Recent reviews by Drountian

It's a Bethesda space RPG. Let me say that one more time...It is not a space sim, it is a Bethesda RPG.

Think Skyrim in space with more modern graphics and an (in my estimation) better writing and character design. Pretty fun; pretty open ended. Are you looking for a modern action RPG? Do you like space stuff? If the answer to one is yes, you may enjoy this title, if the answer is yes to both this is probably a game you'll enjoy.

On the downside there are many (short) loading screens (when you move between planets, when you get onto your ship, when you board other ships, when you leave a planet, when you land, etc.) Also, there is no lean, and invisibility on crouch makes it hard to ADS. It's still a Bethesda title so expect a bit of jank here and there. If these sound like manageable downsides, then I'd pick it up, the rest is pretty great fun.

(My copy came with a computer I was going to purchase regardless, so...kind of free.)

You like story driven games with beautiful aesthetics and important messages? Great, that's what this is.

Blender is unbelievable. You can pick it up for free and it allows you to make truly stunning things, especially when used in concert with other creative software. Even on it's own the breadth of capability it exhibits is fantastic. If you're at all interested in 3D art blender is a must-have. Even though it's free, please consider supporting the project if you have the cashflow, it's worth it.

The yes here comes with a big caveat, in that most people probably won't like this game, at least as it stands. Specifically, if you wanna blow stuff up, this is not the game, stay away. If you want a seamless experience this is not the game, stay away. If you are impatient, and you think semi-AFK play is a non-starter, stay away.

Still, if you're someone who likes building things, someone who likes complexity, someone who likes programming robots, someone who loves solving problems with somewhat clumsy tools that can slowly be assembled into a scalpel of precision, then yes, you will like this game. The building is out of this world, the detail you can put into your own vessel makes the payoff of building and flying your own ship like no other game of which I'm aware.

The trailers are a little silly, yes most things depicted in the trailers are technically possible, but they just don't happen because the universe is vast and there are very few ways to find others (unless you're playing *with* someone else, rather than against them).

The game is buggy, so just be prepared. It can get rough if you aren't careful, and even if you are careful, you must still be willing to rebuild, because you could lose hard work to a bug from time to time. The devs do their best to compensate you any materials you lose though, so there's that.

Then there's the elephant in the room, the fact the developers are taking a break from development. There's still a skeleton crew working to help the players deal with bugs, and rolling out fixes from time to time, but the giant team that the game once had behind it is gone. The devs say the team will one day return, but who knows? The game isn't very popular. And despite the herculean efforts of the remaining employees, new features probably won't be coming any time soon.

Good news is the servers are very cheap for the devs to run, so the game probably won't completely go offline. Still, you should be prepared for any eventuality buying this game, you're supporting something that is a wonderful, if unfinished, vision, with the best spaceship design ever put in a video game.

This is my favourite VR game. The feeling of playing is just fun, highly recommend enjoying your favourite variety of music while you play, the game can work with most genres as backdrop quite well, especially in endless mode, the in game soundtrack isn't bad either (imo, ymmv), but it does lack for variety thus far. The new update at the time of writing is nice in all kinds of ways. The updates haven't come that frequently, but I'll give Joy Way a pass here because the core content they're selling has always been there.

The price point is amazing, sure enough this may be a single player game for the most part, but with the endless and arena mode there's a lot of replayability, You even get a multiplayer tag game (in very early stages), with more game modes to come. I'm glad they're adding the story eventually, but I'm not holding my breath or expecting it to be anything groundbreaking. All in all, I'm extremely satisfied with the content that's there now, and for the price I don't think there are many alternatives that give you this much content in the VR world.

Let's talk about jank factor. It's a thing. When I first played this game it seemed a lot worse than it actually is, but here's a list of annoyances, and the reasons they aren't that big a deal (how you can learn to avoid them).

1) Sometimes letting go of grip quickly (throwing yourself over a ledge or railing for example) can give you momentum in an unexpected direction, maybe this is a bug, or just an effect of me not being able to feel precisely which way my hand is moving relative to my virtual body at that moment. I've found careful regulation of my grip (making sure I've only moved my hand one way-smoothly-for the past few milliseconds) can reduce this problem. This rarely, if ever, ruins a run, it's just a little not-so-perfect bit.

2) The aiming is really hard. Okay I have a valve index, and tracking is not perfect, it's good, but when you're shooting at things 50m away it gets pretty unreliable (I bet this is true of most HMDs). This isn't a game breaker, and it can even add some fun challenge in magazine optimization. I also don't think there's anything Joy Way could do about this except (maybe) forcing shorter engagement ranges, but that reduces immersion and the variety of exciting situations they can bring, so I'm glad they haven't done that. My advice is just try to "shoot from the hip" using instinct, the impacts, and bullet trails to inform your aim, rather than the iron sights on the pistol.

3) Sometimes you glitch into the ground. They've worked on this, but the fact of the matter is, when you grab things your collider stops, well, colliding. They have to do this because if they didn't you'd get all kinds of weird edge cases where in real life you might have "twisted to the left", "gone prostrate", or "balled up", but in the game the collider would just ruin the party. Fortunately, because you stop colliding the same, you have a lot of freedom as to how you move through the environment, and you don't run into those problems. If you're careful about grabbing things in (semi-)realistic ways the downsides don't crop up often.

