Posted July 28, 2016
The first thing to know is that I’ve been tracking this game since early in development. Terraria in space? Sounds awesome. I had played one version previous to this during the beta development, so that also will be reflected in this.
I should note that I was playing in Admin mode as to cut out most of the grinding bullshit. Even though I do have the time, I still don’t like it when I feel like a game is wasting my time. And Starbound loves to waste time, and not in the fun way. More in the Monster Hunter style of timewasting, where you have to collect a ridiculously inflated number of items to get better equipment. Rather than the fun kind of timewasting. Terraria feels incredibly reasonable in comparison.
From here, I’m going to go through a typical style of review, where I categorize things.
Graphics: The graphics of Starbound are harmless enough. Although, there’s a certain...tonal discomfort I might mention. Many of the areas, especially underground are visually bland. More on that issue later, as it relates to a much bigger issue that Starbound has. It probably largely has to do with the fact that no effort is made to blend block to block or foreground to background. Each block stands out, and this actually isn’t a very good look.
NPCs do stand out on their own and many of them do have unique looks, but they also have the problem of standing out too much. And yet, they don’t. Many of them also blur together into a collection of sameness, making picking one out from a crowd nigh impossible. This stems from the problem that all of them are using the same sprites and armors as the player can. I think a bit of height variety and a few other tweaks could go a bit of a way to solve this.
Sound: This game has weak sound. I don’t mean everything is too quiet or that there isn’t enough oomph in removing a block. What I mean by weak sound is that the overall sound design of this game is quite weak. I have the music off (more on that later) and the sound at 100. But the sound has no impact. There’s no depth to the sound at all, no effects applied when underground to make it echo, nothing more than the most basic of processing.
Now on the flipside, the actual sounds themselves are also weak. I’ve heard firecrackers louder than the guns in this game. Rockets are not known for being quiet, in flight or on impact. And swinging a giant hammer the size of oneself should probably make something more than a muffled thud noise. This could be solved by the developers going and doing some Foley work. As a protip, there’s a reason why people wear ear protection at gun ranges.
Music: The music sucks, full stop. I’m not sure if the music was composed or if it’s just procedurally generated. But it is ill fitting either way, often mismatching the overall mood, scenery, and situation of things. After being bored by tonal drones and plinky little tunes that really didn’t form a coherent melody, I decided to just mute the music and load up Foobar2000. This probably could have been solved by focusing on music instead of implementing dumb midi instruments.
Now onto where the biggest bugbears show: The interactive elements.
Combat: The combat in this game is a little more complex than Terraria, and not in a particularly good way. Back in the beta of Starbound, weapons came in a wide variety, and were often handed out like candy, having a random variety of effects, stats, and names. This appears to have been replaced with entirely static weapons and far less drops. While this does solve the Borderlands style issue of a useless random scoped shotgun that fires peas, it now leaves the issue of obtaining new weapons, which now seem to come from quest rewards and absurd pocket dungeons which are literally pocket dimensions just scattered about on planets for some reason.
Weapons themselves come in a variety of classes so numerous as to make the Mana series blush. Unlike Mana however, there’s no way to forge or augment your weapons. Which strikes me as odd, seeing as you can literally make an atomic furnace and a replicator, especially when one can just buy refined ores.
Crafting: It sucks. There’s too much of it, it takes time, you have to research breathing (basic things you’d think anyone would know), and the amount of upgrades to be done reaches Warzone 2100 levels of absurd. Back in the days of beta, there was a tier system for most things. This appears to have been largely removed, so you can no longer tell if something you’ve made is two levels behind or not. Spread this out over a series of 6 or more crafting stations and you’ve got a crafting system about as good as the sewer mini dungeons in the game. Oh, and crafting costs money. Enjoy watching your pixels wither away for some reason.
