Review: “Remothered: Broken Porcelain” (Computer Game)

Back in late 2018, I got a vaguely modern computer and the first game I bought for it was “Remothered: Tormented Fathers” (2018). I’d expected this game to be like the classic survival horror games I played during my youth, but it turned out to be a genuinely terrifying stealth-based survival horror game that frightened me more than any game I’d previously played. Naturally, when I heard there was a sequel – “Remothered: Broken Porcelain” – being released in 2020, I was intrigued. But I didn’t know whether this game would run on my computer, so I held back.

Flash forward to last October and GOG was having a Halloween sale. Since I was stocking up on DRM-free horror games and because “Remothered: Broken Porcelain” had been reduced to about seven and a half quid, I decided to take a chance on it 🙂

Apologies for the low quality of the screenshots in this review – I played this game on a PC that is… below… the game’s system requirements, so I had to really turn the graphics settings down in order to get the game to run at a just about playable speed.

Likewise, I’m playing the version of the game that was available in October 2021. From what I’ve read, holding off for a year after this game’s release in 2020 was a wise move because it was apparently rushed out unfinished in order to meet a deadline back then. In the year since, it has had quite a few patches and I experienced few to none of the glitches that many early reviews mentioned.

Likewise, although this game contains an optional recap of the events of “Remothered: Tormented Fathers”, it is well worth playing that game before this one – given how “Remothered: Broken Porcelain” is both a prequel AND a sequel to it. The story may not make sense if you don’t know about the first game.

Anyway, let’s take a look at “Remothered: Broken Porcelain”. This review may contain SPOILERS.

After a scary playable introduction, the game’s story starts in the present day. Like in the previous game, a journalist searching for his missing sister talks to an old woman called Madame Svenska who regales him with her memories related to the case.

We then flash back to the winter of 1973. A teenager called Jennifer is having a terrible day. Expelled from boarding school and sent to work in a remote Italian mountain hotel called the Ashmann Inn, not only has her latest escape plan been foiled but she has also seriously fallen out with her best friend Linn too. Then, as if things couldn’t get any worse, the rest of the staff suddenly turn into scary possessed killers who are out to get her….

Scary killers in a “Remothered” game? Who would have guessed?

In 1992, Rosemary Reed visits the Ashmann Inn in her continued quest to track down Jennifer. She meets the owner, Stefano Ashmann, who has been expecting her. The two quickly find themselves locked in a battle of wits with each other as Rosemary tries to find out the truth…

Woo hoo! Film noir detective work!

One of the first things that I will say about this game is that, whilst it isn’t quite as focused or consistently scary as “Remothered: Tormented Fathers” was, this is still a surprisingly good horror game. It is an ultra-suspenseful game with an emotionally-powerful, if occasionally confusing or melodramatic, story that also tries to innovate on the “run and hide” survival horror formula in all sorts of ambitious ways too. Yes, it doesn’t always succeed at this, but I certainly don’t regret playing this game. Whilst not perfect, it is certainly still good. It has personality and atmosphere.

As for the game’s horror elements, the main source of horror here is the extreme heart-pounding nervous suspense that comes from avoiding, fleeing from and/or hiding from vicious killers. Yes, because of the game’s structure and the auto-save feature, there isn’t quite the unrelenting sense of constant threat that there was in “Remothered: Tormented Fathers” but significant parts of the game still managed to evoke a similar feeling of abject terror in me. The game also builds suspense in other clever ways, such as one part that requires you to go against your instincts and approach one of the killers.

Remember, both this game and the previous game have trained you to avoid vicious killers. So, having to actually approach one feels terrifyingly counter-intuitive.

In addition to this, the game also manages to be genuinely frightening on regular occasions thanks to a plethora of other types of horror. There’s psychological horror, creepy characters, disturbing subject matter, gory horror, a few well-placed jump scares, story-based horror, creepy places, scientific horror, brutal cruelty and some genuinely terrifying sound design.

Seriously, I usually wait until later in a review to talk about sound design, but this game sounds terrifying. In order to work up the courage to complete one segment of it, I actually had to take my headphones off and play the game in complete silence. You’d be surprised at how much difference the sound design makes to the scariness of this game. It’s a scary game!

Weirdly though, the segments where you get to play as Rosemary Reed again are actually the least scary parts of the game.

Plus, whilst the previous “Remothered” game was inspired by both “Clock Tower” (1995) and 1970s/80s Italian horror movies, this game takes more influence from the works of Stephen King. I’ve read a small number of his books and seen a few films based on other books by him, but I’m not really a Stephen King expert. Still, the influence from King’s “The Shining” (1977) and “Misery” (1987) is fairly obvious in this game. And, lead designer/writer Chris Darril really manages to make these influences his own and fit them into the “world” of the “Remothered” series really well 🙂

As for the gameplay, it mostly starts out as a fairly typical “run and hide” survival horror game – with hiding places, last-ditch defence items and distraction items. However, as the game progresses, numerous new gameplay elements get added. You occasionally get to use projectile weapons, there’s an escort mission where you help someone else sneak around, you can find collectables, you gain paranormal-like abilities that can be upgraded (such as being able to fly a moth around in a drone-like fashion), there are boss battles, you can do some very basic crafting, there are areas that set off alarms if you run, you can stealth-attack the villains and, in one segment, you actually get to be a villain for a while.

