CinnamonBuns
Novice
- Joined
- Sep 4, 2023
- Messages
- 2
Thoughts- this game is all over the place.
25% of it is improvements over Fallout 4. The dialogue system is leagues better, as are the RPG aspects of building a character (traits/backgrounds). This game is fundamentally still a looter shooter, so the ability to roleplay through its systems is often limited- but considering the depths of Fallout 4, Bethesda did something they probably haven't done since Daggerfall: adding rather than removing RPG systems from their newest game. The setting can be boring sometimes, but I do appreciate how "near-future" its take on sci-fi is. The writing is forced to be more grounded (mostly) than Bethesda's distinctly autistic "lol we're soooo random and zany!!!!" take on Fallout.
30-50% of it is typical Bethesda. Everyone knows that that means.
The variance here is because the pro-gen planets sometimes recreate the hiking-sim gameplay that Bethesda made its name on, but it more often just turns into barren stretches of wasteland between copy-pasted points of interest. Sometimes you can almost talk yourself into thinking it's incline- "this emptiness creates slow-burn gameplay and simulates space!" On balance though, I think it's not done well enough to actually consistently create this feeling. I more often feel like it's empty because Bethesda bit off way more than they could chew, not because the design is deliberately immersing you in the vastness of the cosmos. When your trek ends at the same point of interest you've already seen 5 times, it drives this feeling home.
The last 25% of it is genuinely dogshit. Whoever designed the UI in this game probably huffs paint in their free time. It's probably the most dated looking Bethesda game relative to its contemporaries, but still runs like trash. Locked FOV on PC and you need to use silly workarounds to fix it. The constant fast travelling, which in turn forces you back into the game's menus. The gameplay loop revolves around shooting, which still feels mediocre.
Overall, it comes together in a janky package that reminds me of low budget Eastern European shooters. Bethesda created a ton of systems, polished none of them, and used their budget to make this random mismash on a galactic scale. I can't say I love it, but it's working a lot better than Fallout 4 for me.
25% of it is improvements over Fallout 4. The dialogue system is leagues better, as are the RPG aspects of building a character (traits/backgrounds). This game is fundamentally still a looter shooter, so the ability to roleplay through its systems is often limited- but considering the depths of Fallout 4, Bethesda did something they probably haven't done since Daggerfall: adding rather than removing RPG systems from their newest game. The setting can be boring sometimes, but I do appreciate how "near-future" its take on sci-fi is. The writing is forced to be more grounded (mostly) than Bethesda's distinctly autistic "lol we're soooo random and zany!!!!" take on Fallout.
30-50% of it is typical Bethesda. Everyone knows that that means.
The variance here is because the pro-gen planets sometimes recreate the hiking-sim gameplay that Bethesda made its name on, but it more often just turns into barren stretches of wasteland between copy-pasted points of interest. Sometimes you can almost talk yourself into thinking it's incline- "this emptiness creates slow-burn gameplay and simulates space!" On balance though, I think it's not done well enough to actually consistently create this feeling. I more often feel like it's empty because Bethesda bit off way more than they could chew, not because the design is deliberately immersing you in the vastness of the cosmos. When your trek ends at the same point of interest you've already seen 5 times, it drives this feeling home.
The last 25% of it is genuinely dogshit. Whoever designed the UI in this game probably huffs paint in their free time. It's probably the most dated looking Bethesda game relative to its contemporaries, but still runs like trash. Locked FOV on PC and you need to use silly workarounds to fix it. The constant fast travelling, which in turn forces you back into the game's menus. The gameplay loop revolves around shooting, which still feels mediocre.
Overall, it comes together in a janky package that reminds me of low budget Eastern European shooters. Bethesda created a ton of systems, polished none of them, and used their budget to make this random mismash on a galactic scale. I can't say I love it, but it's working a lot better than Fallout 4 for me.