Welcome to our CHEATfactor Game Review of ReCore. We review the game and then factor in how the available cheats affect the overall game experience. For better or worse, our reviews will help you decide whether or not to use cheats when playing the game.
ReCore has all of the makings of a classic game. Fun, frantic combat? Check. Solid platforming? Check. Remarkably interesting world? It's got that too. Somehow though, Microsoft's highly anticipated action title left me wanting more and not in a good way. It's a ton of fun to play but ReCore suffers from a number of problems that effect it's pacing and just the sheer ability to enjoy playing it.I still enjoyed my time with the game, but did so almost despite the game's best efforts. ReCore is a good game that could have been a great game if a few issues had been addressed before launch.
Right from the moment ReCore starts, it drips with cool. You play as Joule (pronounced Jewel) on the planet of New Eden. It's a sandy planet that's been targeted by human kind after Earth was wiped out by a nasty disease. In the beginning of this process, humans and sentient robots, known as Corebots worked together to make New Eden home but playing through the game you'll find that the robots aren't content with just helping out and start to revolt. The story is cool but it's the world it's built around that grabs your attention more than anything else. New Eden is a fully realized world complete with working bots and a complete sense that this world exists not just because of you. There's a history to this place and it's a lot of fun to explore. There are clear similarities between Joule on New Eden in ReCore and Rey on Jakku in The Force Awakens but there are enough differences when you play through that it seems original enough.
Of course, the game comes from a pretty good pedigree as Keiji Inafune, known most for being the creator of Mega Man (and perhaps also for this year's alarmingly disappointing Mighty No. 9) serves as Executive Producer. Inafune's influence is clear right away in ReCore as the game revolves around different types of robots and robot technology and half the fun of the game is finding different types of robots to either team up with or defeat and finding the best way to do so. Your robot companions are some of the most original companions you'll find in quite some time and they're completely upgradable through parts you find scattered throughout the world. Deciding which one of your robot pals is best to take into certain situations is a lot of fun and adds a huge amount of depth to the game's combat.
That combat though is remarkably fun on it's own. Using Joule's riffle, you'll shoot attacking bots and while that may seem awfully simple (and it is), ReCore has a few tricks up it's sleeve. As you play through the game you'll unlock different colored upgrades for the riffle and for the best results you'll have to match up the color of the bot with the color of your ammo. It's a simple idea that goes a long way towards building the game's fun combat. You're making these decisions while jumping around like a jackrabbit over your enemies attacks and commanding your corebot buddies in their attack. One of my favorite things to do in ReCore is the tug-of-war like mini game that finds you pulling the core directly out of your enemies when they get weak enough. It ultimately helps in building your resources towards the end game and it's a gosh damn rewarding final exclamation point on some of the game's biggest battles.
The other half of ReCore is surprisingly enough a platforming game and it's remarkably solid. The game feels a lot like a 3D platformer like Ratchet and Clank but built in a completely open world environment. Thanks to a super responsive control scheme jumping around and exploring in ReCore is a lot of fun and the game doesn't suffer from the problems a lot of modern day action platformers do where it becomes frustrating trying to make it to certain sections. Traversal in ReCore is actually really fun, that is until the game starts sending you on fetch quest after fetch quest and insulting your intelligence. Take one quest very early in the game for instance where you're looking for the corebots to power a door, you search for them, you find all six of them and then the game tells you that you need to find more of a different type of corebot to open the door. This happens a lot in ReCore and it often happens at the worst possible times. You'll think you finished a section and you'll try to move on but the game will require you to go back and find a certain amount of core's to advance. It unquestionably pads a game that didn't even necessarily need it.
Then there's the clear performance issues that haunt ReCore at every turn. The game is available on both Xbox One and PC and is the first major release (I'm not counting Quantum Breaks's horrid PC release) to take advantage of Microsoft's “play anywhere” line which allows you to buy on one platform and play for free on the other. While both handle ok enough, the PC version is clearly the better build, at least as of this writing. The Xbox One Version rarely reaches the targeted 60 frames per second and has some pretty horrid load times; sometimes as much as more than two minutes. These are issues that can be patched over time and I hope they do because ReCore is a fantastic game that deserves better.
Despite it's flaws, I really enjoyed my time with ReCore. It's a fun and inventive game that takes multiples influences, handles them well and rolls them in to an experience all it's own. Sadly though a slew of technical and pacing problems stop it from being the great game it could have been but the doesn't mean you shouldn't play ReCore as it may surprise you just how much fun you'll have.
