Banger soundtrack, incredibly fun and unique combat mechanics unseen elsewhere, gameplay that is unmatched in terms of gamefeel and feedback, and bosses that actually will respond to your gameplay style. All of the above sets this game above everything else but the last point is what makes this the best game I have ever played. If you slowly walk to a boss dramatically, even on the hardest difficulties, they're not gonna immediately start bumrushing and let you savor the moment. But if you run straight towards them, they'll immediately open up. If you spam and button mash, a boss may do the same with extremely rapid and brutal attacks. If you're methodical about your combos and button presses the enemy also matches your pace organically without compromising difficulty. Seriously, the game will respect your ability to savor and take in the moment - I have not seen one other game where the AI isn't just a bunch of predictable single-behavior function. Sure, a couple bosses are traditionally pattern based and most basic enemies are still simple (but still well above average) but nothing else captures the organic feeling in a game like this. That just says how much care and effort went into this game. And it's all crammed into one of the most bombastic, ludicrous, yet somehow starkly prescient experiences ever created. It's rare I recommend a game universally, but this is a game that everyone should play. It just epitomizes what makes a game fun - and it's the ONLY games I go out of my way to replay every few years.
Long story short, the game absolutely thrashes SSDs and on HDDs are effectively unplayable for running settlements because of load times transitioning between your characters. This could be ignored if focusing on a single character didn't mean you'd spend hours simply running around. And THAT could be ignored if the game didn't require significant micromanaging of running multiple characters in seperate areas of the world map. What's there is very good, but I think that it would have been better focused as a small squad based RPG rather than potentially having dozens of characters as part of a settlement system combined with way too much downtime that effectively amounts to staring at character's running or waiting for them to wake up and get up. It's actually, very literally, like EVE Online but in a post apocalyptic setting and you get to manage your people. But it's also like Skyrim in that mods are kind of 'needed' for some things. This is not for the average person, and requires a LOT of time investment but if you're looking for something to dump hundreds of hours in, this is it.
Back on steam in early access, the game had a great deal of promise with a great premise and gameplay loop. Then an immediate paradigm shift kicked in one day, and the game decided to add unbelievable amounts of RnG that drags out playtime and screws you over in ways completely out of your control. Instead of committing to making something fun with progressively more interesting mechanics, it instead seeks to string you on by beating you down and dangling things in front of you to give you the idea that you're getting somewhere. From what the game was before, it is a frustrating, unfufilling game. For all its style and art, it's not brutal in any sense of the word, merely just cheaping you out of a good experience by dragging it on.