Wow! I never realised what hard work it was too! 

These innovative experiments can be a little hit-and-miss, and the slightly increased emphasis on fighting back lessens the horror and can be a little cumbersome or frustrating at times. Still, when the innovations work, they certainly add something to the game 🙂

Yes, this comes at the cost of some of the constant focused suspense and terrifying vulnerability found in “Remothered: Tormented Fathers”, but I have to praise this game for trying new stuff – not to mention that some of the added gameplay mechanics are actually kind of cool. Plus, they can occasionally prevent the game from feeling unfairly difficult as well. The “auto-save” feature is an absolute godsend!

Well, this is all feeling a little bit too “Resident Evil 4”. Still, combat is thankfully only an occasional thing and there are auto-saves before boss battles too 🙂

Another cool feature of this sequel is the fact that there will sometimes be multiple villains stalking around an area at any given time. Still, this feels a little under-used and a lot of the time, you’ll only be avoiding one villain. Even so, I have to praise the variety of villains in this game – all of them are surprisingly creepy.

Not only that, one of the villains – Stefano Ashmann – actually has a ranged attack too, which is something you don’t see very often in stealth-horror games. Plus, the previous “Remothered” game had an evil nun in it… and this one also has an evil monk too 🙂 Ok, he just looks like a monk, but fans of games like “Blood” (1997) will probably be overjoyed at this.

Alas, he just whistles a terrifyingly catchy tune, rather than loudly screeching “Crudox Cruo!” or anything like that…

I should probably talk about the game’s story, which is much more of a focus of this game than you might expect. It’s a complicated non-linear story, told via lots of flashbacks and flash-forwards, and some may find it to be confusing. There’s an optional re-cap of the events of the previous game and, if you haven’t played it, then watch this before playing!

Plus, if you get confused, there are wikis and plot summaries online that might help. And, yes, the game’s plot does actually make sense if you pay attention to it. It’s a really good story that combines some seriously disturbing horror storytelling with a bittersweet “you have a heart of stone if it doesn’t make you cry at least once” sub-plot about the friendship between Jennifer and Linn. Seriously, the characters in this game are surprisingly good.

Ok, there’s a lot of angst and arguments – this is a game about teenagers – but the characters are still really compelling.

Yes, the game’s dialogue can be an acquired taste – there’s exposition, melodrama and, perhaps appropriately, an “edgy teenager” quantity of four-letter words. Still, this is all part of the personality and stylised charm of the game.

It’s an indie game written by one person with a creative vision, rather than a soulless “written by committee” corporate product. The imperfections in the writing are endearing, rather than annoying. Plus, again, the underlying story is really good. Even if you can’t follow the plot, the drama between the characters and the sheer scale of the story – taking place in three time periods – is really ambitious and dramatic. It’s the sort of story that is closer to a novel than a movie, if this makes any sense.

Or even an old-school horror comic at times, it seems. Seriously, this is a really cool Easter egg 🙂

Still, the scale of this game is a little bit of a double-edged sword. It makes the gameplay feel a bit less focused at times. Instead of a game – like “Remothered: Tormented Fathers” – which felt like it was a continuous experience that took place in real-time, this game is structured more like a series of levels.

You complete an objective or two, there are some cutscenes, then you’re sometimes somewhere completely different. Sometimes, levels can consist of combat-based boss battles – which can feel a little out of place in a stealth-based game. The level-like structure allows for more variety and a larger-scale story, but it does come at the cost of constant focused suspense. Still, when this game is suspenseful, it is really suspenseful 🙂

Not to mention that it still keeps a fair amount of the atmosphere of “Remothered: Tormented Fathers” too.

The voice-acting in this game is reasonably good for an indie survival horror game too. Surprisingly, I only found one moment of unintentionally comedic voice-acting. This was when, during a boss battle, Jennifer shouted: “Linn! What can I do? The moths are acting like a shield!“. The sheer absurdity of this and the ultra-serious way the line was delivered literally made me crease up with laughter when I first heard it. Still, the voice-acting in this game is really good by survival horror standards. It errs more on the side of “drama”, but this still works surprisingly well in the context of the game.

In terms of length, it’s a short-medium length game. This game took me approximately 6-8 hours to complete with moderate walkthrough usage. However, I’ve seen comments online where people mention that they completed it in just 3-4 hours. I guess a lot of this depends on how much stealth-horror games scare you and how good you are at the game. I was frightened enough to play very cautiously and slowly during the earlier parts of the game. I was also playing on a PC below the system requirements, which made fast-paced segments that require precise aiming a bit more difficult due to choppy frame-rates. A more fearless player with a high-end gaming PC might breeze through these segments a bit more quickly.

All in all, whilst not perfect, this is still a really good horror game 🙂 Yes, the complex story and level-like structure can make the game feel a little unfocused and less consistently scary. Yes, the increased emphasis on combat and boss battles can be a bit awkward in gameplay terms. Yes, the game is perhaps over-ambitious at times. Still, when this game is good, it is really good. And it is good quite a lot of the time. Especially given how many bugs have been fixed via patches in the year or so since its release. Ok, it’s possibly more of a “get it during a sale” kind of game, but it is a scary game that has personality and it is something I’m glad that I played.

If I had to give it a rating out of five, it would get a four.