Score: 3/5
A very tentative recommendation.
Significantly better in some ways, somewhat worse in others, this remake is still a moderately fun, well-paced, anti-immersive jumpscare-horror-drama experience that fails at both genres by frequently obliterating immersion with half-♥♥♥♥♥♥ design decisions and writing aimed at a dopamine-driven audience.
[b]The Good[/b]
1. Incredible visual improvement from the original. Although some of the animations for one of the main character’s arms when walking can be janky/unrealistic, almost everything else has that AAA polish.
2. The intro has been changed in a few ways that make it more believable than the original, with added intensity of the ship sequence, subsequent physical trauma to the crew, and some improved dialogue/characterization.
3. Less technical bugs than the original, which was a major issue holding it back.
[b]The Bad[/b]
1. Significant amount of race/sex swaps, and age/physical modifications of the characters, including the PC, which actively detract from the experience. The PC being a voiced protagonist was also a waste of time and budget, as he takes over multiple lines from other characters.
2. The boss-babe is still a poorly written, annoying prick. She forces passive-aggressive teenage-level drama into the intro and rest of the game that doesn’t make sense for her role/career, while destroying immersion in the dark, horrific atmosphere the game is attempting to set up. I would have enjoyed both the original and this remake significantly more if she was written by someone much more competent, or replaced/removed entirely.
3. Although the PC’s movement and melee attacks are significantly smoother, having a space repairman/engineer/mechanic in a protective rig/suit move like he’s an FPS character while being able to [spoiler]stun-lock some enemies with his wild, untrained swings[/spoiler] was not what I wanted. In the original, having the PC run, turn, aim, and attack a bit slow/janky was charming/immersive. Unfortunately, it wasn’t just a bit too slow/janky back then. But this version overcorrected, having him acting too fast/smoothly.
4. Tutorial starts out significantly better for a few minutes, then copies and pastes the same issues that plagued the original: 5-7 messages/pop-ups/audio-logs/graffiti/dialogues all explaining the same basic combat concepts that were clearly communicated by the second message, with one of the last ones actually introducing new information the other character figured out, followed by the original basic combat concept repeated again, then another interested/novel idea around it that almost every player in the original would figure out on their own.
All that in 5 minutes… you’re killing me. Is the target audience for this dark, gritty horror game with gratuitous violence small children who have never played a game before?
5. Anti-immersive. The creatures can [spoiler]turn a human corpse into a necromorph[/spoiler]within a few seconds. Absolute trash. Lights are visually represented as taking as much electrical power as demanding electrical machinery, and has to be turned off in order to power said machinery and give the player more gameplay with low quality puzzles. Because the lights being off is scary, right? Because fighting monsters in space on a damaged space rig isn’t inherently scary?
6. They changed the save system to default to a new save, and to give an unskippable confirmation pop-up each time. You save every few minutes.
7. Basically zero replay value for me, even though it was designed with NG+ in mind. After struggling through DS1 (2008) once, I couldn’t will myself to complete it a second time or this remaster-or-whatever once because of all the atrocious crap in the way of the plot and good moments.
