... of those uninspiring open-world-adventures
The game´s like Cutter Slade. Rises steep, falls deep
After initially being in a positive mood due to the graphical and musical impressions, I find myself in endless loops of useless chatter, busywork, athletic exercises, and uninspired battles.
First, I am a fan of the Just Cause series, so my standards for games are mostly for gameplay, not storyline.
If you are looking for an engaging storyline... I dunno. About 2/3rd's of the way through I wished I could just kill EVERYONE in this stupid game.
The modules in the game are interesting, but I completed everything and never got all of them. Still a nice idea, even if some things do not work, like the "Health on Kill" not working with the Ball Lightning module except on direct hit kills.
The game itself is EXTREMELY beautiful, but sadly very empty. You basically have maybe 4 enemy types roaming the wilds: giant earthworm snakes that spit acid, spider, dogs, and vultures/eagles. There are harder variants.
Then there are 6 droid types and variants: sword, blaster, sniper, heavy, tank, drone. A few miscellaneous enemies like heavy turrets, a couple of sharks (one quest related, another guarding "Black Seaweed" or something, and the bosses.
Nada otherwise - there is MUCH less enemy variety than Doom 1, and even Wolfenstein 3D held my attention for longer.
Crafting is barely useful. Flying is fun, but doesn't hold a candle to Just Cause (no grapple). You also have VERY limited energy, and the jetpack is more of a "fartpack" - you get extra highjumps, not flight until LATE. Think about 10-20 hours of grinding.
Some gadgets are ok, like summoning swarms of alien wasps or alien riders on flying mounts to drop contact bombs on an area.
The world's beauty holds for a few hours, but this game suffers from EXTREMELY dislikable characters, nonsensical story (in a preachy "what-the-hell-is-the-point-then?" style), and a sort-of neat weapon+combat system SEVERELY hampered by both lack of variety and quantity of targets to shoot at.
Hell, get Elex 2 if you want flight. Get almost any AAA game if you want pretty. But don't get this except on sale.
Oh, and part of the MAIN QUEST is to start an orgy in the first half of the game (don't get your hopes up).
*DISCLAIMER: I played the game through a friend's steam version not long after release*
TLDR: Game is mediocre and feels partially unfinished. Nice world to explore, bad story and quests, weird systems and currencies, extremely poor optimization.
Movement is great at times and awful in others. There is a lot of liberty to explore far and wide (and you're expected to do so), but the MC doesn't grab onto ledges (even if they're chin-high), so you oftentimes slide off surfaces that feel like you should've been easily able to reach.
Gunplay feels extremely weird at times, with the worst recoil mechanic I've experienced in any game (you can entirely avoid it, but that means ignoring 1/3 of weapon upgrade choices), paired with inconsistent hit registration. Headshots especially are very inconsistent. Some hits are way too lenient and should've been misses, others, especially at close range or inside of enclosed spaces, the shot goes straight through the enemy with no registration.
The game is extremely poorly optimized. Very open spaces, anywhere with enemy swarms, anywhere you're going too fast or at any point if you fire too many projectiles, the FPS drops hard and fast. I don't have the best PC ever, but it doesn't struggle with much bigger and prettier games than this, and it struggled hard with this.
Customization for character and guns feels very nice but also under baked and poorly balanced. The easiest way to get upgrades is to walk around cities looking for chests, way more efficient than doing side activities.
Characters and story feel cringe and uninspired. Voice acting is pretty good for the MC and pretty bad for most side characters. Humour is very subjective, but it was off for me here.
Game has plenty of bugs and is possible to soft lock yourself close to the end, requiring a reload of 20+ mins of gameplay (I had to reload 40 min to make it work). Many quests (escort especially) and side activities also can bug out and require a save + reload.
3/10.