Recent reviews by Archer

Good, Sony, now stop interfering with this good game

I am severely disapointed with this game it's not the Microtransactions or the Performance even, its just how ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ LITTLE was done.

After 12 years they launch a sequel where they changed almost nothing to the point this feels like im playing EXACTLY the same game.

Now the combat, is pretty good most of the time, then... you get stuck on a moster in exactly the same guy, or your magical ranged attacks fail to track the enemy or you start hitting the air despite looking directly at the enemy, or you get hit by a status effect that you cant read or check how long it may last because they picked the WORST POSSSIBLE ICONS for those being both small and some of them looking exactly the same.

Now the combats you get in... do you like fighting goblins and wolves over and over and over and over and over and over again? Then oh boy this is the game for you. Goblin Slayer himself blushes at the sheer ammount of globlins ive killed just roaming arrounds trying to get somewhere that doesnt have direct cart access which at this point is TWO.

Exploration is boring, boring boring boring, is there stuff? Yea, does that stuff matter?... I maybe? I havent found anything particularly special so far, I think I explored most of the section of the map and doesnt seem to have much. There are a couple dungeons i found, most of them boring. Stamina is a bit ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ anoying combined with your carry... do you like MOVING!? Then you best take NOTHING with you, because you have materials and loot to colect... and those will fill your inventory weight in half a second.

My one regret so far is not imediatly refunding this game, but I had already went over the 2 hour mark do to forgetting it on.

Ill finish DD2, but I dont see myself reviewing this review

I finished, the true ending, all of this still stands

The game is alright, not ground breaking alright, what makes me not recomend this is the massive issues.

There is really no meaningful progression in 14 hours I am still using the same weapons I had, and I have been actively grinding for a weapon.
Completly random seeming drops with no consistency expecially on event based drops where the event may not even spawn on the "Dugeon" you are running for dozens of runs
The server issues are simply baffeling, every 1 or 2 runs include a disconect, sometimes right at the end

Ok so I am aware some people will say "Oh over 100 hours and not recommend" there is a good reason I have 100 hours, I wanted to do as much as possible in this game before posting my review.

Did I have some fun with Starfield, yes, do I recomend anyone to buy it? Not at this time no.

TL;DR

Starfield is a decent game but seems like it came out 10 years ago, it is not revolutionary and falls behind even some of the older Bethersda games.
There is very little inovation to be found, very little effort in upgrading existing systems, and very low atempts to suport PC user experience, and tacked on underdeveloped system systems, that are just there to fill a checkbox, such as space combat and travel.
When traveling to the crimson fleet base, you are require to sit trough 4 diferent loading screens before you get to any meaningful interaction (Travel, Docking, Boarding, Door) loading screens galore is the name of this game. Menus are slow.
The story is alright at best and although the combat feels generally alright, everything from the quest design to the world building is dated. Fetch quest galore, unresponsive controls (cant crouch while reloading for instace), very few impactful options, and low reactivity of the world.
The chosing of the time of this game is wierd, 20 years after a major impactful war, 50 years after a huge massive war, I assumed stakes would be involved, there really are none. The MSQ ignores the factions completly, you are just gathering things, with some minor inconviniences. The complete lack of one of the factions important to the settled systems is baffeling to me.
The worst part is this game seems to have been specifically designed to waste your time, slow menus, loads of loading screens (short but frustratingly frequent), grindy, bad inventory management, lack of local maps, lack of carry capacity pretty much permentanently and a NG+ that resets all the grind you did on your previous game with the exception of your level.
There is some enjoyment to be found, but not for full price and not before some of the issues are adressed by modders (most likely) or Bethersda.
(7/10)



First the good:

- The combat is generally fun, good animations on the humanoid enemies, they are reactive and do use some strategy fighting you
- The faction stories I did were interesting, UC, Police, Rangers, System Security and Crimson Fleet all pretty interesting
- NG+ gives you new options in resolving quests
- Unique "Dungeons" I will call them are interesting and have some cool stories to them, my favorite was part of the Crimson Fleet quests, they also generally give you rewards
- Building ships is fun, you have a relatively large set of options.
- Minor factions quests (ex. Strikers in Neon) can be fun

The so so:
- The UC questline is incredibly rushed, first mission in, you are figthting galaxy ending threats... as a novice and are purvey to some crazy high level clearance ♥♥♥♥ off the bat, no rampup, just MOST IMPORTANT PERSON on mission 1.
- Variety of weapons is lacking in my taste, a few of the weapons are just modern day weapons you will find AKs arround and a couple 1911s (I do love the 1911), and most of the guns you find either look ridiculous like the revolver, look identical to each other (Grendal, Hard Point and Bewulf, though I know why), yor just plain goofy, this is personal taste though.
- Lack of a survival mode, which, considering the theme of the game is baffeling
- I dont know what the point of environmental protection is, I never actually cared, and I surveyed ALOT while listening to audiobooks, sure it makes you get injuries and debuffs... but who cares? They are rarely significant to even do anything about it until you stack about 10 of them which takes a long time.
- Its frustrating to have to go to diferent shipyards to get specific ship parts, there should be a method of getting them all in your outpost for example.
- Ive only played one companion quest, Andreja's but if its any indication they are rushed and incomplete, companions, can say stuff for you on ocasion, this is all, they are still 2 dimentional mules.
- Other than constelation named companions seem to only serve as crew with just a few added chat lines about their past, they dont seem to gain affinity or have their own quests.
- NG+ clears out your inventory and ships giving you a ship that is absolute trash

