A complete Disappointment

[[N7]gphoenix51]

Couldn't post all of this on my review of the game, so I'll post this here.

I recently went back and played this game again. I had gotten the crafting/survival/building bug again and I’ve played Subnautica and Subnautica Below Zero to death, so in desperation, I went back to Breathedge. I had hoped that my first impressions would have changed; maybe my mood is different, maybe I could see it in a different light. So I hoped it would be better this time.

Alas, I was wrong.

It is not only the same as I first thought, it’s actually worse. My original score out of 10 was a 6, now that I’ve played through the entire game, beaten it and got all the achievements, I can say that my score is now a low 4 out of 10.

The “humor” and I use that term VERY loosely, is still garbage that a 5 year old might find funny, but only comes across as annoying and stupid. Out of 55 hours of gameplay, I laughed all of twice. Once was an environmental joke that was honestly funny, the other was near the end when the annoying as hell Suit AI finally said something amusing. Considering that this entire game is supposed to be a funny spoof of sci-fi games, 2 laughs out of 55 hours is not a good sign.

The descriptions of everything, from the collectibles to the resources, to the tools and equipment are not only excessively long, but practically useless. There is too much meaningless crap to have to sift through to try and find out what something does or is used for. Descriptions of tools and equipment have almost nothing to do with what they actually do or can be used for. It’s just pages and pages of junk, apparently the writers were being paid by the word and wanted to make sure they got a fat paycheck. And none of it is actually funny, it’s annoying and tiring to have to try and translate all this word salad garbage into coherent, useful information.

Too bad the effort that the writers tried to put into the “humor” of this game couldn’t be put into the game mechanics. Honestly, the terrible humor isn’t even in the top 5 of my list of issues with this game.

The main problem I have with this game is the utter lack of quality of life functionality and the terrible building mechanics. For a resource heavy game, the developers certainly made it difficult to manage your crafting materials. There are only 2 storage options in the game, and both have to be found and scanned before they can be used. Not really a problem, other games have that, but the problem is finding these things in the first place. Without using a guide, I don’t know how someone can find these things, and storage is absolutely vital in a crafting/building game. Plus, there is no move all or group move command, so you have to click on every single thing to move it from your inventory to storage, and vice versa. When you are moving from base to base, that becomes very old, VERY fast. Even though you can have the suitcases in your inventory, you can’t pick them up if they have anything in them. So you have to have one storage box on each end of the move and it’s a complete pain in the ass moving things. Especially as there is no fast travel and no vehicles that can store a large number of things like in other games. The 3 vehicles you get can’t store anything at all, not even the car that you can eventually build. It has a trunk/boot, but you can’t use it for anything. Huge missed opportunity here, especially considering how much Breathedge took from Subnautica, and all the vehicles in Subnautica had storage options.

The building mechanics are another huge problem. There are 3 module types of 3 sizes that you build compartments in; Service, Transportation and Habitation. The problems begin when you find out that certain compartments cannot be built in certain modules. Primarily the one storage compartment, the Closet, CANNOT be built in the same module as the crafting bench! Closets can only be built in the Habitation module, which wouldn’t be a problem if the closet wasn’t the ONLY storage compartment option. The only other storage solution you can craft are suitcases, and those damn things screw up another thing with the building mechanics. If a suitcase is sitting on the floor, and you later on want to build something on that spot, the broken building mechanics won’t let you do it. Even when the compartment you’re building wouldn’t interfere with the suitcase on the floor. All the compartments are built into the walls, and barely anything actually sticks out, so why can you not build a compartment when a suitcase is sitting in that section? It’s completely insane and a huge pain in the ass. Especially as the game oh so helpfully doesn’t tell you any of this! It’s far too busy trying to be funny with tons of word salad nonsense to actually tell you that suitcases screw up the building mechanics. Then, there are the completely nonsense issues with building hull protection on your modules. Hull breeches are an issue, and you can build protection on your modules, but those OUTSIDE protections are also SOMEHOW affected by the suitcases that are INSIDE the module! That makes absolutely NO SENSE. Plus, for some reason, on the connecting tubes, you can only put hull protections on the top and bottom of the tube, not the sides. Not and be able to build a connecting module. You know, the entire reason for building a connecting tube?

Another primary gripe of mine is how difficult it is to see floating resources in the blackness of space. The lighting is terrible, the flashlight is so bright that it actually makes it harder to see things, plus it’s range is so garbage that you have to practically be on top of something to see it. The chosen colors in this game just makes things more difficult. Not only are colors of most of the resources so dark that they blend into the black background of space, but the colors of the tools are so samey, and the shapes are so similar that it’s difficult to differentiate between tools at a glance. I can’t count the number of times I had to mouse over something to get it’s name to find out what it was. The grabber and repair tools are practically identical. Yes, Subnautica's tools are primarily white, but they are also all different shapes, so it's easy to see what they are at a glance.

