Starfield Part 19

Starfield is first and foremost a Dungeon Crawler, similar to a $5 indie game on Steam called Star Explorers, but with Fallout 4 replacing the combat. Not Skyrim, not Daggerfall, Star Explorers, $5 indie game.

REVIEW:

The planetary exploration (resource gathering) of No Man's Sky meets the Combat of Fallout 4 in sandbox dungeon crawls. Just the same as I enjoyed the Wasteland Hobo Simulator that was Fallout 4, exploring abandon buildings, grabbing loot, taking it back to my base. This is Fallout 4 again and I'm happy about that. Strictly from a core-gameplay loop point of view, I love this game.

This is where I have to say though that if Fallout 4 ruined building Dungeon Crawling doesn't appeal to you or No Man's Sky style jetpack planet resource gathering doesn't appeal to you, this game isn't your niche, ignore it. There's no shame in saying "This game isn't for me".

As for RPG elements. This game is an Action Adventure Looter Shooter Sandbox Dungeon Crawler. The RPG elements are mostly how to flavor your character via their background or your temperament. It is very unlikely you will be doing branching decision making trees: aka this is not a C(lassic)RPG like Bladur's Gate, Divinity, Pathfinder, or Pillars.

Similar to how the Main Story of Skyrim/Fallout 4 wasn't very good, the main story of Starfield quite frankly isn't very good. The start of it is a generic scifi item hunt and an excuse to get to know the characters.

The characters are upbeat and positive have backstories that extend beyond the cardboard cutouts of Skyrim. But they are also Lawful Good, meaning you are (excessively?) punished for being a bad person, which may be intentional. You can see the hand of better writers on these characters, but their romance arcs do really appear to reflect Japanese Dating Sims at the same time. A power fantasy for the right kind of gamer, cringe for everyone else.

A heel turn in the late story just ruins it and causes it to plummet in quality to far below Skyrim or Fallout 4 and exudes the idea that "nothing matters". I haven't completed it yet, but the game has managed to disappoint even my low expectations so far.

As for the FACTIONS and the Worldbuilding (Lore), better than anything bethesda has produced from Oblivion/Fallout 3 and onward. There are criticisms, but this is a solid step in the right direction and will absolutely benefit explosively from expansion from DLCs/Mods IF the same love is put into them moving forward.

A lot of people criticize the Radiant Quests, but they are no different from a mission in No Man's Sky or X4 Foundations, but presented a lot more personally. They feel like a guided great alternative to "just go out and dungeon crawl" which I'd be doing anyway for Experience Points and Loot. The non-quest radiant events in space like Singer man or Grandma get old fast, but really they can be ignored.

Final Verdict:

I love it. I can see why other people don't.

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WARNING:

The ESRB rating for this game has confirmed the game for In-Game purchases at some point in the future, so expect a creation club replacement, this WILL happen. The Nexusmods has over 1000 mods, the ones I'm using are below.

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SUGGESTIONS:

Things the game needs:
-- More detailed procedural generation within the prefrab dungeon locations. Ie Different Textures/Coloring/Lighting, Furniture in different locations, loot containers in different locations some doors/vents being blocked others being opened.

The problem IS NOT that we get sent to the exact same places over and over on different planets, the problem is we don't have enough tools to better be able to go to identical prefabs and use our imagination to say they are different locations. Just changing the NPCs and Loot inside containers isn't enough.

-- A reason to care about the main cast beyond the heel turn in the story OR the option to subvert them entirely after said heel turn.

-- A Vehicle Bay for the ship that deploys a small personal hovercraft (mount). Wheel'd vehicles are bad for the generated terrain.

-- More things to do in the space locations outside of planets.
--- IE Exploration Nodes (Guided tour outside of the planet's orbit to find things, visit nearby space locations not via fast travel, scan, fight, board hidden locations, loot, have story play out.)
--- Exterior Capital Ship / Space Station Stories/Battles that take longer than a few pew pews.

I could say things like a better written quest, more content, being able to seamlessly land your ship, but I'm looking at practical things Update/DLC Developers/Mod Makers could do at this stage of development with the technology they have.
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Mods used:
Starfield Script Extender
Undelayed Launching (Skip Intro Screens)
Neutral LUTs - No Color Filters
StarUI Inventory
Move or Disable XP Bar
Baka Achievement Enabler (SFSE)

Видео Starfield Part 19 канала Zaric Zhakaron