For an early access bootleg pokemon-factorio-ARK-valheim-zelda, this certainly is one of the most solid early access games I've ever played. It's buggy as ♥♥♥♥, it's got store-bought assets out the ass-ets, my character T-poses at random intervals, my Pals routinely get stuck in trees, on top of buildings, or in terrain and starve until I despawn them and redeploy them on a regular basis. my bases get raided all the time by enemies who pathfind towards it, walk into a wall, get stuck in a giant blob of enemies, then decide it's not worth it and turn around and leave.

and yet, the core gameplay loop of "punch trees, build new part of base, deploy new Pal, assign some things to be built at the workbenches, go explore for a while and catch a bunch of stuff, go back home, build new stuff you've learned since last there, assign new work pals, go explore, level up, go back to base, etc etc" is so SHOCKINGLY well done here, and I emphasize that, I AM SHOCKED that this game is anything but ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ garbage. I have had this game on my wishlist since the first trailer, not because I thought it would be good, but because I thought it would be an amusing spectacle. the custom models holding unity asset guns just screamed "terrible trash", the world looked like a cutscene and not what it would actually be, I thought it would be far more restrictive than it is.

I'm currently level 35. I've just started firing up full blown assembly lines in my base, and set up a second ore-farming base one island over. the gameplay loop is still rock solid, I've yet to explore a good 3/4 of the map, I'm taking it slowly, catching everything in a given area before moving to new ones. the actual combat and gameplay of fighting hostile Pals alongside your own Pal, dodging attacks and whittling them down before you recall your own pal so they don't finish the opponent off, then spamming pal spheres until the damn thing stays in the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ball, well, it's not the best combat I've ever played, and sure as ♥♥♥♥ the pals love to bug out mid-combat and get caught on trees or whatever if they're particularly large(especially Mammorest), but it's been mostly great fun.

When I saw the first trailer years ago, I thought it was a hilariously cynical, low budget cash grab, with a tongue-in-cheek underlying message. I was wrong. there's no subtext. there's just text. I mean, they're literally called plantations. but it is tons of fun. and apparently sold like 20 million damn copies, which is nuts

For an early access bootleg pokemon-factorio-ARK-valheim-zelda, this certainly is one of the most solid early access games I've ever played. It's buggy as shit, it's got store-bought assets out the ass-ets, my character T-poses at random intervals, my Pals routinely get stuck in trees, on top of buildings, or in terrain and starve until I despawn them and redeploy them on a regular basis. my bases get raided all the time by enemies who pathfind towards it, walk into a wall, get stuck in a giant blob of enemies, then decide it's not worth it and turn around and leave. and yet, the core gameplay loop of "punch trees, build new part of base, deploy new Pal, assign some things to be built at the workbenches, go explore for a while and catch a bunch of stuff, go back home, build new stuff you've learned since last there, assign new work pals, go explore, level up, go back to base, etc etc" is so SHOCKINGLY well done here, and I emphasize that, I AM SHOCKED that this game is anything but dogshit garbage. I have had this game on my wishlist since the first trailer, not because I thought it would be good, but because I thought it would be an amusing spectacle. the custom models holding unity asset guns just screamed "terrible trash", the world looked like a cutscene and not what it would actually be, I thought it would be far more restrictive than it is. I'm currently level 35. I've just started firing up full blown assembly lines in my base, and set up a second ore-farming base one island over. the gameplay loop is still rock solid, I've yet to explore a good 3/4 of the map, I'm taking it slowly, catching everything in a given area before moving to new ones. the actual combat and gameplay of fighting hostile Pals alongside your own Pal, dodging attacks and whittling them down before you recall your own pal so they don't finish the opponent off, then spamming pal spheres until the damn thing stays in the god damn ball, well, it's not the best combat I've ever played, and sure as shit the pals love to bug out mid-combat and get caught on trees or whatever if they're particularly large(especially Mammorest), but it's been mostly great fun. When I saw the first trailer years ago, I thought it was a hilariously cynical, low budget cash grab, with a tongue-in-cheek underlying message. I was wrong. there's no subtext. there's just text. I mean, they're literally called plantations. but it is tons of fun. and apparently sold like 20 million damn copies, which is nuts