this risk of rain returns ♥♥♥♥♥ we ♥♥♥♥♥♥ die in this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ betta take yo sensitive hades bg3 ass back to RISK OF RAIN 2

this must be what kurt angle felt when he was eating perc 40s by the handful and then doing moonsaults off the cage

touhou warcraft of isaac: afterbirth

power fantasy for ppl who think roguelikes are the peak of gaming (they are)

random bard chilling in my tavern hit a weremoose so hard with a book he was reading that the weremoose's cheek exploded and it instantly died

the ultimate game to turn your brain off to

honestly like a perfect game to sit down and play after work shoutout nlss

masterfully genetically engineer a dense mythos with a robust storytelling engine and a well thought-out high fantasy mixing pot that combines every trope that turns on your endorphin receptors, but also scream at your monitor because your skeleton dude that wields a cursed uber dagger missed the 98% shot on the final boss.

the genesis of a new genre of game that tried to begin with massive chalice, but will instead start with wildermyth

the multiplayer is pretty good as well especially as you can cross-pollinate your legacy guys with your friends if you start with legacy characters

goty 2021 if baldurs gate 3 turns out to be dos 2 but worse

the schizophrenic graphics and somewhat scuffed mechanics do not get in the way of consistent dopamine injections

your brain will be on full tilt when you get chased by two star draugrs in the poop dungeons in search for scrap iron

while this game is not infallable and it could do with several dozen QoL fixes it feels like it has just a big of a ceiling that monoliths like minecraft and terraria have

No Man's Sky is essentially Stardew Valley or Animal Crossing in space, but instead of the charming verdant nature of either game it is replaced by vast expanses of cosmic aesthetic that occasionally crosses into the macabre, and most of the time this does work in its favour heavily. You can lose hours to this game just wanting to accrue the necessary financial assets just so you can buy an S-Class Star Ship.

However, if you are looking for something in the vein of the Culture Series, Spelljammer, Warhammer 40,000, or the Xeelee Sequence where science fiction is exaggerated to ludicrous heights this game is not it. You will not be ascending to sublimity. You will not be casting technological spells from your codex of digital souls. You will not be breaking worlds or calling in orbital bombardments to shatter your enemies asunder to the solar winds. Why? Because there is no reason to. There is no real endgame to savor. The sentinels, try as they might, are hardly anything more than a nuisance, and both flora and fauna do not extend to any sort of real hostility. Indeed, there is no Catachan to be found in this game. Finally, pirates are a complete joke and a half and one can easily take on a dozen merely by doing the Parthian Shot technique on their ass.

Don't talk about Abandoned Freighters, they're fun to do but after two or three I have come to realize they are mostly the same and the X-class modules are just stat upgrades, which is the opposite of exciting.

Combat is just above the definition of barebones, danger is simply not there, and after only 36 hours I feel that I've reached the end of what a player can do. Wide puddle, and so on and so forth.

pros:
-the spectacle is top-notch. awe-inspiring environments and visual features such as glowing plants
-simple and infectious minecraft-style "i need more" mental contaminant. you need more units. you need more materials. stuff like that.
-the most fun i can see having is finding funny starships and collecting those that have rare configurations. the starship generation is pretty expansive and is the number one pro for me
-i guess the story is good.
-warping in your freighter is really fun
-abandoned freighters are fun
-minotaur mechs are fun
-base building seems to be incredibly good and a major selling point, although i find construction to be tedious (good thing they added the freighter)

cons:
-too many rare items where you just sell them. you telling me i cant use the whispering egg to make an alien module where i can shoot out alien sperm that melts anything it comes in contact with?
-pirates are a joke
-sentinels are a joke
-animals still seem functionally useless
-cant color my spaceship
-exploration is ultimately still very shallow. i mean yea there's robot animals but they don't do anything. these sandworms don't do anything. these items i pick up don't do anything. this wolf looks cool but it doesnt do anything.
-combat frigates are so ♥♥♥♥♥♥ useless in battle it hurts ♥♥♥♥ you dawg why does shooting the friendly sentinel drone cause me to gain wanted levels ♥♥♥♥ you
-ultimately there was this breaking point where there i felt like there is nothing to do.
-cant collect animals
-cant use animals like pokemon
-no bosses or anything like that, sentinel walkers are kinda daunting but it literally takes like two plasma grenades
-three quarters of these space encounters dont even do anything lol why am i even slowing down


if you are looking to become a god like you do in terraria eject those expectations from your mind right now. (all current "terraria-in-space" games also suck, including you starbound lol)

do i recommend at full price: hell no
do i recommend at 50 percent off: very yes
final score: 6/10, minus one because i can't collect animals

tl;dr stardew valley in space, i dont find it as good as its fans seem to do when they say WOW THIS GAME IMPROVED SO MUCH i mean i guess when you go from a 2/10 to a 6/10 thats a big deal.

very tentative thumbs up, its good but its not great