 Have you ever found yourself noticing that mainstream game reviews aren't consistent in the way they review games? It's not that I think reviewers are dishonest, I actually don't think that at all. And it's not that I think reviewers should strive for some kind of objective, just-the-facts style of review. That would be boring, and reviews, by their very nature, are simply an opinion piece. I'm talking about how reviewers... how can I put this? How reviewers seem to have kind of, uh, handicaps that they apply to games. For example, a year or two ago, a really well-made little indie platformer was released. The game, Celeste, is a great example of a 2D platformer with a really interesting little story. It was worth its asking price, and provided a couple of days of diversion. However, reviewers made this one of the best-reviewed games of all time. Celeste, for months after its release, was sitting on a 96-metacritic score. That's pretty much the same as Half-Life 2. And while I acknowledge that Celeste was a very good game, it also demonstrates one of the issues with reviews. Celeste, by the way, has now dropped down to a 93, making it in the eyes of reviewers merely one of the dozen or so best games ever, rather than one of the top three. But what makes a perfectly fun platformer that most of the world has already forgotten scores so high? And what makes Rage 2 one of the year's best games and one of the best FPS's of the last few years score in the 70s? These questions inevitably lead us to the conclusion that there are a whole bunch of criteria running in the background of reviews that might not have anything to do with the game. Reviewers, like all people, bring their histories, their biases, and hopes into their reviews. Today, I want to talk about a game that has received middling reviews. The kind of middling review scores that can doom a game to failure. And we're going to talk about how a game that I think is actually one of this year's best can score so low when Celeste can score so high. We'll talk about the game and why I love it, but we'll also touch on the fact that reviews do drive sales and the inconsistency in mainstream reviews is leading us rapidly to a market that has only indies and blockbusters. Let's dive in and talk about Remnant from the Ashes. The new Souls-like shooter from the Peeps who brought you another good game that inexplicably reviewed badly. After the logo. F of the AA game. So one interesting thing did happen in 2019. For the first time in seemingly ages, a few very high-profile AAA games actually reviewed badly. For the last 10 years, it seemed as if major AAA releases were not reviewing any 1-100 scale, but rather on an 80-100 scale. And to be fair, there's a somewhat reasonable explanation for this. A major component of all video games is graphics and sound design, voice acting, and animations. Those things are all expensive. So a middling game like Infinite Warfare still scores highly because the production values of Call of Duty games are through the roof, even if the campaign for that game was incredibly mediocre and the multiplayer nearly indistinguishable from the previous Call of Duty. But despite what people think, reviews still do matter for a game's sales. And games that cost a lot of money to make are almost all going to look good and sound good enough to score in the 80s regardless of how boring, unimaginative, or stale the actual gameplay is. It's clear that reviewers score indie games on a different scale. Reviewers rightly do not hold indie devs to account for low production values. They don't take off points for middling voice acting or wobbly lip syncing. When you read indie game reviews, you'll notice reviewers talking about narrative and art direction and gameplay. Indie titles are simply not reviewed on the same scale as AAA titles. And it behooves the consumer to subtract 10 from any huge budget AAA or tiny budget indie game review. And the problem with this two-tiered system of standards really only arises when we get to ambitious AA titles. Games that reach for something akin to a AAA type game with a fraction of the team size and budget. Games like Gunfire Games' recent titles Darksiders 3 and Remnant from the Ashes. Incidentally, I didn't play Darksiders 3 for several months because it got such middling to poor reviews. So imagine my surprise to find out that it was actually an excellent hack and slash action title with very light souls influences. The same thing that hurt Darksiders 3 has now hurt Remnant. One of the very best souls likes not by From Software. What do reviewers actually want? A common refrain in reviews is that a particular game is good enough, but doesn't try anything new in its genre. The Surge, another souls like, was dinged for this along with a long list of other critiques that would be more fair to lump under AA production values problems. And I think this is actually a reasonable complaint to level against many shit most games. Far Cry 5 does literally nothing better or differently from 4 or 3. The Assassin pre-games remained utterly unchanged for years. Call of Duty has remained remarkably unchanged for many years now. But then a game like Remnant releases and seems to get absolutely no credit for actually making many smart changes to the mechanics and design of a souls like game. So let's talk about Remnant for a bit. Remnant is about as well made a game as one can expect from a studio that's battled financial trouble for years. It's not only a nice looking game, it has excellent sound design, great diversity in bosses, enemies and levels. It features a whole bunch of well balanced and smartly designed armor sets, weapons and mods. It has a really well thought out talent progression system. And it's the most interesting take on a souls game since Salton Sanctuary took souls 2D Metroidvania. Remnant from the Ashes is a shooter souls game. It seems like that would be impossible to pull off as ranged combat would make the souls formula weaker, but smart enemy and arena design makes the feeling of playing Remnant exactly like the feeling of playing a souls game. There's no cover system here. Players avoid damage by dodging melee and slow moving projectile attacks. The game is undeniably difficult when played solo and many challenges are overcome not only through skill but by using the game's mods and tools effectively. I beat my head against one mid game boss for an hour before finally deciding to switch weapons and mods and then beat him on the next try. And that's actually when the game fully clicked for me. There's only so many ways I can really talk about the gameplay but to make it clear I'm not sure this could actually be done better. Guns feel punchy, aiming feels tight, movement is smooth, dying always felt like my fault even when shit gets unfair which like in all souls type games it sometimes do. Everything that absolutely needs