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This is pretty much how I feel about Starfield.
It's got some strengths, but none of them able to cover for the sheer amount of bad boring writing and in general hamfisted story.
It's good... if you ignore all the bad parts.
The needlessly underdeveloped mechanics are what got me. A few examples:
You can board and take over other ships, but selling them is useless and - even worse - you can't fucking swap parts into your own ship!
Having a crew is cool, but they do fuck all.
Flying around in space is cool, but the game goes out of its way to make sure that you know that "space" is not a vast openness but little boxes in front of the planet sprite.
You can have multiple ships but not have AI fly them and have a cool squadron you jump around with
You can build a base, but no snap to grid
Nothing in your base moves stuff around, it just gets teleported along imaginary wires. Conveyors are a thing, you know?
I could go on and on, but I'm too busy playing no man's sky which I restarted after 29 hours in Starfield.
It dips its toe into a lot of things but doesn't go deep enough to make any of them feel meaningful.
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Sure, Starfield has space combat, but if that's what you're looking for, why not play Elite Dangerous?
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You can build an outpost in Starfield to harvest materials and make items/upgrades with, but I could also just play Satisfactory.
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Starfield allows you to explore a variety of randomly generated planets, but so does No Man's Sky, and it's not like it's significantly better compared to how NMS launched.
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You can enjoy rich worldbuilding, investigate political intrigue, and party up in the cyberpunk station of Neon...but Cyberpunk 2077 just had its 2.0 update and I could do that instead.
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You can enjoy a barebones RPG story with a crew of forgettable companions in Starfield, or you can enjoy the best RPG in recent memory with a solid cast of companions to adventure with in Baldur's Gate 3.
It really is the epitome of "jack of all trades, master of none". Especially in its skill system, which feels the most restrictive of any Bethesda RPG yet.
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Flying around in space is cool, but the game goes out of its way to make sure that you know that “space” is not a vast openness but little boxes in front of the planet sprite.
I'm one of the few people for which this is a "strength" of the game. I have severe thalassophobia and games like No Mans Sky where I'm allowed to free-roam in space actually make me feel super anxious and nauseous. I get the same feeling when swimming in large bodies of water, or in big underwater levels in video games.
So like, a real space sim like NMS is so hard for me to face without feeling ill, but somehow, these fake little boxes in Starfield make it so I don't feel that way enough that I can actually play it. I still get twinges of anxiety, but it's nowhere near as bad.
TIL thalassophobia also triggers in space, that's interesting
I haven't played yet, I'm hoping if I wait 6 months or so the modding community will turn it into an amazing game, and I'll get it on sale!
I too need a bigger boob slider to be interested
The alternate start screen is a good start, but I need more before I spend my money.
Oh starfield so much wasted potential.
Tl:dr: starfield is loading screen the game.
I wanted to play it, because I wanted to play something like no man sky with real npcs and good voice acting and good gunplay fallout like not what no man's sky has. I wanted really to ignore the bad stuff but I got so mad at this game, everything is a loading screen, to lvl sneak was impossible because enemies could see me and instant get agro even when they were on the opposite of the room (100m) and only my head was visible. How should I level sneak when I need to make stealth damage?! The story was hyped for science the vision of the artifact ended in disappointing after doing the first 2 missions. It was just fech quests and to much loading screens. Goes to planet, loading screen, lands on planet, loading screen, goes inside underground city, loading screen, need to go to another room of city, loading screen, aks where person is who I search, needed to go to another planets orbit, loading screen, sneak against ship in space worked, need to to another station, loading screen, docks station, loading screen, kill some enemies, need to go to another planets orbit, loading screen, shoot a ship to board it, board it, loading screen, kill some enemies, rescue a dude, go back to new Atlantis, loading screen, goes inside building to end quest, loading screen, quit game.
Luckily I didn't buyed it and only used game pass, and even for that i got the money back after canceling the subscription.