Post
by Sly Boots » Sun Jan 26, 2020 10:12 am
And finished.
Overall, I liked it, but it's not the amazing game I'd hoped it would be when the trailers and previews were coming out.
I think I'd be closer to Rusty in terms of the pacing. I really enjoyed the first world, then you arrive on Monarch and it's feels a bit like more of the same, only much more so. Usually in an open world I'd seek to stick my nose into every corner to see if there were any nice secrets or easter eggs, but increasingly found myself just going straight from A-B-C and then fast-travelling everywhere once waypoints were unlocked.
I think this is partly the sameyness of a lot of it, certainly the loot amounted to little more than ammo, of which I had many thousands of rounds left come the end, weapons and armour that were identical to the weapons and armour I'd already acquired, broken down or sold, or crap consumables I never used. The fact that the unique weapons were quite uninspiring - in fact probably worse than the bog-standard ones you could find as you couldn't fit the mods to customise them as you wanted - was disappointing. They certainly weren't any more powerful, and so there was no thrill when discovering one. The science weapons you had to complete quests to find were similarly disappointing, very little damage and gimmicky effects I could never find a use for, trying them once or twice then sticking them in a locker on my ship and never thinking about them again.
The story dragged in the middle as well. It had a decent opening, then you don't really get a clear or compelling reason for moving through it in the middle apart from XP points, only really giving that sense of urgency and agency in the final third. It's no coincidence that at that point my interest picked up again and enjoyed it again right into the end.
On levelling, I found the perks quite uninspiring for the most part, and long before the end I was just allocating them almost randomly because there wasn't anything I felt I could have a use for. This is even more pronounced on the companion perks. And then I felt the skill points were a bit stingy. I tried to specialise in about five skills - long guns, persuasion, lockpicking, hacking and sneaking - and didn't come remotely close to maxing any of them out.
And on the companions, for the most part they were a pretty dull bunch. The mechanic was probably the best and she accompanied me all the way through, Ellie's sarcasm was a decent counter-balance, but the rest were instantly forgettable. The vicar's story was boring, I still don't really get what Felix's deal was (though I spent little time around him because I didn't find him interesting), and the mech had zero personality, which was probably intentional but gave me no reason to ever travel with it. The hunter's story was probably the best of all, but I found her such a bummer to be around I ditched her as soon as her quest was finished.
The ship never really felt like a home in the way the Normandy did, for example, it was just a place to fast-travel to other places and use the workbench.
But for all that, I enjoyed it on the whole. I think given my criticisms above I'd say it ends up being more than the sum of its parts... at a base level it's fun to play. The shooting being well-implemented plays a part, there were some interesting decisions to make to influence the direction of the colony and its people, some interesting scenarios (I particularly liked how you gradually discover the fate of the Hope colony ship) and perhaps most importantly it moves quite quickly and doesn't outstay its welcome. It was the right length, and probably if it had been a lot longer my interest may have faded before the end.
I'd probably score it about a 7.5/10.