Recore Review

Earth is in its final days, people are being sent across space to find planets suitable planets and start the long process of Terraforming to get the planets ready for the human race, a young girl named ‘Joule Adams’ journeys to planet named ‘Far Eden’. Two hundred years have passed; our main character awakens and finds that nothing has gone to plan.

Corebots, were sent to Far Eden, to start the terraforming process, but something went wrong, instead of a paradise for human and bots to live together on, the bots have gone rogue and are now deadly and destructive.

On a deadly planet plagued by sandstorms where anything can happen, where the terrain can change in a blink of an eye and new challenges to explore and complete appear from know where, this adventure offers and tantalising idea, but does everything go to plan?

So Far in the media,

So far in the media, from many well-known sites they have given this game a bad rep, complaining about long loading times, graphical flaws and repetitiveness. Now, from what I know, many of these complaints are from the Xbox One version, and this review is from the Windows 10 store, on a system spec like this:

• Windows 10 Pro X64
• Intel i7 4720HQ
• 16GB RAM
• NVidia GeForce 970m
• 500GB Crucial mSATA 6Gb/s

From the outset the load time are a little longer, that I would like, but nowhere near as long as some sites have moaned about, took less than a minute, graphical flaws, were minuscule, and did not affect the game in anyway and the final complaint, repetitiveness, come on many games or repetitive even the best ones, like DOOM, Bang, Bang, grab kill. WOW, Just Cause 3, shit almost every game has a form of repetitiveness to them.

So the media might be right about the Xbox One flaws, however, I feel personally that the Windows 10 version is more refined and is a much better version of the game, and I am going to ignore the repetitiveness bullshit.

The story is told through cut scenes, not cinematic but in the game, which comes in within each segment of the game, which is a key point, mostly when an objective is completed, also dotted around are audio messages, which add more depth to the story. The messages you search for, give or should I say tell a different perspective on what happened on Far Eden. Whichever way the story is told, each added element adds more depth and allows you to enjoy the game a little more.

The game is not a true Open world game, its takes elements from Metroid and Zelda (not breath of the wild) Metroid elements is no surprise since some of the developers that make up the Recore team are creators from the Metroid prime series.

The world consists of Semi- Open world elements which include Dungeons which are optional as well as mandatory. There are plenty of secrets to be found, from the already mentioned audio tracks, crafting items, loot caches and blueprints, which are central to the game. Not everything is available from the get go, you will need to advance and collect items, for example, prism cores which are one of the core items to open up doors.

Now exploring the world of Far Eden is done with your main character Joule, through a third-person perspective view. I found playing Joule and total joy, with her double jump and dash (Later Megaman or Mighty No9 Dash type skill) and in the end incorporating her basic skills during battles is just great.

With, many semi- open world type games you do not get the satisfaction of some good old school platforming, this game has a good amount of it, and it was in no way frustrating, everything seemed to be well balanced, from the fighting sections to exploring to the platforming, everything seems to be bang for the buck, for me it was rather fun.

Lock on shoot, but is this everything to Recore, when it comes to its combat? Nope, there is a lot more to combat and really mixes it up. First, you have basic rifle shooting, add to that charge shots, then add lethal attacks, then add accuracy, then finally colour coded enemies. Seems like a lot when you first read this, but everything slowly garners progression as you go through the game.

First, you learn the basics, lock on and shoot, you then find out that your rifle has an energy metre, so you cannot short forever, then you notice that your accuracy slowly gets worse and you keep shooting. After a while, your learn about charge shot, and slow, but powerful middle mouse button shot, that hits enemies down for a few second and stop them in the track. After a little longer you get introduced to your corebot lethal attack, at the start, you have MAX a dog corebot, which is on a cooldown and hits hard, this is done by press E, something I did not seem to do much at the start of the game.

Getting a little deeper into the game, you get introduced to Colour coded enemies, these enemies take more damage based on the colour you are shooting out of your rifle, so if you are against a Red enemy switch you’re firing to Red and they will take a lot more damage. Not only damage, colour shot out also inflicts status ailments, which add even more depth to combat mechanics.

There is another tactic about this game, killing enemies is not always advised, why, you get what is called and extractor, that is used to extracted cores from bots, these allows you to upgrade your weapons and corebots. This is not always perfect, as enemies also drop items when killed, which are also used to upgrade, so you need to mix them up perfectly to gain cores as well as parts.

Extraction is not as easy as clicking the F key, as advised, you need to do it at the right time and at the right level of tension. If you are fighting more than one, chances of you getting the core, is limited, if you get hit, by another enemy, you will lose the extraction and need to start again, I always go for the last one. You also need to watch your tension on the line, when line goes red you need to stop pulling on the extraction, let the line become lose, once back to normal colour, pull again, so it’s a mix of pull and release till you have the core extracted for the bot.

I mentioned Max – your first corebot friend, over time you will gain blueprints to open more corebot companions, will not spoil it for you, but each has their own characteristics and skills, again adding more fun and depth to the game.

Back to the blueprints that you pick up, everything is used at your base camp ‘The Crawler’ here you can upgrade you corebot companions, with new skeletons and unlocking more lethal attacks.

Dungeons, dungeons, dungeons, and there are plenty in this game, some story driven, some of the fly, random, each dungeon has its own objectives, but you will find the non-story driven ones to be more straightforward,  with some set objectives, like switch triggering, time trial and so on, when you complete the dungeon, you get a reward, a bit like eating your dinner and getting pudding as a reward, yummy, some of the items you get, are resources and blueprints, just to name a few.

Story driven dungeons and better designed with puzzles and challenges to test your skills, and combat mechanics, no dungeon ever feel the same here, which is great, no short cuts taken there.

Now, comes down to the core of the game, this is an action, platforming, semi-open world game, its lives up the most of the aspects, however, the combat does, sorry wrong word, is fun, but everything seem to be rather easy in the long run, using E lethal attack or charge attack you can control any enemy, making them easy to take down and kill, was this a design choice? To make the game more fun than challenging during combat, this is something I cannot answer, yeti still enjoyed it.

All I can say from my personal playtime in the game; I enjoyed it, the loading times on my rig were minimal. The graphical glitches did not affect my gameplay, even though, there were very limited and did not really spot that many while playing the game.

So plus and minus — the game does not have much of a challenge, instead it’s more combat and fun, some would say repetitive, I personally see receptiveness in so many games, I really do not care anymore, as long as I enjoy it. The graphics are nice, but not next generation, does that really make the game bad, just because of its graphics NO! of course not, there are some technical issues there, but they did not affect me enough, to say, stuff this pile of shit, loads times, where less than a min, long but not too long, I have seen longer.  I enjoyed it, I love Darksiders, Zelda, Metroid, and I personally enjoyed playing this, I have to give my score of its overall game, and I shall give it an 8/10, it’s not perfect, could be improved, but it’s still fun if it’s fun for you? Who knows, wait for a demo.