Remothered: Broken Porcelain – Nintendo Switch Review

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Fast Facts

Remothered: Broken Porcelain

Developer: Stormind Games
Publisher: Modus
Website: https://www.stormindgames.com/remothered-broken-porcelain/
Genre: Survival Horror
Platform: Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One
Age Rating: 18
Release Date: 13/10/2020
Price: £29.99

A code was provided for review purposes.

Introduction

The Remothered series has had quite a troubled and complex history. What started as a 2-D homage to the Clock Tower games was soon scrapped and re-imagined into a more cinematic survival-horror experience. The first title in this new series; Remothered: Tormented Fathers, was a sleeper hit amongst horror fans. Praised for its storytelling and scary atmosphere, it was pretty certain that a sequel would be on the cards.

Now, two years later and the Remothered series is back. The latest game; Remothered: Broken Porcelain, acts as a sequel and a prequel to Tormented Fathers. Broken Porcelain aims to continue the story started in Tormented Fathers, as well as tie-up a few loose ends.

Story

Continuing on from the events of Tormented Fathers, Broken Porcelain fills in many of the larger gaps in the background of that game’s narrative. It acts as both prequel and a sequel, with the playable events taking place in the past. While the present-day events are delivered through cutscenes and dialogue. It’s an interesting approach and is one that works for the majority as it successfully maintains a lot of suspense and uncertainty.

We play as a young girl named Jennifer, who has been placed in the care of the owners of a Hotel and she works as a maid. Things quickly unravel, and you soon have to escape from the horrors of drug-induced nightmares that cross the line between reality and hallucinations. The story gets a bit more convoluted when we play as Rosemary. In these more narrative sections, we get to, yet again play as Rosemary Reed, the protagonist from the first game, as she discovers the mystery behind that game’s events. The Remothered series has so far focused mainly on family bloodlines, nightmares, and trauma, and this game certainly continues those themes.

Gameplay

Gameplay largely revolves around stealth, with a few puzzles and some combat sections. The main focus here is on survival horror rather than action, so your offensive capabilities are highly limited. To hammer this point home we can only carry a single-use defence item at a time. This means that boss fights consist of hit and run tactics to collect another defensive item whilst making use of the hotel’s layout to avoid death.

There are also distraction items to give you some respite and, more importantly, this help set the enemies up for a handy sneak attack. Enemies can be a mixed bag. On occasions, they seem balanced in how they can detect you, but other times they act like Superman and can hear you coming from a mile off. It’s annoying as when Broken Porcelain works it’s quite a fun game. When you add in the strange ability to control moths that we unlock later in the game, there is certainly enough here for Broken Porcelain to stand on its own.

Given that the game’s focus is on stealth and hiding this aspect felt a bit inconsistent in its delivery. More often than not I’d emerge from a hiding place thinking the danger had passed, to only walk straight into my pursuer who was hanging around just out of sight. The main bulk of the stealth gameplay does work, however, its little issues like this that take the shine away.

Audio

Audio is a key part of any horror game and Broken Porcelain follows suit with the eerie music, threatening ambient noises, and unsettling effects to fit. Whilst these all fit in with the general survival horror theme there is room for improvement. Now and again some noises didn’t trigger properly and the chase music can be as much as an enemy as the games actual enemies.

The voice acting has a slight B-Movie quality to it that fits in with the low-budget horror feel. Whether this is deliberate or not it works in Broken Porcelain’s favour. What did surprise me is that there is a crazy amount of swearing in the game. Normally this doesn’t bother me but, given the child protagonist, this didn’t always have the desired effect. However, the writing is pretty strong considering everything else feels low-budget.

Summary

Remothered: Broken Porcelain is not quite the sequel I was hoping for. Whilst it continues the interesting saga of the Felton and Ashmann families, the game is still lacking in polish, and is relatively short and linear. This is worth a play for fans of the survival horror genre, but it doesn’t stand out in the same way that its predecessor; Remothered: Tormented Fathers did. Remothered: Broken Porcelain isn’t necessarily a bad game, its just not very good. And considering how well its predecessor was received, it’s a real shame.

Rapid Reviews Rating

You can purchase Remothered: Broken Porcelain on the Nintendo eShop by clicking here.