to be there for souls like to work is. All enemy attacks are clearly telegraphed and most enemies have a limited move set. Regular mobs have one move. Tougher ones would have a melee and arranged attack. Elites will have two melees, a charge and arranged. And then bosses will have four moves or more plus adds. And by the way boss fights do bury you in insane amounts of adds so situational awareness is like half the game here. And to be fair there is a certain frustrating degree of RNG in the boss fight as add spawns aren't tied to boss phases but are random leading to lots of add spawning literally behind the player. It can be annoying but is probably needed to keep the difficulty high. Anyway, leveling and weapons allow for a nice smooth progression of power. Each area you spawn spawns at your level plus one. So then whenever you enter a new place it is difficult but if you go back to an area to grind for money or crafting materials you can feel the difference letting you farm quickly and easily by crushing low level mobs. Levels are large and winding and reward exploration with exits and shortcuts and secrets and chests full of stuff as well as vendors and weapons and armor hidden all through the map. And the level themselves while not triple A production values are beautiful and interesting. Monster design is really cool looking and fun to fight. On the gameplay, level design and art direction front the game feels almost beyond reproach. I can tell a good souls type experience when I am repeatedly cursing about what unfair fucking bullshit a game is while simultaneously refusing to stop playing. It scratches that itch of a game that you beat because you're pissed off at it. It's an excellent game is what I'm saying. Not a decent game, an exceptional game. Now, let's get to those things that affect a review score in an unfair way depending upon how big a studio is. Gunfire Games is not a triple A development team. And like all double A games, there need to be allowances made. Facial and cutscene animations are extremely mediocre and look like an Xbox One launch title even on my beefy PC. For the most part the voice acting and writing are decent. The story is fine, the lore is reasonably competent but there isn't all that much of it. But a triple A team with years of hit games behind them like From can make Dark Souls 3 an insanely polished, rich, fleshed out universe. Gunfire Games cannot do that. It's beyond clear that the vast majority of resources went where it mattered. Enemy and level design, gameplay, progression systems, boss design of which by the way there are 20 ranging from excellent to fine to rage inducing. There is another small wrinkle that makes the game different from other recent Souls likes. Remnant has a sort of procedural campaign generation. To see all of the areas and bosses one might need several playthroughs or at least a bunch of co-op as bosses are rolled when you start your campaign. This means that each playthrough will be a little bit different. Whether this is a worthwhile change is probably going to be a matter of opinion. I will say it was cool to find new enemies and areas on my second playthrough though I might have just preferred the games to be longer and have everything in it from the start. Even holding back several areas though the campaign is a 20 to 35 hour affair depending on how much you want to co-op with other people. What was there wrong? A bunch of things apparently. Some reviews lingered on bad lip syncing or poor cutscene animations forgetting that Dark Souls has literally no lip syncing. Others have reduced the game to, and I quote, a mix of the division and Dark Souls which is insane because the game has literally nothing beyond a third person camera in common with the division. Still others have complained about the lack of lore or an only decent story or graphics that aren't cutting edge yet all of these complaints are the kind of things that are outright ignored in an indie game review. Remnants graphics are as good as can be expected from a 25 hour indie Souls likes. Reviewers have complained it's too much like Dark Souls when they praised Neo which is basically Dark Souls in Japan with an active reload stamina system. Then other reviewers seem to think it's not enough like Dark Souls and that it doesn't have enough lore or mystery. Very few reviews have given it the indie benefit of the doubt. It's too good to get the extra 10 indie points but too low budget to get the extra 10 triple A production value points. What's obvious to me however is this is the freshest take on a Souls like yet. The switch to guns utterly changes the combat in a compelling and interesting way and the difference in weapons makes each gun change how you play almost like how Destiny's weapons do. The game rewards map and situational awareness as well as Twitch shooter skills and even it's melee combat is satisfying. Everything Remnant sets out to do, it achieves. It's got a large and well designed world of interesting and unique locations. It's maps are winding and require careful attention. It's enemies are fair, hard and fun to fight. It's bosses are varied enough to stay fresh all the way through and it's reliance on weapons, mods and acted cooldowns meant that every time I got stuck I was able to smartly look at my loadout and find a solution. Remnant, in my opinion, sits with Salt and Sanctuary as the two best non-from Souls likes yet released. It did everything I wanted it to do and somehow got danged for it. Not only do I recommend it, I recommend Darksiders 3 and I'll be eagerly awaiting any DLC they want to sell me for this. Provided the inexplicably poor views don't end up making the game a failure. Beyond even that, many pundit types have been lamenting the disappearance of the middle budget double A game for several years. They fell all over themselves to praise Hellblade, Senua's sacrifice, a decent game but much inferior gameplay experience to Remnant. And yet, they refuse to give these type of games the same benefit of the doubt that they do to Indies. They say they want mid-budget games and then they slam games for having mid-budget production values. All right, if you prefer to not live in a world where we only get Celeste and Call of Duty and if you like gameplay over most everything else, you should buy this. If you like Souls games, you are 100% guaranteed to enjoy this. If you've never played a Souls game, this is actually a very good place to start with the ability to play co-op all the way through until you're comfortable. And if you've got $40 for what easily feels like 60 bucks of value, you can make a statement with your purchase that you want games like this to keep being made. I bought it on PC and loved it enough that I then bought it on Xbox for my son. I hope I can convince even one person to give it a go. All right, thanks for coming. See you next time, bye.