LukasTaves
Member
I did watch the whole video. Read the whole post. There are more arguments in my post beyond the first sentence.
Sorry, I posted and was a mobile so I couldn't properly respond.
Did you watch the video? The guy himself complains about the controls being imprecise. And you linked one moment from the game. Bad games can have good segments. That 5 minute section doesn't make up for the rest of the game if people dislike the rest of the game. Most players probably won't even bother with that section. Different people have different opinions and play games differently. I tried the trial and found the game to be unpolished and mindless. When reviews express their different opinion they're not necessarily trolling. They just have different expectations and perspectives.
You make a fair point, if the game was mostly bad. It's not, and that's something that even the absolute lower score reviews from the game agree, here's some snippets from the Destructoid review, the lowest (4) it got:
"Are those cores weighing you down," ReCore's antagonist asks toward the end of the game. Whether or not the developers realize it, it's an apt bit of meta commentary. ReCore is brimming with ideas -- some great and some not -- and their collective heft pulls everything down.
ReCore is a prime example of what happens when a game is built upon a solid foundation but is marred by bad design. For a while, that foundation holds steady. Then, it starts to show some cracks. Eventually, it all crumbles.
All of this collecting is propelled by two main systems: platforming and combat. The platforming is one of ReCore's brightest-shining mechanics. At all times, Joule has a double jump and a forward dash. Despite covering long distances and leaping to moving targets, Joule is always fantastically easy to control. Landing while carrying a lot of momentum surprisingly works more often than not.
The combat is similarly great, but only at first. This is a third-person shooter with a mild puzzle slant. The attacking robots are different colors. With a press of a directional button, Joule's rifle matches that color to deal extra damage. She also has a grappling hook that can rip the cores out of enemies that are low on health via a tug-of-war minigame.
But, the minute-to-minute of ReCore amounts to hardly anything more than fetch quests. Almost all progress is walled off by collecting a few of something to move forward. "Find two cores to open this door." "Collect the four robot parts to learn to fly." ReCore quickly falls into a repetitive gameplay loop that it never really breaks away from. More importantly, that loop never does the narrative justice.
Basically they say is:
The game has great gameplay, everything is really perfect at first (save for you know the bugs and perf issues) but then the games crumbles because it demands you to gather tons of cores.
This is basically where all the reviews sit, and where I strongly disagree.
Many makes the point that until the very end game just doing the main story the game hands you all the cores you need, but on the end the core count increases without (to 45) the game giving you no warning and you are left with a insane grind quest to claim those cores. I believe this is not true at all. The game right away establishes that these cores are important and that you have to collect many of them (they are used as a key, and right on the first area you start you see a door that requires 75, or pretty much all of them), and the game constantly presents where you can find them in the open world. It literally points you to those dungeons, to areas in the overworld that require some great platforming in the veins of Banjo, and other minor activities like the ones that create a arena that you have to kill all enemies to be able to get the core.
That's basically what the gameplay consists, very well super crafted platforming and combat segments which the award for winning them is an extra core.
Just to give an example, on my first play through I was at 20 ish core count before even unlocking the 3rd bot, and that without any back tracking, I was just exploring the world and trying to beat all the dungeons I found as I went my way through the game.
Whilst this video was great to watch, and I'm quite liking Recore from the 5 or so hours I've spent with it... I don't think you can blame reviewers for not seeing the best in a game's mechanics if they may simply lack the skill required to get the most of it. I actually think Recore in many ways is similar to some of the better 3D Sonics, in that when played well on some of the more challenging segments the game can appear to look (and even actually play) better than the majority of games in its category... but that's not going to everyone's experience with it, and a reviewer shouldn't be demanding to "git gud" in order to have their impression considered valid. Especially in most of the audience they're reviewing for also won't "git gud", and as a result more likely share that reviewer's initial opinion.
Also like 3D Sonic, the game's scores and people's general impressions of it are/were harmed by a bunch collision bugs and long loading times, that may have elevated it noticeably had the game received a bit more time to have these ironed out.
Also "it's too punishing... controls like shit" is probably not the sort of commentary you want in a video to make the points you're making.
A lot of us say a lot of shit that we probably wouldn't (or at least shouldn't) say as a brand representative. Even if there's some truth to what you're saying. On GAF I can declare someone a blind fanboy who has nothing but praise for everything regarding one console manufacturer, and nothing but disdain for another... regardless of how similar certain aspects of the two are. Would I tweet that to any of them if my twitter handle was XboxUK? Fuck no... because then it cascades into more petty bullshit with a 20+ page GAF thread, where the general takeaway becomes "Xbox peeps = salty mothafuckas". There's all sorts of shit I can say here that I'd never ever say whilst representing any company/brand/whatever.
The game didn't scores as they would like. That's fine, there are plenty of people that are enjoying it, and not every game has to be for everyone. In fact, in some cases a game excelling in certain aspects, that may require dexterity beyond what many players possess won't resonate with them for that reason. That's neither their fault, nor the developer's fault.
About the first bold, it's a very fair point, but one I don't think it applies to Recore. The sonic 3d games have fundamental flaws on the gameplay (at least the first ones), it's something you can get by if you are really good but it's there.
On Recore, the mechanics are not challenging at all, from shooting, to dashing and the platforming everything just works, and the game is also very fair with the challenges. For instance, each dungeon has 3 primary objectives, complete in a short time, shoot all the interrupters and find and get a hidden key. Just finishing the dungeon without doing any of the optional tasks give you a core. Doing it again gunning for each objective is also a piece of cake (except for the time sometimes) but the game usually (I want to say always, but I'm not sure) always gate the extra cores on those other objectives, so you can take your time and usually leave the dungeon with 2 cores. The great challenge comes for trying to do them all at first try. You have to be almost perfect to get it right, but it's so thrilling that when you do, that's basically the reaction you have: You get screaming out of enthusiasm. And usually doing a perfect run only gives you some high level parts for your bots, and not cores.
The game is also very well balanced combat wise. Your bots level up quickly and even if you don't extract the cores (which can be a layer of extra difficult on some tougher battles) you get core fragments. This means that just going by shooting stuff you gain cores that are used to power up your own bots, which means that even if you aren't that good in the combat you don't face anything unfairly tough.
On the second bold, I agree completely. It's a shame the game came out with those bugs, because it's truly something great that could be a masterpiece with these issues ironed out. And also because it came in a very packed time, Recore, Forza Horizon 3, and Gears 4 all in a few weeks between was definitely an overkill.
On the third bold. It's actually exactly the commentary I wanted. Why? Because the player knows it's your own fault, but you get mad at the game anyway for exposing that at you, but when you finally completely it you start screaming like a little girl. That's one of the reasons for me it's one of the high ups of this generation so far. The game is extremely satisfying. When I unlocked Seth and went to the insanely great platforming moments it unlocks I was griming at the whole time, and Joule in game chatter reflected exactly that thrill.
And finally, on the last bold. Even though it wasn't responding to me. I personally don't care about a game I like getting bad reviews, but imo Quantum Break and now Recore were both completely destroyed by the critics to the point it hurt their sales potential and chances of getting a sequel.
And it's really bad when you see two games that really excel in gameplay getting so low scores like they did.