Recent reviews by ordovician

Finally hit LR1 after 3000 hours, so I've qualified to leave a review. The following is spoiler-free.

Warframe isn't just the greatest free-to-play game ever made, it's one of the greatest live-service games active today, and it's better than 99% of the paid AAA games of the past two decades.

Warframe branches out like a tree. The more you play it, the more you realize there is to do. There are many systems to play with in order to customize your loadout that are introduced to the player one at a time as they make their way through the game's long progression. You won't run out of content to play, ever, and with over fifty Warframes to play as, most with multiple viable playstyles, the grind only gets stale if you let it get stale.

That said, there's no infinite gear treadmill ala Destiny, where your old equipment becomes obsolete every update. The modding system in place is so complex and brilliant that it's far more nuanced than numbers climbing higher. You're actually incentivised to run different loadouts in different content, something many other games struggle to deliver with their balancing. What's greatest about this is that you can take breaks from playing Warframe regularly, and at worst you'll be kicking yourself for missing a season of Nightwave. Otherwise, there's no FOMO, just a delicious buffet of new content to devour when you get back.

The developers are incredibly communicative with their community, which fosters the most positive game community I've ever seen. The optimism this game's audience has is infectious. There are constantly events and livestreams, and the developers are quick to be honest, whether that be regarding their thought process behind a change, or when they make a mistake. See you all at Tennocon.

The story, while a confusing piecemeal at first, blossoms into a touching and meaningful exploration of love, and it's great. If you go into it with an open mind it really delivers, and it isn't afraid to be weird, nor does it hold the audience's hand, which I really respect- many games dumb down their story to such a degree that they end up with something that belongs in a children's book. Warframe puts you into a children's book- literally- and the question of why and how manages not to even be the primary focus.

Warframe's art direction is entirely unmatched in the free-to-play scene. Not only are the alien landscapes beautifully handcrafted and inspired, they also manage to feel entirely unique in the oversaturated sci-fi genre. Places like Fortuna, Deimos, Hollvania, and the Orb Vallis tackle classic tropes in a way that feels entirely unique, and Duviri is truly unlike anything I've ever seen. The weapons, warframes, and other equipment are beautifully animated, highly customizable, and incredibly thoughtful in terms of design, both visually and in gameplay, and the two are usually blended perfectly. I also need to shoutout the incredible music during this portion, there are a shocking number of incredibly well-done vocal performances in this game.

Warframe is not without its faults, most glaringly the platinum-first UI design that can make new players believe that it's a money-hungry scam of a game. The truth is that platinum-only items are almost entirely restricted to cosmetics, but because the game shows you so many opportunities to skip the grind with plat, it can seem like platinum's needed- it's not. Also, the premium currency can be traded with other players, something of a rarity in the genre, and that means that the game can be played entirely F2P, if that's your style.

Some players will also bounce off the long crafting times, but they serve a clear purpose- and it's not to get you to pay to rush the Foundry, god, don't do that. Warframe is a big, big game. If you try to speed through it, you're bound to burn yourself out. The Foundry's long timers exist to guide players into a more moderate, healthy style of engaging with the game, playing it for shorter sessions across many days. I really like that about it now that I understand it, though I do remember being frustrated by it early on. So long as you keep crafting new stuff, you'll have plenty of weapons to level while your new ones are cooking, so the problem quickly fades.

I could go on and on, but I'll stop myself in the hopes that somebody out there will actually read this.

TL;DR? Here's my pros and cons list:
+ Unmatched content depth
+ Gorgeous art
+ You can pet your cat
+ Lots of player choice, build variety
+ Touching story, eventually
+ Battle Pass (Nightwave) has NO monetization!
+ Not afraid to get weird
+ Dating sim
+ Very positive community
+ Engaged developers clearly love the game and fans
+ Space ninja love magic
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- UI sometimes fails to communicate that F2P options exist and seems predatory even though the game's broader design actually isn't.
- Some items are just never going to be obtainable for a new player. My inner completionist eventually made peace with this. Yours may not.
- You will get "The Great Despair" stuck in your head.

You will have a good time so long as you quicksave often, because sometimes things don't work right, and that's okay. The story and characters are worth it.

great game.
set to fullscreen mode, can never play again.