Porcelain isn’t the only thing broken here

I’ll be the first to admit, I had never heard of the Remothered series. So, when Remothered: Broken Porcelain was sent to me for review, I had no idea what I was getting into. Come to find out, this is a follow up game to a previous Remothered game from about two years ago called Remothered: Tormented Fathers. I had no idea until I started the game up and it showed me a “Previously on Remothered.” So, I’m going into this review knowing nothing about the first game other than what was shown to me from the introduction.

Broken Porcelain has players controlling Jennifer, a young girl who is living in a hotel that has been converted into a girl’s home where she has to help out due to her delinquency. It takes place in the past, and as far as I can tell, it jumps back and forth between two time periods, but I never knew when each happened. The story itself is shown in a confusing way and maybe if I had played the first game, it would have enlightened me, but even the way it is presented here is a bit haphazard. Things begin to go south when Jennifer begins to see some of the keepers of this place begin to act strangely and aggressive.

Platforms: XB1, PS4, PC, Switch
MSRP: $29.99
Price I’d pay: $8

Essentially, this is a horror-based stealth game. Jennifer must avoid the enemies stalking the halls of the hotel as well as finding her way out. The game presents the player with objectives that they must accomplish before escaping, either to a new area or to a new cutscene. Jennifer can set up traps and diversions to get the attention of the enemies and she can use melee weapons like knives and spades to break free from attacks. Seems simple enough especially with the tools presented, but the execution of this is far from good. In fact, it’s downright bad.

You see, the player is forced to take down an enemy. The only way to take down an enemy is by attacking them from behind with a melee weapon. Jennifer can only sneak up on enemies by crouch walking, and crouch walking is so slow that by the time she’s reached the enemy, the enemy has turned around, spotted Jennifer, and has begun relentlessly chasing after her. This then forces the player to run away, hide for a time, and then try again. The first encounter, which is the easiest of them, offered a simple play route with only a few options to deviate. What should have been a simple encounter that took maybe ten to fifteen minutes to complete took me 45 minutes, and I ended up never actually sneaking behind the enemy but kept picking up melee weapons, letting the enemy grab me, and stabbing them with it to break their hold, which ended up taking much longer since it is not an instant stun. It was a chore and a half to do.

To start off, it was pretty creepy and nerve-racking. Having this slightly slow but constant lumbering thing chasing after me was actually pretty atmospheric and, in the setting that it was in, it worked, but after having to retry six times, it quickly went from scary to annoying.

There is some minor puzzle solving like finding a combination in another part of the area as well as Jennifer being able to control a moth that would allow her to reach a certain area, but these puzzles were never the main crux of the game.

Along with some sluggish sneaking and bothersome AI, the cutscenes and overall game optimization were lacking as well. I had audio cutouts and I got stuck on the environment at least three times. There was even a point where I had finished a segment, the game loaded, and it never loaded the cutscene. I was forced to turn off the game and reboot it so I could have the cutscene play.

While I know there are fans of the series, and from what I can gather, Tormented Fathers was actually a decent time, Broken Porcelain feels off to me. Perhaps it needed a few more months of development time to work out the bugs and maybe have a better optimized stealth mechanic, but I don’t think we’ll ever know. There is some complexity to the story and some decent atmosphere, but it takes a lot to actually get into it. If you’re invested in the series, this is a maybe, but if you’re looking for a horror stealth game, there are others to just play much better.

Review copy of game provided by publisher.