Warning: This article contains mentions of transphobia, homophobia, death, and spoilers for Remothered: Broken Porcelain.

I’ll confess, before we go any further, that I had to sit with Stormind Games’ Remothered: Broken Porcelain for a while to figure out precisely how I feel about it. If I had to pick a single word, I think I would have to go for “ambivalent.” I was cautiously hopeful for improvements over the first game’s story and mechanics that would serve its fans well, and I do think there are certainly some. At the end of the day, though, I’m not convinced that they’re polished or meaningful enough to really make this half-sequel half-prequel worth the wait.

For what it’s worth, the soundtrack is solidly unnerving and the game’s ambiance is very well-crafted. These might be the strongest aspects of the game, helped along by competent environmental design. This never entirely allows you to forget, though, that the location at the heart of the game seems to be a mix-and-match of some horror stock locations, half haunted hotel and half psychiatric institution. That is, if you traded out the ghosts for parasitic moths and the electroshock for memory-altering and rage-inducing drug experiments.

However, there are some balancing issues between spoken lines and environmental sounds. At times, dialogue is far louder than background noises. In other places the sounds of characters’ footsteps seems bizarrely loud compared to everything else.

Similarly, there are some lines of dialogue that are in the subtitles but seemingly were never recorded by the voice actors, creating some odd syncing issues. It’s a shame, given that the voice acting is overall well-inflected and convincing. This is true even when the written lines of the script are on the unwieldy side and don’t necessarily read like natural speech.

Mechanically, dealing with enemies seems to be mostly comprised of running and hiding, though Jennifer has some capacity to distract, stun, and slow her pursuers with found or crafted items. On occasion, this produces some unintentionally comical exchanges; for example Andrea once said “Enough with the hiding!” when I was still standing in front of her. However, it’s an enjoyable addition to sequences that might otherwise feel on the repetitive side.

That said, the controls and animations to collect items for crafting are both clunky and finicky, leaving this central mechanic a little on the frustrating side. Several of these issues were present in the preview material released earlier on, and I was willing to be patient with them at the time. No demo or preview, after all, is ever as polished and well-crafted as the finished product, right? Yet it’s odd that said finished product doesn’t actually feel that different.

The chase sequences let themselves down in one fairly significant way, too. Hiding in a locker is nothing new to survival horror fans, nor are QTEs to stay hidden. Song of Horror and the Dark Pictures Anthology have both featured these, for instance. Broken Porcelain does little to explain how these QTEs work or what you’re supposed to do, threatening to trade tension and fear for confusion and frustration.

On the visual side, while there’s an enjoyable degree of detail in the face models — I can count Jennifer’s freckles and eyelashes from the moment I meet her — some character animations feel stiff and awkward, whether in mouth movements or in walking around. Similarly, Jennifer’s braid often behaves strangely, moving in unusual ways or hovering slightly in mid-air. The transition from cutscene to playable action is often also jarring, with abrupt and clunky changes in posture signaling that you are back in control.

As for the story, the game’s opening sequence throws you into the thick of tension without explaining much of anything about where you are or what you’re meant to be doing. This is less scary and more on the confusing side. You’re obviously running from something or someone, but the character you’re playing as seems to know a great deal more than you do. You only learn that Jennifer was trying to escape from the Ashmann Inn in a cutscene that follows this initial chase.

Indeed, this opening sequence seems emblematic of the overall handling of the game’s story. There are certainly some ideas that have promise here, but they’re overshadowed by meandering, unclear writing. They are also marred by the lingering of the first game‘s deeply concerning transphobic elements in the background as the story unfolds.

Meanwhile, the romance between Jennifer and Linn that seemed to be the backbone of much of Broken Porcelain’s marketing ended up somehow both integral to and tangential to the plot. On one hand, the relationship provides Jennifer with some valuable knowledge and tools for her survival and overcoming of the danger she’s in at an arguable climax of the game.

On the other hand, the relationship’s development seems to mostly happen in the past, on the sidelines, or between sequences. Thus, when we reach its end and fully understand how Broken Porcelain is the prequel to Tormented Fathers; it doesn’t feel as fulfilling or meaningful as the marketing seemed to promise. I wouldn’t necessarily call it “bury your gays,” though that’s something I’ve been dreading since I first met these characters. Still, there’s little of interest or value, at this point, in closing your story off with a character who is essentially a widowed lesbian, either.

If I was to take the gloves off, I might question whether using Jennifer and Linn so extensively in the marketing was an effort to appease the queer and trans gamers who’d been hurt by the first game. I might wonder if they were also providing an ending that would be palatably inspirational for the cishet gamers who didn’t care the first time around. That would be terribly cynical of me, though, wouldn’t it?

A PC Review Copy of Remothered: Broken Porcelain was provided by Modus Games for this review.

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Remothered: Broken Porcelain

39.99

5.5

Score

5.5/10

Pros

• Solid ambiance and soundtrack
• Decent voice acting
• Compelling face models

Cons

• Character animations leave something to be desired
• Finicky controls
• Sound balancing feels a little off
• Some story elements remain confusing and less than satisfying
• The transphobic tropes of the first game are still present