelain has a very good appealing aesthetic to it. It looks really good, and it has enough eerie grunge to it to really add to the atmosphere of the game. The atmosphere for the most part, is really good. The sounds of footsteps as you are being stalked. The sudden rush of danger music when you’ve been spotted. The game does a good job of keeping you on edge.

At first.

Unfortunately, after the first stalker section and the couple of deaths, the atmosphere quickly dissipates. The stalkers whilst being unnerving aren’t particularly threatening. Running wildly through as many doors as possible, which the game actually encourages you to do, quickly gets you to safety and the ability to hide. If you feel like it.

I really tried to enjoy this game. I went in with an open mind, with my expectations quite low. Unfortunately, there is a lot wrong with the game, and very few redeeming qualities. The story is ridiculously confusing. There is about 4 different timelines occurring concurrently and the game just jumps between them randomly, with no real cohesion as to why. Bizarrely, the main events of the game with which the main story occurs, appears to have very minimal actual connection to the background story that is happening in the other 3 time periods. It just comes across incredibly disjointed.

The most disappointing aspect is that the game never really fixes this confusion. It just throws more and more of its world lore at you and doesn’t ever fully explain everything in a simple enough form enough comprehension of the game. The ending itself, whilst somewhat of a “sad ending” really doesn’t hold much emotion in it. It’s unfortunately let down by the fact that characters themselves never really creating a connection.

To explain this confusion, let’s look at the characters themselves.

You play as Jennifer, who is actually Celeste Felton who ran away from home. Celeste is adopted daughter of Richard Felton and Arianna Gallo. But Richard Felton was born a girl and forced to be a man by her/his father. It’s also inferred that one of the main antagonists, Ashmann raped Richard Felton, and in turn this resulted in Felton’s pregnancy. So Richard Felton is actually Celeste Felton’s biological mother. But Celeste has no memory, because of a drug made from parasitic moths that wipes PTSD memories from your brain. However, she knows that she is not really called Jennifer. Also, Jennifer is the birth-name of Richard Felton.

Make sense?

That’s pretty much the most straightforward logic of the game. Everything else involves parasitic moths, a failed pharmaceutical made from the parasitic moths, hypnosis that isn’t really hypnosis, a guy who committed suicide, but didn’t actually, but is now trying to stalk you and stab you with his staff, who is being controlled by the hypnosis which is linked to the moths. The story has potential, honestly, if it were fleshed out better it could have been really engrossing. It however expects you to just connect the dots and doesn’t elaborate enough on the finer details to be understood.

The story doesn’t flow, and it really hinders the enjoyment of the game. Most of the voice actors are quite good, and the delivery is done well. But, unfortunately there is just enough characters that seem completely disjointed from the game as a whole, because their delivery is so far removed from the actual experience of the game. Ashmann is a completely unbearable character, and not in a “Damn, he’s a good bad guy” but in a “This character sucks” sort of way. There is a gross over-use of unnecessary swearing for the sake of it. Shock factor attempt, but it falls flat.

The game is also incredibly frustrating to play. Early gameplay segments aren’t too bad. However the really poor controls of the game quickly unravel this. There is a cover option, that I never found a use for. The character model gets stuck on random environment items and slows down to a snail pace. The moth vision is ridiculously difficult to control and is frustrating at the best of times. The biggest stress during chase sequences and ‘boss fights’ is the fact that the controls themselves don’t work as they should. The boss fights themselves are interesting, and the mechanics are unique. But they’re more frustrating than scary.

The game also appears to be incredibly buggy still. There was multiple instances where I would use the in game save option (which is reminiscent of The Evil Within’s mirrors), and then was unable to walk away. I could use every other character action but could no longer move my character. Resulting in having to exit and re-enter the game. Getting pulled out of a hiding spot by an enemy in a tight area also meant the camera disappeared into the wall and was unable to see anything before being chain stunned to a death scene.

Talking about chain stunning, if the enemies hit you once, you better have a defensive item. Because they will chain stun you to a death sequence. If you don’t have a defensive item, good luck, you’re dead. I’m all for the enemies being dangerous but being hit in the back 5 times in a row without being able to do anything about it, isn’t difficult. It’s obnoxious. There’s no counter play. The gameplay has so much potential to be fun and tense, but just ends up being incredibly frustrating.

Remothered: Broken Porcelain has potential. There is glimpses of hope, but in its current state it is just an unenjoyable experience. Game breaking bugs, frustrating gameplay, a complete lack of scare factor once you realise you’re never in any real danger. It’s a short experience, clocking in at about 5 hours, with me getting stuck on multiple “puzzles” in the final couple hours. Puzzles that weren’t actually puzzles, but a lack of indicators as to what is actually needed to progress.

Remothered: Broken Porcelain unfortunately is an incredible step down in quality from the original. Whilst there is redeeming factors in graphics and sound design, the game is just unfortunately not fun. There is collectibles in the game, to encourage replay, but without desire to frustrate myself again, I can’t see myself wanting to pick this game up again. If you want to see a progression of the story, then I would still recommend giving the game a try at least. If you are new to the series, I would unfortunately recommend giving this game a miss.

There is potential here, but in its current state, the game is hardly worth consideration. The story cannot be fixed unfortunately, but gameplay itself needs to be sharpened to make this game enjoyable. I can look past the lacklustre story if the game was fun. Unfortunately, it is not.

The Score

4.0

Review code provided by Modus Games

The Pros

+Graphics and sound design are both well done

+The stalkers can be truly unnvering at times

The Cons

-An overly complicated story made worse, by lackluster characters

-Gameplay is frustrating and not fun at all

-Very short