This game is a genre defining staple, an intricately designed monument of deck building strategy. For the new player, it's challenging but readily understandable, so long as you have the grit to accept frequent failed runs. It's a quick enough game it never feels too bad to lose, yet fair enough that assessing your own strategy always feels meaningful, even when bad luck strikes true. The feeling of the first successful run and subsequent ascension (challenge mode) victories feels aptly tied to your progress of improving as a player. For the advanced player, the incredibly well balanced and thoroughly complex mechanisms keep even the most dedicated reason to play into the thousands of hours. The game is, of course, not perfect by any means, but the game has a polish of such a high standard that even the weakest tools in the game have their place. A definite recommend for anyone that likes strategy games.

Important Note: This rating assumes both DLC are owned, as they greatly contribute to the overall experience. Without them the game would likely fall a star rating. Still a good game, but notably less enticing.

This has been a fantastic co-op 3rd person shooter experience. I can't say I feel Remnant: FTA does anything particularly innovative, but that's not a bad thing as it's easy to pick up and hard to put down. It's got great build customization, simple but intriguing bosses, and solid gameplay mechanics. I do have several gripes: Melee is generally awful despite having plentiful equipment tailored to it (I could explain at length but for review's sake I will withhold), many enemy attack hitboxes are seemingly disjointed or delayed unpredictably, and puzzles are almost entirely of poor design; many make no more sense after researching the answer. Less problematic but noteworthy, infrequent yet game breaking bugs cause random deaths or the inability to use certain inputs. This could just be a server issue, considering some items don't work properly as a client. Despite interesting worldbuilding, the lore and story is a cobbled mess, which to even the attentive player will leave much to be desired. Still, the gripping gameplay and colorful worlds greatly outweigh these issues.

Worth a buy when Remnant II exists?
I find Remnant II to be a sidegrade at best, with the additional added complexity to be bloat at worst. Remnant: FTA is far more streamlined; It's got great replayability and difficulty factor despite housing a simpler customization system. For many, myself included, this is generally a positive, as too many build decisions makes choices needlessly difficult. Besides, there's enough unlocks that the added layers in the 2nd game really don't add as much as it may seem at first glance. My main point to take away here is that the first game is independently good enough that it's still a worthy buy comparatively.