Review for ReCore: Definitive Edition. Game for PC and Xbox One, the video game was released on 29/08/2017
Last year I closed the review of ReCore with these words: "The numerous flaws and ingenuity in the development prevent the child of Comcept and Armature Studio from reaching the Olympus of cult games, and this can only be sorry, since in some respects ReCore is a unique and decidedly ambitious work “. It was clear, at that point, that it was one of those titles that could have benefited enormously from a revision: this is precisely the nature of ReCore: Definitive Edition, downloadable for free by owners of the original version and offered at the introductory price of € 19,99 for all others. Now let's find out if the goal has been achieved.
What's new?
Obviously a good part of the review linked above fits perfectly to describe ReCore: Definitive Edition; what we will try to understand is whether the additions and improvements are sufficient to correct the criticalities highlighted last year. On the other hand, as you can read on the website of the game, the meat is not very little.
Most of the real news can be traced back to new post-game mission "Obsidian eye", carrying out which we will conquer new Objectives (20, for a total of 500 points) and we will find two new areas, ten dungeons ten, various enemies, three upgrades for the weapon and new schemes for the parts of the nucleobots. In this picture the new T8-NK chassis, Tank for friends: it is in fact a crawler on which Joule can climb to overcome quicksand and to speed up travel. Given the peculiarity of Tank, the new mission focuses almost exclusively on this nucleobot, also offering the player several speed races. It goes without saying, however, that all the new elements collected can also be used in the other areas: Tank could awaken in some players the desire to explore neglected areas in the course of the original main adventure, so much so that its presence since from the start it would have helped the game a lot.
The new mission has a fluctuating quality but overall it is enjoyable, even if perhaps there was no need to increase the already good - perhaps excessive - duration of ReCore by another handful of hours (just over two for those who need to be shipped, four or five for those who focus on discovering secrets without too much haste). It is obviously one quest in line with what has already been seen, except for the massive use of the new nucleobot and the new shooting modes, to be managed with the directional arrows in a not very comfortable way. Fortunately, no disproportionate amounts of prismatic cores are required, but the barrage at level 36 (the level cap has been raised to 40) for the final boss can be annoying.
As for the areas already visited, the vast area of the Shifting Sands is now subject to sandstorms, which provide excellent opportunities for grinding and looting.
The little things
Some of ReCore's loudest tumbles were about the little things: disastrous loading times, poorly made maps, very long movements ... elements that are taken for granted in many other high-profile titles, so much so that they are often not even mentioned in the review. Now many of these imperfections have been eliminated or filed down, so much so that those who were interested in ReCore but do not yet have it can really consider themselves lucky, because their first playthrough will be much better than Day One.
First, i loading times: they have not been completely eliminated, but they are a lot less intrusive. Now the only annoying uploads, which can settle around thirty seconds, are those of passage between one area and another, which is still less than in the past. On a technical level, we find HDR support and improved resolution (with obviously better performance on Xbox One X), but nothing transcendental.
Maps have also improved, with increased zoom and more precise gauges. Finally, among the many roughnesses covered by the Armature Studio labor file, it is worth noting the enhancement of fast travel, which will make moving around much faster, also by virtue of the aforementioned reduced loading times. Furthermore, from the various nodes it will be possible to perform some of the operations that once took place only in the Sand Sweeper, such as depositing the loot and changing teams.
ReCore: Definitive Edition still smacks of a wasted opportunity, but definitely less than the "smooth" version: the developers, in fact, have intervened on the main critical issues of ReCore, but without making it "perfect"; we could rather say that it is less imperfect than before. This does not mean that the excellent launch price can make the Microsoft exclusive appealing to a certain segment of users, who will find themselves playing a less frustrating title than the one released last year.
► ReCore: Definitive Edition is an Action-type game developed by Armature Studio Comcept and published by Microsoft for PC and Xbox One, the video game was released on 29/08/2017
