Would be good if it wouldn’t be bad
Juxtapositional title highlights what I felt about this game. It had so many flashes of brilliance, but it never really worked up to pay off. I felt so many times in this game that quests are getting interested, I’m getting invested into the world and then it just…gives up. Either quest ends, never develops further or it reminds us that it is just a game. Starfield is one of those bad games which you love to play, because there is something good in it.
☠️Already Condemned☠️
The internet already had covered this game to death. So coming in late to tell everyone that this game isn’t good had lost its charm for me doing such reviews. Usually people don’t know that their favourite game is bad and I come to rescue in explaining exactly why their childhood game and taste in games is bad. Preferably, they should feel bad about themselves too, because why not?
Starfield is not a bad game. it is much worse. It is a boring game. It is a game most akin to real life. A lot of hassle for very little reward. Friends who annoy you.
I started writing these reviews, because I felt that very few people understand what a game review is. It is covering aspects of what is good, exciting or bad. Game reviews usually were just a meme, paid chill reviews, a list of what person liked or disliked. The most advanced ones were just descriptive ones, telling people what gameplay is like rather than providing deeper understanding by telling me how good of a game it actually is. Even most famous youtubers were nothing more than entertainers, presenting game in its best or worst light for clickbait and laughs as they are entertainers first and game reviewers distant second. With Starfield however its shortcomings are finally known to the public. It is weird feeling when you don’t have to play latest AAA game and enlighten people that its gameplay isn’t good or that writing is bad.
📋Paper thin gameplay📋
The core issue of this game is that gameplay is very simplistic and what is there, it is covered in a layer of interface hassle which gets in the way of enjoying the game. The amount of interface menus and loading to get from one planet to another is massive. There isn’t anything to create an illusion that you are in the same universe. There is loading screen to get into ship. Then waiting to get into cockpit. Then loading to travel to another system. Then more interface to place where you want to land. Then more loading the planet. And eventually you can’t even fly around and are getting dispatched at a random place with no interesting terrain features whatsoever. Then you have to spend most of your time running through empty places if it is just a minor planet. Leveling
I loved some quest, at least initially when they lost their steam. There was a terramorph questline. It was awesome each time when you were introduced to them. First fight in a colony. You land and you can see that there is something very wrong there. Then you meet survivor who tells you about the monster which you have to sneak around. That was fun quest. Further encounters were also fun in the city and when you were assaulting original city lost to them. Sadly, when you are start getting immersed, something breaks that immersion. Terramorph program is a secret knowledge which you have to go through each factions to get their agreement to open up old database for them. So, you can imagine how your immersion gets broken when you can chat an NPC about it. Or likewise, assaulting capital infested with them. Only to realize that you can just…fly out of airport over the entire city and get back to your starting location in just few minutes. This game wants to get rolling with amazing quests, but it always fall flat on its face.
Starfield represents the saddest part of the world. It seems that Bethesda genuinely tried their best and are incapable of doing any better anymore. As I grew up, I only saw legendary studios peaking and doing worse and worse. At first I thought that it was evil leadership not giving them resources. Then I realized that they had all the time and money in the world to make game bigger and better. Then the sad truth had hit me. Those developers never understood what made their games great. What their audiences wanted. People who did probably left the company and ones who stayed are now out of touch aging men who want just to gather fat paychecks while doing nothing at all. Sadly, this is not the industry where that is possible and we are bound to see Bethesda die slow death as everything becomes just worse and worse with them.
Calicifer’s Reviews
- With main quests you only spend third of your time traveling on foot. If there is a big question then at least you get into a long shooting mission which again doesn’t have any depth in it. Items doesn’t create unique builds or make you feel powerful. Skill tree just makes you do the same thing better which is as boring as it gets. Game doesn’t do anything more than to scale enemy health. Game has a lot of crafting and building systems, but they are as useless as in any such game.
Crafting - You need to go over a headache of acquiring common, but specific materials. You won’t remember what you need to get most of the time and everything you make is meaningless and unnecessary in your main quest. Even something like weapon mods are useless as weapons quickly gets outscalled in levels. Base building is equally similar hassle. You need to spend a lot of time manually placing buildings and bases. Leaving your indentured servants (followers) in your outpusts working to produce more materials for… Building more buildings. That is it. Entire thing is pointless and you have to force yourself to do it. It even gets unnecessarily complex with transportation of various materials from different outposts. All of this effort in producing xp and money, making scarce gameplay systems even more redundant.
🛸Flashes of brilliance🛸
This game has that Bethesda factor where you get immersed into their world. However, here game always drags you out when you start getting immersed. I did enjoyed unique atmospheres on different planets. Sadly, game doesn’t do anything with it. No storms, no heat, nothing.I loved some quest, at least initially when they lost their steam. There was a terramorph questline. It was awesome each time when you were introduced to them. First fight in a colony. You land and you can see that there is something very wrong there. Then you meet survivor who tells you about the monster which you have to sneak around. That was fun quest. Further encounters were also fun in the city and when you were assaulting original city lost to them. Sadly, when you are start getting immersed, something breaks that immersion. Terramorph program is a secret knowledge which you have to go through each factions to get their agreement to open up old database for them. So, you can imagine how your immersion gets broken when you can chat an NPC about it. Or likewise, assaulting capital infested with them. Only to realize that you can just…fly out of airport over the entire city and get back to your starting location in just few minutes. This game wants to get rolling with amazing quests, but it always fall flat on its face.
🕹️Enjoyable mini-games🕹️
I did however enjoyed lockpicking minigame. It is actually smartly made minigame and iti s better than usual. You have to pick entire lock and have limited amount of keys. You can use several types of keys to lock a lock, but there are several layers of it and if you use wrong solution, you might lock up further down the line. I enjoyed calculating optimal locks three levels down from what I needed now. Always trying to minimize keys which I was using, only using up worse, most specific keys to unlock the lock. The only issue with this minigame is that you can’t go back if you mess up. You have a very expensive “redo” command which costs you an entire digipick. Alright, but one attempt costs 1 digipick already and nature of a lock might mean that you made a mistake at the very beginning and need like 6 such digipicks to fix your mistake. And there are just way too many containers in some areas locking up insignificant stuff. So it becomes tedious in trying to unlock all containers in hopes at getting something actually valuable.In ze future there is only degradation
Starfield represents the saddest part of the world. It seems that Bethesda genuinely tried their best and are incapable of doing any better anymore. As I grew up, I only saw legendary studios peaking and doing worse and worse. At first I thought that it was evil leadership not giving them resources. Then I realized that they had all the time and money in the world to make game bigger and better. Then the sad truth had hit me. Those developers never understood what made their games great. What their audiences wanted. People who did probably left the company and ones who stayed are now out of touch aging men who want just to gather fat paychecks while doing nothing at all. Sadly, this is not the industry where that is possible and we are bound to see Bethesda die slow death as everything becomes just worse and worse with them.
Calicifer’s Reviews
If you are interested reading full review or want to discuss something with me, please follow the provided link. I do not allow endless discussions under my reviews, because it rarely ends well.