Reviews
[Review] ‘Remothered: Broken Porcelain’ Makes a Muddled Mess of its Predecessor’s Potential
Remothered: Broken Porcelain lives up to the broken part of its name a bit too well.
I threw myself back into the Felton house of Remothered: Tormented Fathers in preparation for the release of its sequel, Broken Porcelain. Tormented Fathers, released about two years ago now, has its share of flaws, but overall, offers a steady adventure of stealth and suspense. As a huge fan of the Clock Tower series, I was invested in the development of the Remothered series, so I welcomed the cliffhanger ending of Tormented Fathers and was enthusiastic for the sequel that it set up.
Unfortunately, my excitement has quickly dampened, as I learned that Broken Porcelain misses the mark pretty spectacularly.
The game opens with a prompt that offers a recap on the events of Tormented Fathers. A couple of cutscenes, references to psychological illnesses, and experimental drug treatments later, you suddenly assume the role of a young girl in what appears to be a dark, cluttered basement. As you collect your bearings, a mysterious, dark figure suddenly appears, and with nowhere to go, the dark figure anticlimactically uses what appears to be a sword to make her a human shish kabob. Cue the title sequence, and then more cutscenes that don’t explain what had just happened.
There’s an awkward, disjoint of the narrative like this that persists throughout the entire game. I found myself in a narrative tug-of-war, being pulled between events taking place at one point-in-time as one character, then another at a different time, and so on, until I couldn’t even tell where I was on the timeline anymore. I went into Broken Porcelain knowing that it would have a complicated plot, especially since it was intended to answer a lot of questions from Tormented Fathers, but I found myself utterly confused by information that was presented in a very inorganic and brusque way.
The intentions of characters seemed to arbitrarily change at any given moment—one character brandishes an axe at Jennifer in one scene and then switches to help her escape literally the scene after. This is somewhat explained by the plot, but still doesn’t feel plausible in many respects. It extends into what may be the strongest aspect of the game—the queer relationship between Jennifer and fellow orphan, Linn. I found one scene between the two to actually be quite compelling, but their relationship and chemistry never seemed to be given enough time to progress to where I felt invested in it.
All of this is to preface the most egregious problem with Broken Porcelain: it is buggy as hell. I tried to wait as long as I could before writing this review simply because the developers are still actively adding patches to it that fix basic features, including multiple game-breaking glitches.
There are currently so many bugs in Broken Porcelain that I can’t fit them all in this review. For those unfamiliar with the gameplay of the Remothered series, it’s mostly comprised of sneaking around what are known as “stalkers”, investigating, solving puzzles, and occasionally lobbing a bottle or snowglobe at the stalker if they spot you.
Mr. Felton, the primary stalker in Tormented Fathers, may not have been the smartest murderer, but he at least seemed to possess a brain—stalkers in Broken Porcelain struggle to even make it through doors at times. I actually sat and laughed out loud at one point as I watched one of the stalkers chasing me get stuck behind a door, and it repeatedly hit her in the face, door-smacking-her-in-the-face sound and all, for about 10 seconds straight.
At other times, the glitches give the stalkers unfair advantages. One interesting new addition in Broken Porcelain is the presence of boss fights. These mostly require sneaking up behind a stalker and stabbing at them with kitchen knives and such until they go down. When I would try to ambush stalkers, however, I would somehow be spotted behind walls and obstacles that I was hiding behind, making the process incredibly frustrating.
To make matters worse, though closets and chests are plentiful to hide in, the skill-check minigame has made a return from Tormented Fathers, except it’s now bizarrely difficult. If the killer gets too close to where you’re hiding, it prompts a minigame in which you need to keep a cursor in the middle of a circle, lest you’re yanked out. That may not sound too hard, but for some reason, the sensitivity pulls the cursor out of the circle at an insanely difficult rate, to the point that I literally would need to slam down my mouse repeatedly as I pulled in the opposite direction against it.
When I finally managed to take down the first stalker, and I was given a new objective to head to the lobby of the Ashmann Inn, I was confused to find that the music was still playing that indicated I was actively being chased. I also didn’t have the keys that I needed in order to unlock the door to the lobby. It was then I learned that the game had glitched, that the key had disappeared, and that I needed to restart and go through the process of taking down the stalker all over again. You can imagine my aggravation.