That also leads into the useless tools. Now, there are a few things in Subnautica and other crafting games that I don’t build because I just don’t use them, but they are things that I can see are useful for other players. However, there are several things in Breathedge that are just flat out useless. I found this out when I got the option to build something called the Helmet Covered with Paint. I originally thought that this was just another lame joke that the game was making. How wrong I was, it was actually being completely serious. Not the pointless word salad description, but the actual item itself. It is literally a helmet covered in red lead paint. Covered as in, you CANNOT see out of the thing. It tells you that it has upgraded radiation protection from the normal helmet you made earlier, but that’s just a lie the game tells you to get you to waste semi-rare resources on it. Up until that point, every other thing you crafted had a job and was useful. But that waste of materials helmet was only the starter. There are other tools you can build that have no function. The scraper wasn’t used at all, and the Special Equipment tool is literally a piece of wire taped to the universal orange and white metal stick, and is used all of one time. Even though it has a durability rating of 10. Complete nonsense, useless garbage that the game tricks you into building that serves no purpose.

The suit AI is a constant annoyance. Only very rarely does the suit ever say anything useful. Most of the time it’s spewing endless garbage and unhelpful advice. Thankfully, the developers actually did something right and included an option to turn down the voice volume and so you can just turn off the suit AI. If you think you still need to know what it says, there is a message log of everything the suit tells you, and a log of all the other pointless messages you get from “Babe” who can’t string a coherent sentence together, and the few other things that talk to you.

TLDR; This game could have been epic, it could have been a great addition to the crafting/building/survival genre of games. But it was completely let down by its terrible, unfunny humor, endless word salad descriptions, annoying side characters, unoriginal story and broken building mechanics. 4/10

[GUN]

Got it for free on Epic and it's still not worth the money!!!

[Blackout]

Originally posted by N7gphoenix51:

Couldn't post all of this on my review of the game, so I'll post this here.

I recently went back and played this game again. I had gotten the crafting/survival/building bug again and I’ve played Subnautica and Subnautica Below Zero to death, so in desperation, I went back to Breathedge. I had hoped that my first impressions would have changed; maybe my mood is different, maybe I could see it in a different light. So I hoped it would be better this time.

Alas, I was wrong.

It is not only the same as I first thought, it’s actually worse. My original score out of 10 was a 6, now that I’ve played through the entire game, beaten it and got all the achievements, I can say that my score is now a low 4 out of 10.

The “humor” and I use that term VERY loosely, is still garbage that a 5 year old might find funny, but only comes across as annoying and stupid. Out of 55 hours of gameplay, I laughed all of twice. Once was an environmental joke that was honestly funny, the other was near the end when the annoying as hell Suit AI finally said something amusing. Considering that this entire game is supposed to be a funny spoof of sci-fi games, 2 laughs out of 55 hours is not a good sign.

The descriptions of everything, from the collectibles to the resources, to the tools and equipment are not only excessively long, but practically useless. There is too much meaningless crap to have to sift through to try and find out what something does or is used for. Descriptions of tools and equipment have almost nothing to do with what they actually do or can be used for. It’s just pages and pages of junk, apparently the writers were being paid by the word and wanted to make sure they got a fat paycheck. And none of it is actually funny, it’s annoying and tiring to have to try and translate all this word salad garbage into coherent, useful information.

Too bad the effort that the writers tried to put into the “humor” of this game couldn’t be put into the game mechanics. Honestly, the terrible humor isn’t even in the top 5 of my list of issues with this game.

The main problem I have with this game is the utter lack of quality of life functionality and the terrible building mechanics. For a resource heavy game, the developers certainly made it difficult to manage your crafting materials. There are only 2 storage options in the game, and both have to be found and scanned before they can be used. Not really a problem, other games have that, but the problem is finding these things in the first place. Without using a guide, I don’t know how someone can find these things, and storage is absolutely vital in a crafting/building game. Plus, there is no move all or group move command, so you have to click on every single thing to move it from your inventory to storage, and vice versa. When you are moving from base to base, that becomes very old, VERY fast. Even though you can have the suitcases in your inventory, you can’t pick them up if they have anything in them. So you have to have one storage box on each end of the move and it’s a complete pain in the ass moving things. Especially as there is no fast travel and no vehicles that can store a large number of things like in other games. The 3 vehicles you get can’t store anything at all, not even the car that you can eventually build. It has a trunk/boot, but you can’t use it for anything. Huge missed opportunity here, especially considering how much Breathedge took from Subnautica, and all the vehicles in Subnautica had storage options.

