Recent reviews by Grantantan

a sandbox game that does everything right... it is possible after all

its the worst game i ever played, so i would say it pretty much fulfills its purpose...

increadibly well crafted game, everything feels seamless and natural. if you are new and want to make most out of this atmospheric game, i recommend not looking anything up because that can speed up progress to the point of a boring 15 hour playthrough after which not much remains to discover.
weakness of the game are the occasional story cutscenes, which still even after the recent story extension feel kind of random. also, some repetitive encounters like the dying operators feel senseless.

this game clearly needed a lot more development time...
first: its in many ways amazing, but every pro has a downside that is big enaugh to drag it down.
the textures of items and surroundings are really well crafted, but also quite limited, so you will find the same things over and over again.
visually this game is absolutely stunning, even groundbreaking. it does manage to create the atmosphere it tries to.
the space exploration is super cool but not at all seamless, hindered by old fashioned loading screens instead of flight animation or something, things that some games like SWTOR or warframe did a long time ago.
combat (which you can rarely avoid in a meaningful way), feels ok, but much chunkier than in the predecessors and very shallow compared to other shooters like far cry.
the few real npcs (the generic npcs are just clutter, and i can not even count them here) feel immersive at first, but the AI is so incredibly stupid that even oblivion, (a game you guys brought out around 20 years ago, remember? (and that is also 5 gigabytes large)) throws a long shadow on them. the dragon age style dialogues feel nice at first, but they are mostly meaningless and boring. i wish you brought RNG conversations and day night rythms back, instead of trying to script EVERYTHING that happens in such a huge universe.
bugs and glitches are still quite common, but i trust that you or the community will fix them, no worries here.
keybinds and UI are terribly unrefined, even now the game is barely playable without modding it at least a little bit. for example, you have to grab things by holding down a button, but since apparel and tools use the same forced keybind to use them, you cant actually even grab them at all. such small things are annoying and shouldnt be overlooked.

but what pesonally i hate most of all is the world design compared to its backstory. lore is incredibly important for this game, but often the worldbuilding cr*** all over it.
1. the civilization is tiny and feels tiny. there are only around 5-6 bigger settlements in the whole solar system, and they are all as big as a small oblivion city in size, but far less interactive and much more generic. new atlantis, the mighty center of the galaxy, is the best example of a tiny village that you hopelessly tried to bloat. what these settlements need are an infinite amount of living quarters to explore, and a much bigger impact on the planet, like infrastructure that reaches out for kilometres. it cant be that new atlantis has 3 landing platforms, of which 2 are accessible and 1 is permanently blocked by the players ship.
so yes: more and bigger settlements, with less generic or scripted, but instead more RNG based interactive npcs.

2. if humanity was very limited in numbers however, i might forgive this, but in this case why is EVERY damn moon polluted with structures, no matter where you land? it feels neither immersive nor in any way realistic. i think in outer space, finding human traces should be a bonus, not something annoying. if you do find outposts, they are in 90% of the time either empty or populated by hostiles like cultists who have lore wise no reason to even be on this planet. i hope you add more planetary based hostile factions, and friendly npcs who actually have nice trades or miniquests available, to spice this up a little bit.
3. this is the saddest part for me as a roleplayer: despite of the great framework of a huge world with so many options, you get thrown into the main story without much of a way around. maybe i dont WANT the fancy constellation stuff right of the bet, and feel oh so special, but instead... exploring the world, feeling poor and in need of credits, hell maybe even mining or trucking for a while before i can afford my own ship. instead you are thrown into big and empty new atlantis, with your only option (even though the game tells you otherwise) to spend time (2 days being the great hero as usually) in the military to even be able to buy property there.

so, to cut it short, this is what the game suffers mostly from in my opinion (and that can still be fixed):
linear and repetitive quests and leveldesigns, meaningless clutter in the wrong places instead.
a tiny civilization to explore (ha! aquila city going to war, dont make me laugh).
lack of general freedom.
many quality of life issues like chunky UI and loading screens.

i can not recommend this game without mods at the moment and the current price to anyone in good faith. i know however, that my opinion of this game is bound to improve, especially after the official release of Creation Kit :3

only a hairy hearted sod would cast flipendo on a cow!

a jawdropping gem of an indie game.

a paradox game, but even more paradox than the others...
not the best game to start with, if it is the first one you play, but it definitely got great immersion

every bit of this game is well made, its just sad that the online community is gone by now...

!review comparing the game to dark souls 3!

pros
beautiful, detailed, vast open world
intriguing lore
keyboard support :3
in depht character customization
great range of weapons and tools
cons
forced DX12 feature level
poorly balanced spells and weapon arts
lack of multiplayer features
most bosses trivialized by balancing issues and exploits
connection problems
recycling of assets

i think it would be important to be able to dismantle megastructures, especially habitats and gateways...
maybe even destroy them in bombardement stance