Between the convoluted plot and the broken (irony intended) gameplay, I literally struggled to make it to the end of the game. There came a point where I was constantly questioning if it had glitched out and that I needed to reset again due to the buggy nature that seems to plague almost every corner of Broken Porcelain.
I can see where the developers had attempted to make strides and build off of the foundation of Tormented Fathers, but even those aspects have glaring downfalls. A stamina bar now exists in the top right corner of the screen at all times that is mostly expended when Jennifer sprints. Bizarrely, it only takes about 10 seconds for the stamina bar to be completely expended. This wouldn’t normally be that strange, except for the fact that it takes about 50 seconds for the bar to restore to full again even if Jennifer is standing completely still or in a hiding spot. This means being completely idle or walking at a snail pace for almost a full minute just to regain stamina that gets expended almost immediately.
There is also now an interesting leveling-up system, allowing players to use a currency called “moth keys” which can be found randomly throughout the environment, to upgrade aspects such as longer sprinting duration or diversion item effectiveness. I didn’t find the upgrades to be particularly useful at all, but I can respect that it’s an innovative addition absent from Tormented Fathers.
The best word I can use to summarize my feelings towards Broken Porcelain is disappointment. I was looking forward to the sequel of Tormented Fathers for so long, and I wanted to root for it so badly, but I can’t overlook how fundamentally flawed almost every aspect of the game is. If you’re very invested in the story that Tormented Fathers has established, it may be worth picking it up just to find answers to the questions that it leaves open. Otherwise, I’d sit this one out until maybe it gets a lot more much-needed patches.
Remothered: Broken Porcelain review code for PC provided by the publisher.
Remothered: Broken Porcelain is out now for PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC.
Reviews
‘Cape Fear’ Redefines A Cutthroat Classic & Turns The American Dream Into A Psychological Nightmare [Review]
Hollywood has been stuck in a trend where a recognizable property — any recognizable property — holds more value than an original idea. This has led to a trend where a slew of acclaimed films have transitioned over to television and become limited series, because why not?
Which has led to a very mixed bag of results that’s usually viewed as a hollow exercise in IP renewal that’s become a growing cliche that’s something to mock. Dead Ringers, Fatal Attraction, Presumed Innocent, and even The Birds are just some of the most recent titles in the movie-to-limited series pipeline. Admittedly, this formula can still work. It just needs to actually have not only a point of view, but a point, otherwise it’s destined to disappear into the vast streaming abyss.
Cape Fear definitely has a point of view and is well aware that it’s the fourth proper adaptation of this story — fifth if The Simpsons’ masterful “Cape Feare” parody is included. It’s an adaptation that’s not only aware of its past’s baggage, but intentionally embraces it and uses it to its advantage. Nick Antosca’s Cape Fear is so exciting because it functions as a remix of every version of this story — the ’60s film, Martin Scorsese’s ’90s remake, and John D. MacDonald’s original novel, The Executioners — to create this glorious amalgamation of the narrative. It’s not unlike what was done with Bryan Fuller’s Hannibal series and how it remixed the breadth of Thomas Harris’ works and their cinematic adaptations.
This approach is most effective when certain iconic scenes from the ’90s film are recontextualized and given to different characters in order to make grander thematic statements. It’s a really striking approach that reflects the generational ripples and overlap between these adaptations, yet it’s never distracting or ostentatious to anyone who is experiencing this story for the first time. It helps this series feel different from the deluge of forgettable adaptations that are flooding the market.
On paper, Antosca is the perfect showrunner to tell this story. He has an impressive body of work to pull from that includes horror series like Channel Zero, Hannibal, and Brand New Cherry Flavor, but also lots of true-crime titles like The Act, A Friend of the Family, and Candy. This series falls squarely within these two extremes as it blurs the lines between these genres and styles of horror storytelling. It’s Big Little Lies on bath salts. Cape Fear perhaps doesn’t need to exist, but it’s still a hell of a terrifying experience that has something timely to say.