4) The slidey-down-slopes bits are less than ideal, they could be really good, and sometimes you hit it just right and it feels awesome, but really they should make you crouch to slide, and they don't. Here's the thing, the sliding happens automatically on colliders that have higher than a certain slope, and the slope isn't that steep, so often you end up sliding down 40% inclines even though you don't want to, and you _can_ climb up these slopes, but you have to do a really awkward hand-over-hand grabbing the slope thing, and you meet peeve #3 a lot and clip through the slope a bit. You can also "jump" up even though it seems like you shouldn't be able to from so close to the "ground" and it's just awkward. They could fix most of this by making you crouch to slide (at least up to a certain threshold) and disabling the grabbing of slopes (cuz that just doesn't make sense). Maybe the devs will read this and make that change, I don't have a crystal ball. My advice is just be aware of the mechanics and recognize that slopes aren't realistic (yet).

5) When you need to turn, the immersion is pretty bad unless you have a medium (3x3m) to large play area and a wireless HMD (or some other solution for being able to turn IRL). If you play endless, this is rarely an issue, while in arena turning is constantly something you need to do. Still not a dealbreaker since they allow you to turn with the right stick (smoothly or in increments with a customizeable sensitivity). It's just a little disappointing for immersion and can break the flow a little. Don't expect to be pulling off sick turns on a dime to waste pursuers if you're in a cramped space, instead, plan ahead so you don't have to.

None of these gripes are a big deal, but when you first start out, the jank factor may feel really significant. My advice is this, just give it time. You'll notice many of the negative reviews of this game come from people with less than an hour of playtime. It took me an hour to even _begin_ to get the hang of this game, and I've played all kinds of video games for years (admittedly I've never been that great at them, but I'd still call myself an avid gamer). Please give it time before you decide it's bad, and really try to enjoy the feeling of freedom and excitement it gives you, nothing else has come close for me. It's also a pretty great cardio, especially in the harder areas.

I loved it, but there isn't really much "game". As others have stated, it's really a story, and you're along for the ride. Yes you're driving the HOVA around, yes occasionally there will be a time sensitive delivery, but the game itself is really about all the zany characters you meet, all the zany things you have to deliver, and all the little niches of lore that you discover along the way. If you're the kind of player who tries to find secrets in games, this may be a good pick. If you're the kind of player who likes games where you just kinda walk around and find stuff, and learn some of the stories of how that stuff got there, the stories people tell about the stuff, etc. this game does that really well. If you want really engaging gameplay, and don't care about the lovingly crafted cyberpunk atmosphere, look elsewhere. That leads me to my final point, the atmosphere is lovingly crafted. The artwork is beautiful, sure the character model variety is pretty low, but aside from that one gripe, the art is spectacular. The city *feels* alive, not only because of the wonderful backdrops, but because of the little side quests, dialogues and details you find that explain about who you are, who the other main characters are, etc. If you think you could lose yourself in the amazing environment, chill, and ride along, then I recommend no other game more highly.

Good but short, I finished it in 112 minutes. Pick it up on sale.

It's a great game, not a VR gimmick. A lot of developers seem to get this wrong, they seem to be trying to bring a game that would be "good for VR" to market...not these folks. The game is a classic that they made VR good for! Fundamentally it's DDR, just playing doubles mode with both your hands, and also +swords. How can it be bad? It's not bad, it's fantastic.

You like rhythm games? Buy.
You like exercise? Buy.
You don't like exercise but you probably should get more? Buy.
You like swords? Buy.
You like jamming to at least one of the following: dance, pop, or anime music? Buy.

It's a collect all the things game, and there are many neat things to collect, mechanics to explore etc.

If you're looking for hardcore difficulty, look elsewhere, but if you play this game with friends it can be a lot of fun. Don't expect it to have much solo play longevity, and do expect a bit of a grind to get to the really fun stuff. That said, the grind is not unreasonable, you'll have your first max rank frame in no time, and after that the second, and the third.

Farming to get the item you seek is definitely part of this game's core loop, so make sure you enjoy that anticipation.

The developers add paradigm shifting mechanics left and right, usually without disturbing the existing content in any way. They are willing to take risks with their development time, which is admirable, and often has quite the payoff. These mechanics may not change the core game loop, but they create something new to explore, and it's usually something delightful and surprising. These changes always include new lore and game play elements, so there's an incredible amount to get into.

The enjoyment of this game comes from exploring and developing your own style. If you love exploring build options, playing with different tactical decisions, and sprucing up the aesthetics of your character, this game is a pretty good bet. If you have an interested friend in addition (four is best, but just one will do) then you'll almost certainly find this game wonderful.

A side note, not directly about the game play: the devs advertise heavily through social media and promotions with other large companies (especially amazon) this is not bad in itself, but it might bug some people like me who prefer not to have such promotions thrust upon them.

It's a lot of fun. If you like doom, and you like rhythm games then you'll probably love this.

The feel is right on, the weapon variety is pretty good. I will probably be doing many runs of this game so that's pretty good longevity for a small-team indie game. The runs last about an hour if you go for completion, and the progression of level aesthetics and mobs is pretty neat.

I hoped there would be more complex rhythm mechanics, but every action has to happen on either the down or up beat. I hope the devs hear me, they did really amazing work and I'd hope they put such mechanics in any future game they might decide to make! (Maybe bosses that require triplet avoidance mechanics, or more damage for following a specific instrument in the track, or just the melody, I missed those features in this game.)

Overall, great job. Especially good aesthetic and feel.