Adell

I think originally being made as a sort-of DLC that got upgraded to a standalone title explains a lot about it and how little it diverged from the original. When you get a sequel, I imagine there's a lot of thoughts in regards to what they changed and what they didn't change, if mechanics were streamlined, made better or worse, though invariably - or almost always at least - the game at least feels bigger (sometimes for the worst)

In this case its just...slightly different? You get a named PC with her own voice, which frankly, is a major negative point for me, as well as more voiced interactions and even cutscenes, but the gameplay loop is largely the same, as are most of the tools you build, resources you collect, and vehicles you research. With a few different details sprinkled here and there - there are new predators and fauna, instead of SeaGlide you get a SeaTruck - this feels more like starting a new save file with added mods than a different game.

While that's not a dealbreaker for a lot of games, when you're playing a survival builder where the joy comes entirely from, well, building and surviving, entering a world where you're researching the same items again, engaging in the same gameplay loop again, building the same base again its just very unfulfilling. And it isn't bigger.

Not a terrible title, or even a bad one, but a very odd retread.

Remembered a tidbit about this game's story that stood out to me, in a bad way. Robin, the protagonist, has to share her body with an incorporeal alien, and it keeps bringing up how human bodies are frail and inefficient. She takes a lot of offense to that, stating that she works out every day to get her body to function the way it does and our individuality makes us unique and what not but...she also lives in a hypercapitalistic hellscape where a single corporation is quickly buying and taking over everybody's livelihoods? And there's people in our non-hellscape world whose bodies are in pain their entire lives?

Its such a bizarre point to try to make, and a character that I assume we're expected to side with, of "Actually I want to fall apart when I'm 60 and still live for 30 more years after that, and that's if I'm able bodied because if not, hoo boy! Its going to be a terrible ride all the way through!"

I think originally being made as a sort-of DLC that got upgraded to a standalone title explains a lot about it and how little it diverged from the original. When you get a sequel, I imagine there's a lot of thoughts in regards to what they changed and what they didn't change, if mechanics were streamlined, made better or worse, though invariably - or almost always at least - the game at least feels bigger (sometimes for the worst)

In this case its just...slightly different? You get a named PC with her own voice, which frankly, is a major negative point for me, as well as more voiced interactions and even cutscenes, but the gameplay loop is largely the same, as are most of the tools you build, resources you collect, and vehicles you research. With a few different details sprinkled here and there - there are new predators and fauna, instead of SeaGlide you get a SeaTruck - this feels more like starting a new save file with added mods than a different game.

While that's not a dealbreaker for a lot of games, when you're playing a survival builder where the joy comes entirely from, well, building and surviving, entering a world where you're researching the same items again, engaging in the same gameplay loop again, building the same base again its just very unfulfilling. And it isn't bigger.

Not a terrible title, or even a bad one, but a very odd retread.

I'm late in catching up with the Latin American Games Showcase (through Pat Stares At stream of that day) and upon seeing the Among The Stars trailer he went "What if Indivisible had anything going for it at all" which is not untrue but someone else went "The children crave for Valkyrie Profile" and man, that one hit me way harder. I really do, I need another game that will make me realize that stories can just be relentlessly sad, while giving me some crunchy numbers and cool visuals

god, I remember when Elden Ring came out and some people were mocking the available choices and joking that black hair would be DLC, and indeed it was (or at least released in a patch preparing for the DLC)