The Hate List
1 – Gameplay
Wait, what? Yes, I both loved and hated the gameplay. While everything I said I loved was sound, the game was just too simple. Perhaps later on in the game there are some more open environments and hidden pathways to change things up, but the small demo I played wasn’t even enough to hold my attention the entire way through. What I assume will elevate the gameplay is more of a focus on your robot friend that you can command to attack enemies. Possibly taking control of them or upgrading their abilities will vary the experience and help with the gameplay pacing.
2 – Graphics/Art Direction
It pains me to say, but ReCore doesn’t exactly look like its breathtaking reveal trailer. I expected to see a colorful and unique looking world as I traveled with my robot buddies, but I was met with grimy looking environments that didn’t really pop. I can only compare it to the original Gears or some less flattering shots of Destiny where it just looks, like I said, grimy. Now what I played was an indoor environment so maybe the game looks better with some sunlight dawning over the levels, but I wasn’t exactly motivated to explore any further with how the game presented itself visually.
3 – AI
In counterpoint to the game’s difficulty, it doesn’t pair well when the AI make the same sorts of movements. Now again, this was a small segment of the game and more enemy types are sure to be included in the full experience, but what was there felt stale after a while. On top of that, there are just way too many thrown at you at some points. For those who played Halo 5, you might be familiar with the asinine amount of enemies thrown at the players during the Meridian section a third of the way through the game, and this short demo had a similar sequence. The difference being Halo 5’s gameplay is much more robust than ReCore’s as well as the ability to play with friends, so it can get away with things like that once in a while. It won’t be so good for ReCore if segments like these are scattered throughout the campaign as this will force some to lower the difficulty, which as stated above is important for the overall challenge of the game.
All in all, ReCore is shaping up to be a promising title, but there are still some questions that can only be answered after experiencing the entire campaign. I am optimistic and the least I can say is that this demo has me more interested in the title than it did before.