February 2024 report

I am not sure if I can call myself a fan of the original game if I have played it only recently but I have really enjoyed it and even though the remake tries hard the original still remains superior to the later. But even if my heart belongs to the (enhanced) original the remake is well-made and worth playing even though it suffers from some bad design choices.

The remake stays true to the original and most of it remains the same, so I will be comparing these two versions a lot.
The layout of the Citadel Station remained (mostly) as it was with a few exceptions (the Storage level underwent a huge overhaul, also Groves got somewhat bigger even though they turned out to be a disappointment in terms of setting - lush greenery and sounds of the nature of the original are gone). You can find items in familiar places and even ambushes happen in the exact spots as before, but this time the enemies got shuffled a lot and you can meet some of the stronger ones sooner or in completely different spots than in the original game. In comparison to the original game, I have found their overall numbers lacking sadly. The puzzles are completely new, which is a good point on one hand as the original were rather hard. On the other hand, the conditions for completing the new puzzles are pretty vague so you can spend a lot of time figuring out exactly what you are supposed to do. But I have found them fun even though I was just shuffling around.

You can also now collect trash items and recycle them for coins which you can then spend on various vendors. It's an okay feature except that it's rather tedious as you have limited space for said items in your crowded inventory and an extremely small recycle station where you can put three items at most! Hilarious if it wouldn't be sad. So yeah, we have now a classic inventory with little space which isn't the best improvement, to be honest. The biggest difference between the games is that the ammo and med/stimulant patches are no longer unlimited instead they take up a precious spot in your inventory in the forms of separate stacks - the maximum for patches is 10; each ammo has a different count but it's rather hard to maintain more of the weapons at the same time thanks to it. Maybe the desired attitude is for you to throw the weapon away after you get out of ammunition, which isn't very logical as now you can upgrade your weapons! Why would you throw it away anyway? In the original, you swap better weapons with the weaker ones, but in the remake, I haven't seen such a clear distinction and my most used weapon was the simple pistol you get at the beginning. Oh, and another thing I have enjoyed very much (irony) is the fact that most of the weapons are bigger after the upgrade so you can reshuffle your inventory yet again…

The weapon arsenal is big and you have classic firearms or energy guns at your disposal. Energy weapons don't require ammunition but you need to maintain your energy as without it they are useless. Shooting around is all right although I remember some guns being stronger (I look at you Magnum). And don't let me start on the laser rapier, the ultimate weapon that turned in the remake into a most useless thing under the sun! The biggest problem with it is that you can't see or hear the impact. You don't receive any indication that you have landed a hit (same as when shooting, but that isn't so problematic), so you just stay there waving around with the rapier merrily dying at the hands of your enemy. Argh, in the original you killed even the strongest enemies at three strikes most, now you can't kill a fly with it… This was one of the biggest disappointments in the remake and both the long-range and close-range combat needs a lot of improvements.

Everyone's favored cyberspace is back! To be fair, it is better than the original as that one was terrible. xD But surprisingly even the new isn't without flaws. The good thing is that there is no longer a time limit, three hurrays! Also, you can now more clearly see where you are in the space and you don't move involuntarily forward. Fighting with enemies is fast-paced and quite fun although it can be pretty challenging as you are usually facing a lot of them in a closed space. Now for the bad things. There are more mandatory cyberspaces required to complete than were in the original game. The enemies can spawn right on you making it harder to maintain a safe distance from them thus quickly dying and that means redoing the whole level. Usable items are absolutely useless. There are two of them - decoy and recall. In the original game they were stackable, so the more you collected the more you had of them. In the remake, you have only one. I repeat, you have ONE decoy and ONE recall! If you use them and there are none of them in another cyberspace level, well bad luck, you have to surpass it on your own… a pretty bad and frustrating design if you ask me. There is also no upgrading your cyberspace weapons, so there is no hope for a quicker way to kill your enemies. At least you have a dash now…

The visuals of the remake are nice, modern with a touch of pixel blurriness. At first, I thought that it was some kind of graphic bug, but no, it's intentional and I quite like the nostalgic touch of it. But to be honest the modern look seems slightly rigid to me. In the original, every floor had its own clear visual setting, now it all feels the same even if they are diverse. I am also rather disappointed by the soundtrack which is now almost non-existent and the station is mostly silent with just some environmental sounds. The floors no longer have their typical music playing all the time and the exploration thus felt somewhat empty (the exception is the Executional level which is my favorite in the remake). Even the fighting music is absolutely off as it tends to start long after the fight is over.

As for now, the game is playable and can be easily completed although be prepared for some problems. A few examples. I have experienced a serious lag during fights with flying enemies. The keybindings don't work in the QWERTZ layout and you need to switch your computer language. Map markers are useless as you can't add your descriptions to them (which you could do in the original). The Security level will trap you inside as you can't leave from there anymore and there is no indication that something like that would happen (in the original it was normally accessible). One collectible is hidden in the wall. Steam cloud and some achievements don't work… Most of these things should be corrected with the upcoming patch… which was announced around August last year? Seems like we are waiting for the release of the version for the consoles… pretty lame.

All of those are still minor problems and they don't worry me much (just frustrate me a little), but my biggest problem with the remake is the atmosphere… it's simply lacking and can't compare with the original. SHODAN is still talking to you, yeah, but she lost her omnipresent feeling. She no longer randomly appears on the many screens around the station, there is just the spinning logo, so you are no longer under the pressure of being hunted which is a pity. The final boss fight is also… well, something out of this world. xD I was also rather sad that there was no ending summary with your stats of deaths and killed enemies as was in the original.

But I still enjoyed it don't get me wrong, so if you are not brave enough to delve into the (enhanced) original go for the remake! It offers the same excellent story and many quality-of-life improvements like better jet boots or devastating grenades that are easy to use and so on. It's an honorable successor to one legendary and groundbreaking game!