Loved this game. If you like the Guardians of the Galaxy then you need to give it a try. Really hope there'a a second one.

A wholly unique puzzle/metroidvania experience. Never played anything like it. The atmosphere is impeccable. Incredible art direction, sound design, and world design. The game deserves the overwhelmingly positive rating it has

I love Starfetchers so much. Art direction, music, vibes are all immaculate as always, but after around 8 tries with this DLC, I gave up. I'm willing to take time on a difficult game, and this game IS difficult, but it almost seems to go above and beyond to punish you when you lose.

No ability to skip cutscenes or some sort of fast forward mechanic is the biggest sin to me. Losing already hurts because it means you need to start at the very beginning (except at a point halfway through the game where there is a checkpoint), but when you are forced to watch every long cutscene again it makes losing infuriating.

The above issues are exacerbated by the lack of a save feature, badly telegraphed attacks, and bugs. I gave up after I made it to the second half of the game, making it through an almost 12 or so enemy rush (with no healing!!), made it to the final boss, lost, then my controls just stopped working. I decided to quit the game and see if I'd be back at the checkpoint and I wasn't. A save feature would have made this at least slightly bearable.

To further lay it on thick, the enemies attack fast and hard, and their moves are badly telegraphed. Often I found myself wondering, "why did he attack right?? I thought he was facing left!". They just don't seem to make sense. There's also an enemy with a whip that DOES telegraph attacks, but you have a split second to react.

Overall, this DLC is 100% Starfetchers. Geebyy's art is lovely, Saffron's music slaps, and the writing is hilarious. It will also probably be necessary for understanding the next chapter of the game. It hurts for me to say I didn't find it enjoyable, because I've been hyping Starfetchers up to everyone I know for a long time and I've been excited to sink my teeth into it's world again. That being said, I think this DLC is poorly executed in some major ways that hinder the gameplay experience, turning it from a difficult but satisfying Punch-Out like romp, into something more annoying than fun.

If these issues were remedied, I'd love to give it another shot, but for now I just can't recommend it unless you have a lot of patience.

I DON'T recommend this game if you want engaging writing, interesting characters, or a fun gameplay loop. The writing is honestly laughable at times. The game doesn't seem to take itself seriously at all, and when it tries to it has no impact.

Tangentially related to the writing is how surface level the cities feel. Neon is probably one of the most disappointing places for me in the game. It's touted as a nest of crime and a place run by corporations with too much power, but it only engages in those themes on a surface level. Ryujin is a corporation run by mustache twirling villains. The questline for them was beyond boring and the characters had no depth outside of, "I want to rise the corporate ladder no matter what! Go sabotage our competitor! Hey new guy, go fetch us some coffee! (haha just work stuff, amirite?)". They never touch too deep into the characters' motives, dreams, or ultimate goals. Similarly, for being a hub of crime and vice, you don't see any homeless people, drug addicts, prostitutes, gangs, thieves, etc. Everything is squeaky clean. Even the Astral Lounge, the penultimate night club in Neon, has these people in silly purple suits dancing on stage and regular working Joes in their normal work-wear dancing like middle-aged dads. I had hoped walking into the place that I'd discover a futuristic night club with strippers, shady business dealings, interesting people, etc. Ya know, for it being the one night club in the clearly cyberpunk (genre) inspired city, but instead it serves as an example of the issues with Neon and the game's writing and world-building as a whole. Similar things can be said about New Atlantis and Akila, but I'd be here forever.

As for the characters, one of the first companions you're introduced to is Sarah and she has to be one of the most uninteresting and unlikable characters ever. I couldn't think of a worse companion character to introduce to us first. She is so milquetoast and her quips are just annoying. She's so unrelatable and robotic. I honestly liked Sam Coe but I still felt like he was missing depth. I just couldn't get myself to care about any of the characters throughout my time in the game.

Besides the writing, the game just isn't that fun. I didn't feel very motivated to do anything outside of just collecting weapons and shootings things. The only motivation I would usually have would be the story and missions, but again, the writing is not engaging. Planet exploration is also extremely boring. A huge step down from previous Bethesda games. The planets are often barren or plain uninspired. Once you've been to one randomly generation planet location, you've been to every single other one of the same type on every planet. There are like 5-8 prefabricated buildings and caves I encountered multiple times before I gave up on exploring the planets. Not to mention, planet exploration is slow and monotonous given how you can only walk from place to place.

I DO recommend this game if you want to mindlessly shoot things and build cool spaceships and outposts. That's pretty much it. The guns feel really good and there is a lot of variety there. The spaceship building is really cool too, if not pretty unnecessary for completing the game. I enjoyed building my desired ship, but after building the ship I wanted the magic quickly wore off. Like I had completed the only thing that motivated me to earn money and do missions in the first place. I assume outpost building is more of the same, but I never tried it. Regardless, I think creative types will enjoy it.

It's just not that fun. If I could, I would get a refund. Maybe I'll come back when the creation kit is released and some cool mods are released. I figured I'd give it some time since I enjoyed Skyrim, Fallout 3, NV, and 4 (4 less so than the others), but for now I'm left feeling disappointed.

I recommend the game with the caveat that the game needs more players. Don't let this turn you away though, because there is enough of a community that the game doesn't feel completely dead. The game would really shine if the community was larger though, so that's why I mention that as a fault.

Regardless, there are fun things to do solo like playing minigames, exploring the map, and decorating your condo. The devs are also dedicated to the game. They post weekly dev logs and update the game frequently. Definitely give it a go, especially if you can get some friends you join you.

Every update, I try to get into this game but I just can't... Like others, I wish I could leave a neutral review, because this game is really well put together and shows a lot of passion for indies and roguelikes, but it's just such a frustrating experience.

I think a lot has to do with the fact that the hitboxes are strange and the game is incredibly zoomed in (though this is less of an issue). Often times, I find myself saying, "what?? that hit me??" and it's hard to tell what hit you sometimes because the camera is so close. The projectiles have a little glow around them and it's hard to tell if the glow is part of the hitbox or not. This one time, I was on 1hp and ran into a room, only to be instantly killed by an enemy that greeted me at the entrance of the room.

This has nothing to do with difficulty, either. Enter the Gungeon, for example, is incredibly tight and losing in that game feels like your fault. In this game, it often feels like I've been cheated.

If the devs can clean this game up and turn it into a game worth buying, then I'd recommend it in a heartbeat. There seems to be a lot of content, the art is beautiful, the systems are fluid, but it's just so frustrating.