Horror adventure returns: Remothered: Broken Porcelain review

After the huge success of the award-winning Remothered: Tormented Fathers, two years later the sequel, Remothered: Broken Porcelain, has been released. The new horror adventure seems promising – but can it keep up with the first part of the series?

Familiar Unknown Face?

In this part of the series, we slip into the skin of Jennifer, a young girl. She currently works in a hotel and seems to have a slight problem with authority. Of course, it doesn’t stop there, because soon the hotel’s employees go crazy and attack Jennifer. So there is an escape route to be found.

Players of the first part will notice the name directly. Jennifer shares this name with a character from the predecessor. However, the story of this part is not directly continued. Broken Porcelain takes place both before and after Tormented Fathers. So the story of the first part is not only told further, but expanded with more details and background information. If you haven’t played Tormented Fathers yet, don’t worry: the game offers you a summary of the plot of the first part.

In this respect, the game shines. The story is interesting and manages to raise many questions at the same time, but also to answer them. The only drawback here is the dialogs. Here the writing sometimes slackens and tears you out of the actually exciting plot with inappropriate statements.

Through the hotel with moth power

Gameplay-wise, Broken Porcelain offers two major elements: stealth and puzzles. As you search for a way out of the hotel, you’ll have to keep dodging staff members while looking for specific items.

This is where a new gameplay element comes into play: the moth power. With this, you can slip into the body of a moth and control it. This can be used to accomplish various things, from activating mechanisms to getting an overview of enemies and their positions.

Unfortunately, the moth’s controls feel a bit shaky and spongy, which becomes frustrating rather than fun, especially under time pressure (due to a pursuing enemy, for example). As much as I like the idea at this point, the implementation is lacking.

Not So Alone

As Jennifer roams the hotel, she sometimes meets other characters who are -at least temporarily- on her side. These are your main source of information about what’s going on. In addition to this, you’ll always find smaller scraps of paper and newspaper clippings for more background information.

Unfortunately, the characters are not always clear in what they say. So it can happen that a character suggests one thing for the progress of the game, when the solution is a completely different one.

Otherwise, the main plot around Jennifer is repeatedly interrupted by dialogue outside of the hotel. Later in the story, the connections between these and the events surrounding Jennifer become clearer.

As confusing as the plot may seem at times, if you pay close attention, you will discover an exciting and interesting story at this point, especially if you have played the first part.

Charming environment

On a visual level, the game impresses in more ways than one. The environment is beautifully detailed and the enemies are all creepy in their own way.

Throughout the game you play different characters – these all have their own walking animations, which are shaped by each character’s idiosyncrasies.

The only drawback here is that Jennifer’s braid sometimes does what it wants – whether it’s floating around in mid-air or hanging in the middle of the camera’s frame in a cutscene and blocking it, the thing has a life of its own.

Bugs, bugs and more bugs

One factor that often makes the game more frustrating than amusing are the bugs. Be it a whole cutscene that doesn’t play and you suddenly find yourself in the game with a very large question mark over your head, or important objects that simply disappear and lead you into a dead end. Some of these bugs have already been patched out, but there are still many in the game.

In addition, the user interface is not ideal. As you progress through the game, you can of course pick up items, open cabinets, etc…. For this, a button for interacting pops up on the screen accordingly, as soon as you are close enough. But only this – if two things are lying next to each other or something is lying on a chest of drawers, it can quickly happen that you don’t pick up the desired object, but open a drawer. What the consequences are of quickly grabbing a knife for self-defense is probably obvious – and very frustrating.

Conclusion

Remothered: Broken Porcelain unfortunately can’t keep up with the first part. It is not a bad game, but in direct comparison, it unfortunately has to take a back seat. At least at the moment.

The game has been out for a while now and has certainly improved since release, thanks to several patches. According to the trend so far, more patches are coming, so it’s quite likely that the game will develop into a really entertaining title over the next few months.

I can’t easily give a buy recommendation. Depending on your play style – and the amount of bugs – you’ll get about four hours of playtime. For a price of 21 Euros (current: € 19.95 *) this is a bit little, especially considering the many bugs and glitches. However, if you can overlook these things, you will experience an eerie, but also tragic story.