ReCore is a new-looking game with a charming, much older-feeling soul. It’s less interested in telling a cohesive story than it is in throwing elaborate, well-designed platform challenges and combat scenarios at you. It’s an old-style approach that’s executed so soundly I wanted to ignore its technical and structural failings, but ultimately they do take some of the wind out of an experience that could have otherwise been great.
ReCore starts out strong, building its gameplay suite piece by solid piece. Combat, traversal, and exploration are all handled well individually and balanced nicely against one another so I never felt overloaded or underserved by any one part of it.Of the three, combat stands out just a bit more because of a skillful mix of decision-making and reflex-testing that feels demanding but never overwhelming. On the surface, color-coding ammo types to the color of enemy they’re strongest against seems almost insultingly simplistic, but it ends up being just one piece of a much larger, more interesting puzzle.Finding the Rhythm
Color aside, each of the five customizable robotic frames for your AI-controlled sidekicks are particularly strong or weak against certain types of foes (such as wolves or tanks) regardless of their color. Knowing this, you might switch to your yellow bot despite facing a blue enemy because you’ll still have the type advantage. Further, recognizing situations where you can exploit both type and color advantages can allow you to fell even the most leathery tough adversaries in seconds.It doesn’t help that ReCore is also dogged by some technical rough edges. Perhaps its biggest issue, at least on console, is its shoddy overall performance. While a mid or even lower range PC can handle ReCore just fine even at max settings, the Xbox One version rarely if ever manages to make it to 30 fps. It never interfered with my ability to play in any significant manner, but it definitely degrades the visual joy of exploring Far Eden a bit.