RemiLore: Lost Girl in the Lands of Lore Review – A Girl and Her Book

Sometimes all a game needs is a cast of cute protagonists and its well on its way to gaining my interest. However, things usually change after gameplay is thrown into the mix. Thankfully, developer Remimory has a nice combination of both of these elements and way more packed in their new rogue-lite adventure game RemiLore: Lost Girl in the Lands of Lore.

While most titles in this genre can be seen as difficult, RemiLore offers enough to keep the game interesting for hours on end. What’s more surprising is how well this action-filled title runs on the Nintendo Switch. With that said, there are some low moments of gameplay, which were quickly forgotten about after I realized that five hours had passed and I still felt like playing.

RemiLore stars a girl named Remi who is tasked with cleaning a dusty library. While complaining, she discovers a book that comes alive and transports her to another world, Ragnoah. The book’s name is Lore and he informs Remi that if she wants to get home, she’ll need to fight her way through robot infested areas to a portal. These robots were created by Choux, an android who was once close with Lore but has since gone a little crazy. With Lore’s help, Remi ventures out into Ragnoah to find her way home.

The story plays out fairly light-hearted and comical as Remi and Lore are often talking amongst themselves between battle or complaining about the state of events. However, there are moments where interesting things are discovered about the characters as well as Choux and Lore’s past relationship. Story scenes are kept short allowing players to quickly jump back into the action, but the developers put in enough scenes for the story to have a proper beginning, middle, and end. Suffice to say, you aren’t really left with many questions after the end of the story.

I enjoyed the story for what it was. The character audio was brilliant and the actors played their respective character well. Each scene was over-the-top and dramatic and I felt like this made the trio of main characters so unique. They didn’t fall into tropes, instead, they each come off original as the conversations they shared often left me smiling. The likability of the characters is important due to the game’s rogue-lite hack and slash features. It allowed necessary gaps between the action to limit the game from feeling repetitive or overwhelming, which this game can border on.

At its core, RemiLore is a rogue-like procedurally generated hack and slash game that doesn’t get too crazy with its level design. Players run through floors of differently themed dungeons until they get to the level boss. However, if they die, well, the only options are to start the entire game over or go back to the first floor of the dungeon, but that’s just the nature of this beast. Thankfully, throughout your adventures, stronger weapons are found and points can be used to upgrade Lore and Remi’s skills.

Level designs, although different in theme, are identical in layout. Sadly, there aren’t any gimmicks to be found such as a slippery ice level or traps that test your skills. This means that your main enemy, the robots, are also your only enemy types found throughout the entire game. Where this would normally cause concerns for repetitive gameplay, there is a good number of different robots to fight against. RemiLore does offer a ton of weapons to use in the game, each with different stats, abilities, and attack combinations. The weapons can range from a sword to a frying pan, but the only way to unlock other types of weapons is to beat the game.

RemiLore features mid-bosses and end bosses that each offer their own layer of difficulty. With that said, depending on the difficulty that you’re playing on, some fights can feel a little too easy in the event that you have one of the powerful upgrades equipped such as Lore’s bullet storm or the freeze ability. Each of the abilities can be upgraded using points and many of them are crucial to use in battle if you hope to make it out alive. Fights can be extremely one-sided if the weapon skill equipped is one of the less powerful skills such as the ability to destroy all the bullets in an area. While this skill is nice sometimes, it’s not needed when a group of melee robots with hammers are plowing away at you.

Replayability is everything in RemiLore and the game has tons of different modes offered in New Game+ to keep players interested, including new story content featuring Choux. However, beating the game is easier said than done as the game can get extremely difficult at times and stingy with its health potions. Dying isn’t the worst thing that can happen, but the game’s save options are pretty confusing. You see, you can save the game during the story, but you will be sent to the beginning of the level that you’re on and will need to go to the Title screen.

This is more of a Suspended Save feature. However, this also limits the modes you can access making it so if you can a suspended save in story mode then switching over to co-op mode will erase your save. Given that the story can take around 2-4 hours too complete, an accidental mode change could lose a lot of progress within the level. With that said, the game does save upgrades and weapons regardless if you die or start a different mode.

RemiLore also features a nice layer of customization outside of the many outrageous weapons found in the game. While completing achievement players can unlock new costumes for Remi to wear into battle. Each costume is cute and adds to the replayability for those who wish to see her in new clothes.

Additionally, there is a co-op mode where players can play with a friend and hack and slash their way through hordes of robots. I did enjoy this feature, but the game doesn’t get any easier with a friend. However, as someone who enjoys layers of difficult RemiLore offers so much for the player to get frustrated over and put their skills to the test.

RemiLore: Lost Girl in the Lands of Lore is a difficult and frustrating game that is also consistently fun throughout the entire main campaign. However, the game’s best modes are locked behind completing the game once through, but this also makes for a great reward for those who clear the game’s relatively short story.

RemiLore: Lost Girl in the Lands of Lore offers plenty of replayability for players to unlock new costumes, difficulties, weapons, and upgrades, but it is definitely a game for fans of dungeon crawling rogue-likes with a love for hack-and-slash mechanics. The story is on the short side, but the characters managed to win my love with their humorous dialog and charm. I’d like to add that the game feels and runs great on the Switch which made the experience all the more enjoyable. Lacking level variety and enemy designs aside, RemiLore: Lost Girl in the Lands of Lore is a fun adventure that fans of this genre will easily have a great time with.