In a lot of ways, ReCore feels nostalgic. This is not just a dig against its outdated graphics.
ReCore, which comes out September 13 for Xbox One and PC, is about a girl tasked with making a desert-like planet terraform into something friendlier for human life. She’s all alone, except for her robot dog … and all of the other machines that try to kill her. ReCore has a lot of starpower behind it. Keiji Inafune, who worked on the Mega Man series at Capcom, is the producer. Mark Pacini, who directed the Metroid Prime trilogy, is the director. Those are some of the most classic gaming series of all time. It’s a big shadow for this third-person shooter to try to peek out of.
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Above: Get ready to jump.
What you’ll like
Zelda meets Metroid meets Mega Man
When trying to explain ReCore, my brain becomes obsessed with comparing it to other games. Mega Man and Metroid are obvious because of the people behind ReCore, and you see elements of those here. The focus on shooting and platforming is similar to Mega Man, as is the reliance on so many robotic characters. The isolation and lock-on mechanics for shooting remind me of Metroid Prime, the 2002 first-person shooter for the GameCube.
What surprises me is how much Zelda is in ReCore, especially in its structure. You walk around an overworld littered with dungeons, which work here like they do in Zelda: You unlock doors, solve puzzles, fight enemies, and beat a boss.
But ReCore also has more role-playing game mechanics than those series. You and your robot friends can level up the more you fight, and enemies also drop items that you can use to craft new gear. Like how Zelda rewards exploration by giving you rupees, new items, or extra health, players can discover rare items and schematics for upgrades to their robot companions.
Above: Pew pew pew.
Lots of mechanics
Shooting and jumping in Mega Man was relatively simple. You just needed a couple of buttons. ReCore is more complicated, but its numerous systems add depth. Your main weapon is an automatic laser rifle. Every enemy has one of three color types (blue, red, or yellow). Your gun can also shoot ammo of each color (although you only start out with a neutral ammo type and have to earn the other colors). Enemies take more damage from shots of the same color and resist the others, so you’ll often have to switch your weapon type in the middle of the fight.
Your robot friends also help during battles. They fight on their own, but you can also press a button to have them do a stronger attack that’s available off a cooldown. On top of your regular shots, you can also fire a charged shot from your gun. This can stagger enemies if they’re in the middle of certain animations.
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The most interesting system involves extracting enemy cores. You need them to upgrade your robots. You can only extract an enemy core when they’re at low health. Then, you begin a tug-of-war battle reminiscent of something you’d see in a fishing game. You want to pull back on your analog stick to rope the core in, but you’ll sever the connection if you tug for too long while your extraction cable is red.
Trying to remove a core comes at a cost. Doing so can make you vulnerable to enemy attacks, so you may only want to do it when you’re down to one enemy. Also, taking out a core from an enemy means they don’t drop any spare parts, which you need for crafting. I love that you have to make these choices.
- Shiny.
What you won’t like
Technical issues
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As much fun as ReCore’s been so far, it has plenty of technical problems on the Xbox One. Loading times are long. You’ll wait for more than 30 seconds every time you transition to a new loading zone, which can happen fairly regularly. Going to a new part of the map, going inside your home base, entering a dungeon, or dying will trigger these long loading zones. Even after a patch, I still experience long load times every time I boot up the game, die, or enter a new area.
ReCore isn’t the prettiest game. It’s not a graphical powerhouse. You’d probably be fooled if someone tried to pass it off as an Xbox 360 game. I really don’t mind mediocre graphics, but I do wish that such a game would at least run smoothly. Sadly, ReCore struggles to run at a steady framerate, with the action noticeably stuttering when even a few enemies are on the screen.
Unfulfilling crafting
You can find a lot of items while scavenging around the desert. You can use these to create new equipment for your robots. Many of the treasure chests you can find unlock new blueprints these upgrades. But, aside from the cosmetic differences, these improvements feels lacking. When you’re in the middle of a fights, it’s hard to tell exactly how much of a difference your companions are making in a battle. Your own performance is significantly more important.
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Basically, the aid your robots offer in fights never feels that significant, so it’s disappointing that all of the crafting revolves around improving them.
Conclusion
ReCore is fun game betrayed by technical woes. I love the combination of shooting and platforming, but it just doesn’t have enough polish to back up its solid mechanics. It could have used some extra time in development to smooth the experience out.
Sometimes I have enough fun that I’m willing to work around the long load times. We’ve seen so few 3D shooter/platformers in recent memory, I’m glad that ReCore — like a robotic dog trying to get rid of a nano-tick — is scratching that itch. But even I have my limits, and I usually hit them after staring at my third, 30 second loading screen after continuously dying during the same fight.
Score: 70/100
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ReCore is out on now for Xbox One and PC. The publisher provided GamesBeat with a digital copy for this review.
Disclaimer: Former GamesBeat staff member Dale North worked on the music for ReCore. This did not impact our score.