Mining: It sucks too. Back in the days of beta, you did quests to upgrade your matter manipulator. Now there are modules and you have to collect a butlload of them to get the matter manipulator up to a level where things are mined at a tolerable level. Sure, you could make pickaxes, but I thought those were supposed to be removed because they’re archaic and anachronistic. How do you get these modules? Sidequests and rummaging through chests. Either way, it’s padding. Also for some reason when mining fuel on moons, there's this dumbass invincible thing that chases you as to encourage you to leave quickly.
What’s even ‘better’ is that back in the days of beta, to get better ores. You simply went to higher class sectors, and planets were on a 1-10 level system, meaning you weren’t stuck on a volcanic planet mining away at magma rock to get the best stuff.
Progression: It sucks as well. Back in the days of beta, you set up the boss battles yourself, the outpost was more important, and there were less set pieces, and rather than having to lug around a backpack with environmental equipment, you instead had a cool bio-implant system which works the same exact way as these clunky backpacks, except without eating up an inventory spot. The progression is possibly one of the more screwed up things they failed to get close to finished in time for a full release of Starbound. All I can say is, I hope you really like backtracking.
Variety: Variety is the biggest issue of Starbound. If it’s too little in planetary and monster variety, thanks to the devs unwisely choosing to focus on making set monsters or far too much item clutter and useless weaponry, variety is Starbound’s massive weakness. What kind of weaksauce universe has less than 20 planet types? (Noctis IV gets away with this for having to fit an entire universe on a floppy disk) What kind of game needs useless items to rival Skyrim in number? What happened to all the procedurally generated monsters? Why am I encountering those stupid acid spitters across the universe? At least most games try by making the monsters a different color to indicate a stronger subspecies. Why is it out of the variety of techs to choose from, I’ve only found three of them to be of any use?
Environments: They make no bloody sense. Thematically or physically. Why is there a forest on the volcanic planet? Why did the Glitch find it to be a good idea to set up their wooden buildings and hay roofs in a similar environment? (Unsurprisingly, the settlement burned down.) Why did I find a Floran settlement in the middle of a frozen planet? (At least they were smart enough to shelter themselves in the ground) Who decided it was a good idea for the Apex to set up shop on frozen hellscapes rather than in the logical place, forests and jungles? What even are the aquatic Hylotl doing in a desert settlement? And what is this forest and abandoned Hylotl Pagoda doing on the savannah planet?
NPCs: They’re dumb as a bag of styrofoam bricks. I don’t expect them to be a smart as as a Watson node, but I never expected them to be this bad at basic pathfinding in a 2D game, nor would I have expected them to be this terrible at basic survival. From being unable to navigate through water, simply being unable to hit the broadside of a barn, to deciding the best thing to do while being mauled is to not move, I haven’t seen such a failure in AI since reading of One Hour Stupidity Syndrome in Creatures 2.
Fossil Excavating: This minor optional mechanic is bullhonky. Why is it that even with the most advanced brush on hand, I get a piddly selection of tools and can’t even rotate the drill? I’ve played at least two other games with excavation mechanics, and they both did it far better. Spectrobes because it required actual skill (and could be upgraded), and Pokemon because it didn’t immediately flunk you because you accidentally hit a spot you already uncovered. Both of them had unlimited tool use.
UI/UX: How does one fail to make a UI scale in this day and age? Everything is so tiny, especially when compared to Minecraft and Terraria. Why is there no indicator if you’ve read a book or blueprint? Why is there no indicator if a weapon or armor is better than what you’ve already got? How is placing things so fiddly? How is the options menu so incredibly lacking?
Conclusion: Starbound is in no way a 1.0/Gold release It needs far more refining to be worth the price they ask.
Had I been developing the game, I would have focused on the core features rather than the fickle whimsy of the community or the other staff. I wouldn’t have moved the entire development team to one of the most expensive places to live that was just so stupid why did you do that—ahem, sorry. While I’m not against the idea of the development team being in the same place, there are several places that could have been chosen that were far less expensive than often cited as one of the most expensive cities in the world. :I
Any other points I should pick over? Questions/comments?
