ReCore Video Game Review
Story
ReCore is set on the desert planet of Far Eden. Humanity has fled the Earth due to the Dust Devil Plague and plans to terraform this new world with the help of corebots, animal-like robots built for all manner of tasks. You play as Joule, an engineer who was woken from cryo-sleep before the colonists to assist with the terraforming. But something went wrong. Joule is unable to find the rest of her team, including her father who is the head of the Far Eden project. And to make matters worse, the corebots have gone rogue and are following a mysterious leader, Victor. Rather than helping Joule terraform the planet they attack her on sight. Her companion corebot, a K-9 frame named Mac, is her only friend as she tries to figure out what happened, defeat Victor, and get the terraforming back on track.
Gameplay
ReCore’s gameplay consists of Joule platforming across the world as she fights rogue corebots and collects prismatic cores, which power the larger machines around Far Eden. Traversal is accomplished by her exoframe which allows her to double jump and air charge. Acquiring more friendly corebots (the AI personalities) and frames (robot bodies to put them in) grants new abilities, like the SP-DR corebot which allows her to ride on rails, the FL-1R frame which allows her to glide short distances, and the T8-NK frame which she can ride and race. The platforming is fun and controls well.
Joule’s weapon is a rifle with unlimited ammo, though it does need to recharge after continuous use. Different colored ammunition is effective against correspondingly colored foes. There’s not a lot of enemy variety, but some unique bosses do mix things up. The third person shooting has you lock-on and dodge while you drain enemies’ health. Joule can also launch a grappling hook and attempt to yank the enemy corebot out of its frame, killing it instantly. Additionally, your corebots each have a special combat ability. Combat gets very repetitive, and essentially becomes a game of just survive until abilities recharge. Some encounters are extremely easy while others are crushingly difficult, even if you are appropriately leveled.
If you follow the main story path, you’ll have a fun (albeit short) adventure until you reach the final section, Eden Tower. Unfortunately, the developers chose to add a ridiculously tedious platforming section at the end. Floating platforms, laser grids, fighting amidst poison gas, this section feels out of place from rest of the game (astatically, story wise, and every other way) and artificially adds over an hour of playtime in a boring slog. I will admit the main path felt too short, but this was absolutely not the way to address that.
While the main game was too short, the side objectives are too long. There are over a dozen optional dungeons, but each one is pretty much the same. You race to complete the level in under a certain amount of time while hitting eight floating switches and finding a hidden key. You have to accomplish all three tasks in one go to claim all the rewards. It was interesting the first time or two, but doing the same objectives over and over (even if the maps were different) got old fast. Even exploring the larger world maps to collect prismatic cores, audio logs, and corebot parts got too repetitive.
At first ReCore felt reminiscent of old classics like the original Spyro trilogy or the first Jak & Daxter game, but you can only find so many dig spots, break so many boulders, or complete so many combat challenges before you’ve had enough. Those classic games thrived by adding new challenges, minigames, and characters to keep you interested, but ReCore is missing any compelling reason to keep going beyond the main story. Unfortunately, you have to halt your progress on the story to explore and collect enough prismatic cores to open the next main dungeon.
Another confusing design choice was limiting you to only having two corebots equipped at a time. By the end of the game you acquire three corebots which you can assign to any of five frames. Only one is active on the field, but your second one can be swapped out at the touch a button. The problem is each of the five frames have unique traversal abilities necessary for exploring and collecting prismatic cores. This means you’ll constantly be coming upon an area you don’t have an active frame for, warping back to the nearest fast travel point, swapping out your corebots, making your way back to the obstacle, and then repeating the whole thing a few minutes later when you come to another one. Why can’t we just cycle through all five frames on the field? Since only one is actually on screen at a time, this would have no impact on combat and would cut down on backtracking considerably. Unless of course it was an intentional decision to artificially lengthen the game even more.
Final Thoughts
I really wanted to like ReCore. It has an interesting story, Joule is a likeable character, and the idea of fighting and collecting robots is cool. Your three corebots are great companions, and customizing the frames with the hundreds of parts you find throughout the world is quite fun. Unfortunately, poor design choices and too much repetition sucks a lot of the enjoyment out of the experience.
There’s still some fun to be had here. If you stick to the main story path you will have an enjoyable, albeit short journey (other than Eden Tower). Once you start delving into the optional content however, monotony will set in quick.
My Rating: 3/5
