baropithecus
White is OP, known issue since 1889 and devs haven’t addressed it. Dead game
I think the idea was to differentiate it from tabletop back when they were a lot more like tabletop RPGs than most of today’s RPGs – they were either turn based or pausable, party based, and involved, you know, playing a role. This was way back before basically every third person hack and slash was called an action RPG and the acronym lost all meaning. I realize that it makes me sound like a bitter old man, and I loved Nier Automata, but it ain’t an RPG.
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Elite has a sense of scale and seamless transitions between places (even if they are just well-disguised loading screens). The planets feel planet sized, and you can move around them or between them freely in hypercruise (or whatever the system for traveling inside systems was called). There isn’t any fast travel system as far as I’m aware – if you want to get to the other side of the galaxy, the journey will take you days or weeks, even with a kitted out exploration ship. This, combined with the sense of scale and incredibly well made map system, makes it feel like an expedition, even if the journey itself is extremely lonely and repetitive. Despite Elite’s many, many flaws - they absolutely nailed this aspect of a space game.
Starfield feels like clicking through menus to get to boring minigames with different skyboxes. It cannot be overstated how non-immersive the travel and “exploration” is compared to ED.
*Edited disclaimer: I gave up a couple of hours in. If there’s a good game in this mess that you get to after 100 hours, as some people have said, I’m sure as fuck not sticking around to find out. More likely it’s just the sunk cost coping mechanisms kicking in.
Emil sounds defensive but he’s right – as someone outside the gaming industry, I cannot fathom how so much effort can result in such a shallow, tepid stew of shit. But because of how much time, staff and money were thrown at it, it’s not a big stretch to assume that incompetence was involved – unless it was leprechauns that stole the game’s vision, plot, dialogue, sense of scale and exploration and replaced it with loading screens.
I’ve upgraded my PC and discovered that I kind of love GR Breakpoint now. They added a metric shitton of improvements and I began to vibe with its sterile ikea futurism. Too bad the other island DLC isn’t happening, but there’s loads to do on the existing one still.
I’m intrigued, how the hell do you explore in this game? I thought the only way to get from system to system and planet to planet is to click through menus. The only choice seems to be whether I’ll go back to the ship and click through menus or stay where I am and click through menus.