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[NSW] RemiLore

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    [NSW] RemiLore

    I was trying to find a way to easily describe RemiLore and "Diablo with anime girls" immediately sprang to mind. I guess if I want to continue down this road I can also say "RemiLore is the Dark Souls of Diablo-like games with anime girls" or something to that effect.
    Most probably IGN will hire me on the post if they read that.

    Please don't say anything to IGN about this post.

    Anyway, RemiLore is a top-down dungeon crawler/roguelike starring Remi, a highschool girl transported into a land of magic by Lore, a talking book. Remi wants to go home, but in order to do that she has to fend off a seemingly unlimited number of hostile robots; at Remi's disposal a large number of randomly generated weapons ranging from swords to tennis rackets. As weapons are randomised, their appearance doesn't account for much (unless you really like seeing a girl beating on robots with a giant pair of scissors), what counts is the damage range, weapon type (sword, hammer, staff, etc.), special characteristics, and ultimate spell. The ultimate spell can be activated as long as Lore, always together with Remi, has enough mana. To recover mana you need to collect sweets, dropped by robots and everything destructible in a stage. Collected sweets are also used to improve Remi's proficiency with weapon classes, spells, and other bonuses like discount at shops, better efficiency of healing potions, and so on.

    Stages are arranged in groups of three, with a fourth featuring a boss battle. For every group, there's a new location. Stages' layout is randomised, and if you die you are brought back to the first stage of a group. RemiLore isn't a particularly difficult game but it's stingy with health potions, and you can only purchase one at the end of a stage, which might not completely refill your health bar, or you won't be able to afford it because you spent sweets on upgrades or weapons. The latter occasion is only theorical, I never had "money" problems because sweets are plentiful throughout stages. I did find collecting sweets a bit bothersome though, those dropped by enemies aren't automatically awarded and you need to be rather close to them to pick them up; sweets dropped by destructible objects are automatically collected, but since every single room has a ton of objects, smashing everything becomes tiring quickly. And it's not like you can skip some of them, later upgrades are as expensive as useful, so rooms have to be first cleared of enemies (you are graded for every encounter and time is one of the factors), and then explored again to collect dropped sweets and destroy everything.
    Stages aren't particularly long, controls are fluid, and Remi runs fast enough, but after an hour or so of doing this routine, I wished for automatic sweets collection in every room.

    I've only played up to the third location, totalling less than two hours in total. I did die twice along the way, but once I got used to perform short combos, dash away, and repeat, everything went rather smoothly, even the boss fights. Graphically, every location has the first stage set during daytime, the second during sunset, and the third during the night; not only stages feature harder enemies as they progress but they also become harder to read; it's nothing major, but getting hit due to an enemy not being properly illuminated is frustrating.
    Framerate in docked mode was solid throughout, though the second location (a seaside resort with moving, transparent water as background) did take a hit compared to the first. I'd say the first location moved at a solid 60fps, while the second was in the upper 40s, probably topping at 60 when the water wasn't on screen. Graphics are bright and cheerful, but due to the randomised nature of stages, repetitive. I wish the camera was zoomed out a bit more and projectiles more visible though. Some long-range attacks also have a deceptive wind-up window: you see enemies charging up a shot, that animation stops for a second, and then they fire. Again, nothing major, but I've found that strange and threw off my dodging more than a couple of times.

    The one thing I don't like about the game right now is the sound mixing: voices are waaaaay too loud. But only voices during cutscenes. As Remi and Lore explore dungeons, they will have some random banter, and those voices are (I think) handled as sound effects. However, when something story-related happens, cutscene volume kicks in, and I had to turn it down at nearly half the other sliders (for BGM and sound effects) so that they won't be louder (and by a lot) than the rest of the game. Volume options are also unavailable during the game, you have to save, get to the main menu, adjust them, and hopefully when you get back into the game everything will be as you like.

    For now RemiLore is fun within its limited scope, the biggest question is if the system will keep being fun throughout the duration of the game.
    Fun fact: it comes with a manual! A very tiny manual because it's held on the same side as the cart, but it's a manual nonetheless! There also was an handkerchief as a preorder/first print run bonus, but who cares. Manual!

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