Remothered: Broken Porcelain

Remothered: Broken Porcelain is not quite the sequel I was expecting from Stormind Games. Whilst it continues the interesting saga of the Felton and Ashmann families, the game is still lacking in polish (even after updates have patched out the worst issues), and is relatively short and linear. This is worth a play for genre fans, but it doesn’t stand out in the same way that its predecessor did. Not quite Broken anymore, but certainly in need of some repair, this Porcelain doesn’t have that ring of quality I was hoping for.

Once Jen learns how to use a knife, Remothered stops being scary: instead of hiding from the enemies, you can just stab them in the back. There are also numerous technical problems, like getting stuck in the furniture or being spotted through solid walls. [Issue#249, p.70]

This really scary and attractive survival horror experience has so many technical issues that it´s almost unplayable in some scenarios. We have hopes that the developers fix it properly in the coming days.

Even though Remothered: Broken Porcelain is an improved sequel, it is vitiated by a plethora of bugs and technical issues. At least it is somewhat comforting that the developers have been applying updates regularly, so the game may one day reach the refined state it should have been in the first place.

My experience with Remothered: Broken Porcelain was brought to a halt several times after I had to restart my game and figure out a way to progress without soft locking it. On the surface, this is a beautiful, moody horror game, but once you look deeper, you’ll see that the real horror is the game’s mechanics, pacing, and plot. I had such high hopes for this game, but after a few hours, I was looking to check out of the Ashmann Inn early.

We are really sad to confirm that such a promising project has sunk in a sea of bugs, control issues and unstable sound. If you REALLY love horror, maybe you should give it a chance, but be ready to get frustrated more often than not.

You can almost see the decent game Broken Porcelain could have been. At the moment of writing it is a buggy mess that's more frustrating than fun.

We are almost certain that behind the creative disaster of the game of Stormind and Darril Arts there is a problematic development process, perhaps rushed in time and not well thought out. The fact is that the result is very bad, and most likely no patch will be able to fix the situation.

Remothered: Broken Porcelain is a frustrating, bug-ridden and rather ugly mess. However, it does offer an intriguing narrative and a palpable sense of insecurity, and I wish the same story was retold by another studio with more resources at its disposal. [13/2020, p.47]

It's difficult not to have the feeling of playing something incomplete and sloppy which ultimately, despite some good ideas, does not honor the big names in the horror world from which it is inspired.

After the decent Tormented Fathers, Remothered: Broken Porcelain is a searing disappointment on virtually every front. Even ignoring the presence of numerous bugs, no aspect of the previous title has been improved and indeed, it almost seems that all those unconvincing elements of the first game have been viciously exasperated.

There are also numerous graphical issues, flare-ups, and technical difficulties that show that Remothered: Broken Porcelain could have definitely benefited from more time in the oven. If you're looking for some survival horror for this Halloween season, look elsewhere.

Remothered: Broken Porcelain is a textbook example of a bad horror sequel that mostly sticks to its predecessor’s formula, without really understanding what made it work. Between a jumbled story, shortage of tension, annoying new mechanics, and a flagrant lack of polish, Broken Porcelain in a follow up only a mother could love.

In the end, it's safe to say that Remothered Broken Porcelain failed to keep up to expectations set by the first game. Broken Porcelain's story is weird and the shallow gameplay and not so impressive puzzles don't help either. Add tons of bugs and technical issues to everything I just said and you'll realize that it may be the best choice to ignore this game.

By offering a prequel to his horror-psychological game, Chris Darril has the merit of bringing us a little more precision on the story, while putting a final touch to Rosemary Reed's adventures. It's a pity that the production of the title isn't up to the task and that the gameplay is so tedious — not to mention the inconsistency of the game. Additionally, the numerous bugs sure don't help. There were ideas, but unfortunately, they were not successfully implemented.

Remothered: Broken Porcelain is simply broken. Do you a favor and don't waste your money on it.

Remothered: Broken Porcelain fails to learn from its predecessor's mistakes by providing a more complicated narrative, and things don't get better with frustrating chase sequences and glitches.

Broken Porcelain has a great foundation, but it is soon ruined by its terrible combat, it’s trial-and-error design, bugs and, overall, poor gameplay.

Remothered: Broken Porcelain feels so incomplete that I'm surprised I managed to complete it at all. While Ashmann Inn is rich with suitably menacing horror movie-inspired interiors to explore, the actual encounters with its inhabitants are frustratingly clumsy and Jennifer’s moth ability is a poor substitute for the more cerebral puzzle-solving of 2018's Tormented Fathers. Add in a slipshod story structure and a raft of technical issues, and Remothered: Broken Porcelain is ultimately a hugely disappointing sequel.

Remothered: Broken Porcelain fails at most things it sets out to do. Its story is a convoluted and incomprehensible mess, its gameplay is bland and boring and let down by poor AI, and all of its technical issues only make things worse. If there are any redeeming qualities here, they’re not good enough to make up for all the ways the game keeps finding to frustrate its players. Investing time in it makes about as much sense as its name.

With its numerous glitches and flaws, Broken Porcelain instead becomes a superfluity of horror game tropes; its cheap jump scares, laboured stealth encounters, and confusing plot now an unfortunate fixture of what used to be a promising survival horror series.

It’s not just the bugs and glitches that make Remothered: Broken Porcelain a bad game. It’s the core designs. It’s how these systems function, or rather fail to function. It’s how the story is blasted out in chunks of exposition. There’s a lack of finesse to the entire experience. No number of patches can fix these problems. Overall, even fans of the previous title may find it difficult to get through what's on offer here.

I don’t blame Stormind Games for sensing that urgency, but it seems obvious now to me, and perhaps to the team, that a more polished Remothered: Broken Porcelain is a better proposition than the version we got, rushed to the store before it was ready. Remothered: Broken Porcelain doesn’t deserve to be your Halloween stream of 2020, but give the team some time and they may be able to piece it back together.

Errors, bugs, frustration and cringe: Remothered Broken Porcelain is one of the worst horror games of the year.

Maybe the writing is good? The voice acting? The visuals? Nope. Remothered: Broken Porcelain looks awkward, the writing is weak and the voice acting… actually the some of the voice acting is alright. So, at least it has one redeeming quality, otherwise, this one is a hard pass.

Broken Porcelain could just be named Broken. It is not only the abundance of technical issues the reason of its low quality but more so the fundamental gameplay design that leads to an especially frustrating and non-rewarding experience. It gives the impression that the developers not only didn’t pay attention to the major shortcomings of the first Remothered, but they decided to double down on them.

Broken and buggy. Remothered: Broken Porcelain is marred with poor design decisions, a nigh-incomprehensible plot, and a lot of poor taste. In its current state it's barely playable, and it's really not worth the effort.

If the game is patched extensively, there are hints of an interesting enough story to make it worth a playthrough. However, at launch, the amount of game-breaking bugs present makes Broken Porcelain practically unplayable. It’s only because I had the duty to review it that I got as far in as I did, and I doubt the typical gamer will have the patience to get past the first hour.