I should note that I was playing in Admin mode as to cut out most of the grinding bullshit. Even though I do have the time, I still don’t like it when I feel like a game is wasting my time. And Starbound loves to waste time, and not in the fun way. More in the Monster Hunter style of timewasting, where you have to collect a ridiculously inflated number of items to get better equipment. Rather than the fun kind of timewasting. Terraria feels incredibly reasonable in comparison.
From here, I’m going to go through a typical style of review, where I categorize things.
Graphics: The graphics of Starbound are harmless enough. Although, there’s a certain...tonal discomfort I might mention. Many of the areas, especially underground are visually bland. More on that issue later, as it relates to a much bigger issue that Starbound has. It probably largely has to do with the fact that no effort is made to blend block to block or foreground to background. Each block stands out, and this actually isn’t a very good look.
NPCs do stand out on their own and many of them do have unique looks, but they also have the problem of standing out too much. And yet, they don’t. Many of them also blur together into a collection of sameness, making picking one out from a crowd nigh impossible. This stems from the problem that all of them are using the same sprites and armors as the player can. I think a bit of height variety and a few other tweaks could go a bit of a way to solve this.
Sound: This game has weak sound. I don’t mean everything is too quiet or that there isn’t enough oomph in removing a block. What I mean by weak sound is that the overall sound design of this game is quite weak. I have the music off (more on that later) and the sound at 100. But the sound has no impact. There’s no depth to the sound at all, no effects applied when underground to make it echo, nothing more than the most basic of processing.
Now on the flipside, the actual sounds themselves are also weak. I’ve heard firecrackers louder than the guns in this game. Rockets are not known for being quiet, in flight or on impact. And swinging a giant hammer the size of oneself should probably make something more than a muffled thud noise. This could be solved by the developers going and doing some Foley work. As a protip, there’s a reason why people wear ear protection at gun ranges.
Music: The music sucks, full stop. I’m not sure if the music was composed or if it’s just procedurally generated. But it is ill fitting either way, often mismatching the overall mood, scenery, and situation of things. After being bored by tonal drones and plinky little tunes that really didn’t form a coherent melody, I decided to just mute the music and load up Foobar2000. This probably could have been solved by focusing on music instead of implementing dumb midi instruments.
Now onto where the biggest bugbears show: The interactive elements.
Combat: The combat in this game is a little more complex than Terraria, and not in a particularly good way. Back in the beta of Starbound, weapons came in a wide variety, and were often handed out like candy, having a random variety of effects, stats, and names. This appears to have been replaced with entirely static weapons and far less drops. While this does solve the Borderlands style issue of a useless random scoped shotgun that fires peas, it now leaves the issue of obtaining new weapons, which now seem to come from quest rewards and absurd pocket dungeons which are literally pocket dimensions just scattered about on planets for some reason.
Weapons themselves come in a variety of classes so numerous as to make the Mana series blush. Unlike Mana however, there’s no way to forge or augment your weapons. Which strikes me as odd, seeing as you can literally make an atomic furnace and a replicator, especially when one can just buy refined ores.
Crafting: It sucks. There’s too much of it, it takes time, you have to research breathing (basic things you’d think anyone would know), and the amount of upgrades to be done reaches Warzone 2100 levels of absurd. Back in the days of beta, there was a tier system for most things. This appears to have been largely removed, so you can no longer tell if something you’ve made is two levels behind or not. Spread this out over a series of 6 or more crafting stations and you’ve got a crafting system about as good as the sewer mini dungeons in the game. Oh, and crafting costs money. Enjoy watching your pixels wither away for some reason.