The building mechanics are another huge problem. There are 3 module types of 3 sizes that you build compartments in; Service, Transportation and Habitation. The problems begin when you find out that certain compartments cannot be built in certain modules. Primarily the one storage compartment, the Closet, CANNOT be built in the same module as the crafting bench! Closets can only be built in the Habitation module, which wouldn’t be a problem if the closet wasn’t the ONLY storage compartment option. The only other storage solution you can craft are suitcases, and those damn things screw up another problem with storage. If a suitcase is sitting on the floor, and you later on want to build something on that spot, the broken building mechanics won’t let you do it. Even when the compartment you’re building wouldn’t interfere with the suitcase on the floor. All the compartments are built into the walls, and barely anything actually sticks out, so why can you not build a compartment when a suitcase in sitting in that section? It’s completely insane and a huge pain in the ass. Especially as the game oh so helpfully doesn’t tell you any of this! It’s far too busy trying to be funny with tons of word salad nonsense to actually tell you that suitcases screw up the building mechanics. Then, there is the completely nonsense issues with building hull protection on your modules. Hull breeches are an issue, and you can build protection on your modules, but those OUTSIDE protections are also SOMEHOW affected by the suitcases that are INSIDE the module! That makes absolutely NO SENSE. Plus, for some reason, on the connecting tubes, you can only put hull protections on the top and bottom of the tube, not the sides. Not and be able to build a connecting module. You know, the entire reason for building a connecting tube?

Another primary gripe of mine is how difficult it is to see floating resources in the blackness of space. The lighting is terrible, the flashlight is so bright that it actually makes it harder to see things, plus it’s range is so garbage that you have to practically be on top of something to see it. The chosen colors in this game just makes things more difficult. Not only are colors of most of the resources so dark that they blend into the black background of space, but the colors of tools are so samey, and the shapes are so similar that it’s difficult to differentiate between tools at a glance. I can’t count the number of times I had to mouse over something to get it’s name to find out what it was. The grabber and repair tools are practically identical.

That also leads into the useless tools. Now, there are a few things in Subnautica and other crafting games that I don’t build because I just don’t use them, but they are things that I can see are useful for other players. However, there are several things in Breathedge that are just flat out useless. I found this out when I got the option to build something called the Helmet Covered with Paint. I originally thought that this was just another lame joke that the game was making. How wrong I was, it was being completely serious. Not the pointless word salad description, but the actual item itself. It is literally a helmet covered in red lead paint. Covered as in, you CANNOT see out of the thing. It tells you that it has upgraded radiation protection from the normal helmet you made earlier, but that’s just a lie the game tells you to get you to waste semi-rare resources on it. Up until that point, every other thing you crafted had a point and was useful. But that waste of materials helmet was only the starter. There are other tools you can build that have no function. The scraper wasn’t used at all, and the Special Equipment tool is literally a piece of wire taped to the universal orange and white metal stick, and is used all of one time. Even though it has a durability rating of 10. Complete nonsense, useless garbage that the game tricks you into building that serves no purpose.

The suit AI is a constant annoyance. Only very rarely does the suit ever say anything useful. Most of the time it’s spewing endless garbage and unhelpful advice. Thankfully, the developers actually did something good and included an option to turn down the voice volume and so you can just turn off the suit. If you think you still need to know what it says, there is a message log of everything the suit tells you, and a log of all the other pointless messages you get from “Babe” who can’t string a coherent sentence together, and the few other things that talk to you.

TLDR; This game could have been epic, it could have been a great addition to the crafting/building/survival genre of games. But it was completely let down by its terrible, unfunny humor, endless word salad descriptions, annoying side characters, unoriginal story and broken building mechanics. 4/10

Yeah for me, the first part is a major pain to get through. Hopefully Breathedge 2 is better, but I won't get my hopes up.

[[N7]gphoenix51]

I'm not even sure I want to bother with the sequel. Just trying to download the demo is crashing Steam, I feel like that's probably a sign.

[Maniac]

I liked the game, the first part/chapter was the best part of the game, crafting, building, exploring that was pretty great

[[N7]gphoenix51]

I do agree that the first half of the game is certainly the better half. The exploring and crafting is what I bought the thing for. If I wanted a Sci-Fi puzzle shooter, I would have bought one of those.