Recent reviews by geekyspecter

Honestly, I wanted to enjoy this game. I really did. But for the most part, it looks like I'll be echoing some of the previous reviews. I got this game after all the DLC had been released, keep that in mind.

PROS:

- Beautiful artstyle, I've always enjoyed somewhat simplified cel-shaded environments
- Crafting and gathering is satisfying and often relaxing
- Battling creatures is interesting, each having their own patterns of movement and attacking. Learning them all eventually and defeating them that way was satisfying
- While the OST is nothing to write home about, the adaptive music in this game is very well put together. I really liked the different instruments playing depending on what kind of creature is nearby.

CONS:

- The game has a pretty steep learning curve. You'll have to respect every bit of available resource, cuz they WILL be important in one way or another, like the food items for example.
- While I did just say gathering and crafting was nice and all, along with traversing the map, its novelty quickly wears off and becomes tedious once you add the Forsaken and the Loathing mechanic to the mix. Speaking of...
- The Forsaken have little reason to be there. Sure, it ties in with the lore, but their Loathing mechanic, which lowers your max HP until you cure it with a potion, along with other obstacles in their area are a pain to deal with. Fighting them one at a time is no problem for me, but because of how much of a regular occurrance they become, it sort of conflicts with the other more relaxing elements.
- Despite the implied importance of items and the relatively large number of different item types, inventory management is a pain. Even when I tried my best to get the next best bag to expand said inventory, there were still many occasions where I had to seriously consider even taking a single certain ingredient with me until I find use for it later. Once you do drop the ingredient however, you've already traveled to a new chapter, where there's a very high chance you won't find any places where you could get more of that item.
- For some things like Alchemy, you'll need a lot of different ingredients for a lot of different potions. And by the time I actually got a Cauldron, most of the important ingredients that WOULD'VE been useful are now stuck in another chapter, left on the ground because I needed space.
- The crafting system in general is pretty robust as well, some items requiring a fair amount of resources.

I went through most of the game in this slow pace of stopping at every island to soak in all the good materials because I thought I wasn't gathering enough. 16 hours as of writing this, and I managed to get SOFTLOCKED on the final chapter, because i got killed by a Terrorlurk, and the base of my wooden hull boat just despawned, leaving only the hull guard, the sail, and my chest with my extra items in it. This was the final straw, and I ended up watching a gameplay video on Youtube instead.

If you wanna experience it yourself and want to train your analytical eye (like I did for a possible video), then I say go for it, but with this 3rd DLC out, I don't recommend buying it just to have fun.

Great game, gives me a Super Smash Bros. Melee vibe to it. Recommended for people who are familiar with fighting games like Smash Bros. SUPER hyped for Steam Workshop features :)