Mining: It sucks too. Back in the days of beta, you did quests to upgrade your matter manipulator. Now there are modules and you have to collect a butlload of them to get the matter manipulator up to a level where things are mined at a tolerable level. Sure, you could make pickaxes, but I thought those were supposed to be removed because they’re archaic and anachronistic. How do you get these modules? Sidequests and rummaging through chests. Either way, it’s padding. Also for some reason when mining fuel on moons, there's this dumbass invincible thing that chases you as to encourage you to leave quickly.
What’s even ‘better’ is that back in the days of beta, to get better ores. You simply went to higher class sectors, and planets were on a 1-10 level system, meaning you weren’t stuck on a volcanic planet mining away at magma rock to get the best stuff.
Progression: It sucks as well. Back in the days of beta, you set up the boss battles yourself, the outpost was more important, and there were less set pieces, and rather than having to lug around a backpack with environmental equipment, you instead had a cool bio-implant system which works the same exact way as these clunky backpacks, except without eating up an inventory spot. The progression is possibly one of the more screwed up things they failed to get close to finished in time for a full release of Starbound. All I can say is, I hope you really like backtracking.
Variety: Variety is the biggest issue of Starbound. If it’s too little in planetary and monster variety, thanks to the devs unwisely choosing to focus on making set monsters or far too much item clutter and useless weaponry, variety is Starbound’s massive weakness. What kind of weaksauce universe has less than 20 planet types? (Noctis IV gets away with this for having to fit an entire universe on a floppy disk) What kind of game needs useless items to rival Skyrim in number? What happened to all the procedurally generated monsters? Why am I encountering those stupid acid spitters across the universe? At least most games try by making the monsters a different color to indicate a stronger subspecies. Why is it out of the variety of techs to choose from, I’ve only found three of them to be of any use?
Environments: They make no bloody sense. Thematically or physically. Why is there a forest on the volcanic planet? Why did the Glitch find it to be a good idea to set up their wooden buildings and hay roofs in a similar environment? (Unsurprisingly, the settlement burned down.) Why did I find a Floran settlement in the middle of a frozen planet? (At least they were smart enough to shelter themselves in the ground) Who decided it was a good idea for the Apex to set up shop on frozen hellscapes rather than in the logical place, forests and jungles? What even are the aquatic Hylotl doing in a desert settlement? And what is this forest and abandoned Hylotl Pagoda doing on the savannah planet?
NPCs: They’re dumb as a bag of styrofoam bricks. I don’t expect them to be a smart as as a Watson node, but I never expected them to be this bad at basic pathfinding in a 2D game, nor would I have expected them to be this terrible at basic survival. From being unable to navigate through water, simply being unable to hit the broadside of a barn, to deciding the best thing to do while being mauled is to not move, I haven’t seen such a failure in AI since reading of One Hour Stupidity Syndrome in Creatures 2.
Fossil Excavating: This minor optional mechanic is bullhonky. Why is it that even with the most advanced brush on hand, I get a piddly selection of tools and can’t even rotate the drill? I’ve played at least two other games with excavation mechanics, and they both did it far better. Spectrobes because it required actual skill (and could be upgraded), and Pokemon because it didn’t immediately flunk you because you accidentally hit a spot you already uncovered. Both of them had unlimited tool use.
UI/UX: How does one fail to make a UI scale in this day and age? Everything is so tiny, especially when compared to Minecraft and Terraria. Why is there no indicator if you’ve read a book or blueprint? Why is there no indicator if a weapon or armor is better than what you’ve already got? How is placing things so fiddly? How is the options menu so incredibly lacking?
Conclusion: Starbound is in no way a 1.0/Gold release It needs far more refining to be worth the price they ask.
Had I been developing the game, I would have focused on the core features rather than the fickle whimsy of the community or the other staff. I wouldn’t have moved the entire development team to one of the most expensive places to live that was just so stupid why did you do that—ahem, sorry. While I’m not against the idea of the development team being in the same place, there are several places that could have been chosen that were far less expensive than often cited as one of the most expensive cities in the world. :I
Any other points I should pick over? Questions/comments?
Post edited July 29, 2016 by Darvond