The Bad:
- The first 10 hours of this game are a pain, you cant carry anything, New Atlantis is a BORING place to start and the main story is a slog of random fetch quests for quite a while
- Exploring planets is a miserable experience, there are a very small amount of diferent "Dungeons" with a couple of enemies, all of which behave the same, no matter what faction they belong to. You will WALK for hours with nothing interesting to find, survey quests are just a pure waste of time.
- Lack of enemy variety is abhorant, through my entire game the following enemy types showed up 1 Spoiler Alien, 2 Normal Alien beasties, all just charge you or shoot rocks at you, 3 Guy with X Y Z gun or knife, 4 Walking Robot w/gun or wo/gun 5. dog robot. This game is in a setting where Giant Mech and Xenomorphs, where are they? But I may have not found them, I didnt finish 2 factions (Rangers and Ryujin) Enemies with diferent tactics and methods to defeat should be in the game, right now a semi-auto Beowulf is all I ever use
- Outpost building is lacking, heavily restricted, and frustrating. Linking outposts is a tedious and time consuming system.
- The REQUIREMENT to massively grind the game, this game DEMANDS you grind, for everything, credits, materials, levels, initially it feels good you level up at a reasonable pace and you get suficient materials for a few crafting upgrades. Late game leveling up is a slog, rare materials take a frustrating ammount of time to obtain.
- Sidequests are generally worthless, some are fun, most are fetch quests which involve walking somewhere very close or very far away, getting an item, or talking to a guy, then comming back.

I finished the game, Act 3 is a bit buggy but they'll fix it, I loved every second of it. Half my companions died, already started a new game with Shadowheart and will try and go trough all the Origins one by one. Go play it stop reading reviews.

It may be wierd doing a negative review after playing 84 hours but the thing is... I still have a few tens of hours to finish my character.

The game is fun for most of those 84 hours, doing esoteric stuff, getting treasures, finding spirits, etc, fun but then you hit the Endgame, Transcendent X Late and the game just grinds to a halt. In fact it makes you Grind FOREVER. I ended up cheating in Skill Points because it was frustratingly long and even know its frustrating to level your Fire/Sword whatever skills, the game randomly kicked me out of my Sect where I was Sect Master after a story event, getting manuals is a boring loop of do random quest after random quests until you get eneugh money and MAYBE you get to buy an useful manual.

Until now I was having fun, its over. I wanted to craft a good Level X sword artifact, to do so you need a rare material, but due to an endgame scenario you can only do that by ABANDONING YOUR SECT or grinding bosses in a zone which have a 1/5 chance to drop 4-5 of the material you need, bosses that take MONTHS to respawn.

It's just an anoying and boring grind, play the first 75 hours, but if you want Immortality, you better be born with divine patience.

I must say I love this game, it may be because I only played patch 1.7 but the combat if fun with minimal jank.
The story is fun and I really enjoyed the character of Farren from the little clips you get along.
Exploration is a bit frustrating, mostly because this game has a lot of verticality when it comes to places that are extremly hard to navigate normally much less find secrets in. I'm still going to hunt the rest of the collectibles to 100% it before I finish it so I cant review the last boss.
The bosses themselves are gimicky, not too interesting but flashy at least, normal enemies use the same attack paterns as your weapons so they are easy to remember.
Someone clearly loved making this game and it shows, but I hope they do some improvements in future titles.

Solid game even for EA, the core loop is super fun, (Hard should be your main dificulty).
When it comes to an EA saying that the main weakness is a lack of content is quite a lot, game was stable, suprisingly few issues, I could only see bugs teleporting slightly at range.
I cant wait for more

This game comes out on the wrong foot for me with the PvE.

The PvE is absolute garbage, nothing salvagable there, unless the last unlock is good, but I wont be playing anymore to unlock that mode. First mode the missions are ♥♥♥♥♥♥ voice acted, terribly boring missions that last 10 minutes, one of them at least has the worse boss fight ive ever seen in any shooter I've ever played. Do yourself a favor and stear clear.

PvP is alright, I would play only PvP if I were you, however, prepare to realise you are at a significant disadvantage until you level up your operators, as they get more hp, armor, improved abilities and up to 4 traits at later levels. You can compete, and even win, but you are fighting uphill against players much better equiped than you.

The PvPvE mode Frontline is the only actually good thing about this game I would say, its interesting at least for a couple hours, it gets boring fast, but I can see someone play this game just for that.

Graphics are fine, nothing to write home about
Sound design is just... either missing or just minimum denominator, lazy voice acting, boring gun sounds, I've never been bored firing an SMG in a game, but I sure am here.
Animations are passable, they arent horrible, but you can see some jank
The operators seem varied but some seem obviously more overpowered
Game is 3 years old, plently of cosmetics showing up in your menus that you can get, great.
All the servers are clearly in russia, prepare for high ping.

My opinion, stay away, this game is 3 years old, and I have no clue what they have done during 3 years

Opening review, may change later, played a few hours, had a lot of fun.
Not everything is perfect or to my liking buy I do enjoy this game for what it is and will be playing some more for some time to come!

Only one problem I seem to have, but it may be me, I can't unequip titles. So the moment you make one of your characters 1 star, you can turn them back...