Horror is full of stories in which one bad day is all it takes to break someone and turn them into a completely different person. Cape Fear isn’t doing exactly this. It’s more of a psychological waterboarding until the target’s sense of self is eroded to rubble. However, it takes the kernel of this idea and expands it onto the pristine ideal of the picturesque American family. It plays with the self-aware realization that the stories we tell are not necessarily what we think they are.
It’s a story about forgiveness, salvation, and revenge that blows up the Bowden family when a violent offender, Max Cady (Javier Bardem), is released from prison and systematically sets his sights on the people he holds accountable. Anna and Tom Bowden (Amy Adams and Patrick Wilson), the married couple who represented his case in court, receive a rude awakening when Cady’s psychological torture tour begins. Cape Fear, as a property, is most famously known for being the ultimate cat-and-mouse psychological thriller. This rendition culminates in such an explosive climax that’s right out of a slasher film.
Antosca was involved with an unproduced Friday the 13th reboot draft back in 2015, and there are certainly moments in which Max Cady moves with the hulking intensity of Jason Voorhees. So much of what makes all this work rests on Bardem’s complex performance. He’s very careful not to just copy Robert Mitchum or Robert De Niro’s versions of Cady, while he also taps into a terrifying intensity that feels completely different from what he brought forward with No Country for Old Men’s Anton Chigurh.
Apple TV’s new series also introduces a mental injury to Cady that adds psychological fractures that pull him between different versions of events as he struggles to grasp the truth. It’s an element that’s not exactly necessary and often feels like a convenient obstacle that can be activated whenever necessary. However, it allows for some creative visual flourishes and more opportunities for Bardem to get lost in Cady’s complexities.
Opposite Bardem’s Cady, Adams and Wilson do some of their best work as Anna and Tom. Anna is much more front and center than Tom, and Cape Fear is really Adams and Bardem’s time to shine. Wilson still does amazing, understated work, especially whenever the rug gets pulled out from under him regarding someone in his family. The visceral, brutal violence that Cady introduces to the Bowden family hits hard and highlights the anger and intensity that’s fundamental to this story.
What Cape Fear does best is its enlightening deconstruction of the ideal American family, how much work it takes to preserve such a pure thing, and the lengths that people go when they feel like the sanctity of this union is under fire. All it takes is for one of these foundational pillars to weaken before the whole unit becomes compromised. It moves the damage and pressure from one family member to the next as everyone struggles, and it’s unclear what will be left of this family when all is said and done.
This dynamic makes Cape Fear’s story so much more layered and interesting than if the series were just focused on Cady, Anna, and Tom, rather than making their children as much of a priority. Each member of the Bowden family experiences their own obstacles and arcs, although Natalie (Lily Collias) and Zack’s (Joe Anders) storylines are often the most grating. It all boils down to forgiveness, identity, and wanting to be perceived as the person we think we are, versus how we’re viewed by the public, and the dangerous dissonance that can exist between these separate selves.
These ideas are at their most potent when Cape Fear taps into the growing paranoia that bubbles up to the surface and becomes unbearable, so that even the littlest action is triggering. These moments are usually captured through a more erratic filming style that ramps up the tension for both the characters and the audience, unsure of what will strike and when.
Cape Fear never struggles to create uncomfortable setpieces where the anxiety just crescendos and hangs over the scene. On this note, the series’ musical score really captures the perfect aesthetic. It immediately evokes the suspenseful power of the previous Cape Fear films whenever Bernard Herrmann’s virtuosic original theme kicks in. It’s magic every single time.
Antosca delivers an exhilarating update to a classic thriller that pushes its source material to exciting, new places that justify its existence. It’s an exciting story that’s full of terrifying performances and cataclysmic consequences. Admittedly, Cape Fear could have been shortened to eight episodes rather than ten. There are a few plot threads that feel unnecessary and artificially expanded upon, but every episode is still an adrenaline-pumping experience.
If nothing else, it reminds audiences why Cape Fear is such an evergreen story that’s lasted the test of time and will continue to unnerve and get under the skin of whole new generations.
The 10-episode series will make its global debut on June 5 with a two-episode premiere on Apple TV, followed by new episodes every Friday through July 31, 2026.
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