Remnant: From The Ashes is the Most Fun I’ve Had in a While

You know that uncontrollable urge you get to toss your $5,000 PC out the window of your third story apartment? Of course you do.
Maybe not out of a third story apartment window, but you know.
That’s what Remnant: From the Ashes made me feel when I had to fight some of the nightmares the developers refer to as “bosses.”
Like seriously, who thought it was a good idea to make you fight 2 giant bugs that infect you – limiting your stamina, stab you with long pointy spears that you find difficulty dodging because.. well, you’re infected and have reduced stamina, then shoot field-wide laser beams at you?
All while trying not to roll off the flimsy bridge you’re standing on!

But with those bosses came the majority of the fun: Trying to strategize ways to defeat them.
See, Remnant is an action RPG set in a post-apocalyptic world where the Root – an army of Groot like tree people have all but driven us to extinction.
We are the chosen few, destined to bring an end to their tyranny and attempt at genocide by..

– exploring run-down cities
– descending into dark caves
– trekking through swamp-land
– cutting our way through lush forests
– and traveling through interdimensional portals leading to other entire worlds co-existing alongside ours in a- wait, what?

To save mankind from the Root, we’re told by an old lady to find an old man that can help us. And thus begins our journey.
Thankfully, we have a full arsenal of weaponry to aid us on our journey, along with special Mods we can equip onto our weapons that allow us to.. summon tentacles from the ground, shoot out infectious diseases, and.. wait, is this a good idea?
You guys barely know me. I could be some kind of psychotic killer. Or worse yet – I might NOT be! Let’s see you guys win a war with a pacifist! Bet you didn’t think of that.
You run around the world, breaking crates, barrels, chairs, tables, and various other objects you can find to loot Scraps – which is the currency in this game. Oh, and Iron. All different kinds of Iron.
The various types of Iron you find around the game are used to upgrade your weapons and armor – things that you’d think you’d need, but, this game scales with your gear!
The stronger your gear gets, the more difficult the enemies get! So if you thought upgrading your gear would give you an advantage… well you’d be right, because it does, but that doesn’t change the fact that enemies scale with you.
Which is actually pretty cool – honestly, as otherwise it’d become very, very easy.

So, armed with your gear you set out on a journey to save the world. Then the game really begins.
The first time my wife and I played this game we encountered Shroud. We were new to the game and weren’t very good at it admittedly.
So it took us about a half hour to beat. That was probably the most difficult encounter we’d had up until.. probably those giant moths on the bridge.
But bosses were incredibly difficult, and required you actually learn mechanics. One wrong move and you could screw things up for the other person.

By the end of the game, after having traveled to 4? 5 neighboring worlds and uh.. y’know, just.. killing stuff in each of them, we made it to the final boss.. Sasuke Uchiha.
Or at least that’s who I assume it was since he sounds just like him.
This boss.. this boss left me with the uncontrollable urge to- well, you watched the beginning of the video – you know how I felt.
If you didn’t fight this guy on 2-player co-op then I don’t think you can fathom just how tedious the fight was, especially without the correct gear upgraded.
You’re required to soak up enough stacks of damage increase in this world while the other player fights the monsters you kill back with the boss.
Then you’re supposed to deal enough damage to the shell of the boss to break open the barrier holding Sasuke in his chest, while dodging meteors from the sky and adds trying to screw you from behind.
If you manage to finally kill the boss – which took us about an hour and a half, then… uh, you blow up a building and sail off into the sunset?
Yeah. In a very picturesque style.

All in all, though, this was an incredibly entertaining game. Since starting, my wife and I have played it through three times – finally obtaining +20 gear and finding every little hidden secret and boss we can.
And there are a lotta different bosses – since each boss has a 50/50 chance of being one of several for each playthrough, leaving a lot of replayability.