♥

it's fun for a few hours, but overall lacks an end-goal and the mech feels kinda pointless as anything other than a tool-holder and mobile chest. I'd actually argue the mech hinders the game since you HAVE to have your mech with you to move things into your inventory. I'd also love to see some hostility; the wildlife doesn't serve much of a purpose, and having some of them be hostile to the player might help the mech feel more useful as armor. Overall, buy the game on sale, wait for MUCH more development.

**Spoilers Ahead**
I recently picked this game up and I have some thoughts, Hopefully, it is understood that this opinion is just that an opinion. Please attempt to view said review and your gameplay from an objective perspective.

This game is comfy. I have played several farming games, life sims, and general exploration/craft-related content and I can say that this game has the makings of a beautiful work of fun and replay-ability. That being said, in its current state I would argue that the game should be valued at $25 ($15 - $20 would be reasonable). There is about this game that leaves you wanting, whether it be the lack of a story ending in its current state or the utilization of the tech. The whole concept of restoring a planet for the sole purpose of harvesting location-specific resources, which in the end serves no purpose left me wondering about the utilization of the mech in future updates.

I beat the current content in the game in roughly 10 hours which I would say is a normal amount of time for 15-30% of gameplay for other games in this field. This game is incredibly beautiful, I referred to it earlier as "Comfy" for a reason. It felt like a game I could pick up after a long day of work and tend to my harvest, explore a bit, and develop my farm in a beautifully atmospheric world. There is a lot to unpack here, and we'll start with farming. Once the main storyline is finished, there is essentially no other content in the game aside from the daily quests and no incentive to farm anymore. The utilization of location-specific resources in the crafting of further tech advancements is standard in a game like this however from an outside perspective it's missing one key component, automation. A game like this requires these location-specific resources for everything from, mech advancements, tech tree unlocks to building materials and decorative items used to customize your farm. The ability to have something harvest resources from far-off areas or even collect your harvest/items thrown out on the floor from one of the farming techs would be an essential step to replayability. A major fault of the game's current mechanics is the inability to pick up an item and place it into a chest while you are outside your mech. Currently, you need to shoot an item into your mech and then transfer the item to the desired chest or storage location. Having the ability to shoot the items into storage or some form of personal storage while outside the mech would be very helpful. Utilizing the crafting/tech items while outside of mech can be frustrating as a lot of times I ran into issues where I was upgrading my mech, the items I needed were craftable and potentially out of storage range for my large farm. It required me to get out, go craft the item, and then shoot it into my mech from a far distance to complete the upgrade. As someone who enjoys efficiency in games, it can become tedious to get back into my mech, waddle over to my crafting area, and then walk back to my upgrade station to wait for the animation to finish and finally upgrade the item I needed. While not too much of an issue, it can become one when I build a large home base and some of the storage is inaccessible at certain ranges. A guideline, similar to the one the house has for decorations for chest range would be a helpful addition.

Auto-planting and Auto-storage would be a nice component as well. Having a bot or AI mini-mech crafted by the user would be a fun addition. You would be able to assign tasks and have storage assigned to specific items. This would aid in another issue with the game. As one knows, item entities tend to cause games to have issues for people who may be on older PCs. While I did not experience this, having 8 oil makers and several grinders all dropping items on the floor may cause issues with gameplay for some users. Having something collected while I am out exploring would increase my want to enjoy the rest of the planet. I felt locked to my farm for several days at a time if I am being honest. Having a large farm caused to me run back and forth to water sources even with a fully upgraded farm just to ensure all my crops were watered. I loved the hitbox being visible for crops that still needed watering, especially for things like wheat. It made me so happy to see the water-needed hit-box as often in games I am left wondering if I watered something when the sprite or animation is too large to see the soil underneath.

The mech, I love the movement and mechanics even the audio aspect of shifting from 3 person to first while in the mech. The motion felt like I was driving a mech, having to fully wait until the hips of the mech turned around to walk straight which causes the user to think about how they traverse the planet and the distance they can boost using rockets/ other mobility mechanics. The mech upgrades however are a bit of a hit or miss. Some I find extremely useful and necessary to game-play and progression, others however I felt lacked. For instance, there is a mech upgrade that allows the user to till the earth and not need planter boxes as a whole. While this is a fantastic idea, I am left wanting to flatten the terrain. I feel a core component of farming sims is and always will be the ability to modify the surrounding terrain. While there are aspects of this like the tillable soil upgrade, not being able to flatten the ground to make my house and all its decorations fit nicely where I want them forces the user into settling in the most open flat area on the map. Either, The Meadows or one of the late-game areas.

Aside from this, I am unsure if it was a bug within my game as I was watching someone play this game in a previous version and they were able to get a notification that this was the current ending to the game once they left The Vault. In my gameplay, with this new update, I never received any indication that I had reached the end of the game. While in the vault and following the lore I searched for two hours for a potential hidden bunker entrance on Tornado Rock Isle only to hop on Google and find out that there was no current ending to the game.

Additionally, not needed but as a suggestion, having some form of secret collectibles in the game would be a fun addition. Increasing the usage of the traveling merchant may also be fun as currently once you have reached the end game, there is no essential need for the merchant.

All around I feel like several aspects of the game are non-essential, that is my major issue with the game. Could I get an endgame without utilizing the merchant or even customizing my home with decorations? Absolutely. Is it a fun component? To an extent, however, I believe key additions would be interweaving the decoration mechanic into necessary gameplay, the comfort bonuses don't feel as if they have a major impact on the story. There is no incentive to waste resources feeding animals that are likely to give me two stone or plant material.

Some form of transportation would be nice as well. The ability to either travel by rail or fast travel at a cost to another location would be fun. As previously mentioned, I spent the morning and noon, most days watering and clearing my farm, including harvesting/replanting. Having a Noxious weed or bubble event occur left me leaving home at night to walk a long distance just to harvest location-specific resources and oftentimes not making it home in time before the day changed.


With all this being said, a reader may feel like this is a negative review. I genuinely loved this game, there are so many things I want to see moving forward as I understand this game is in early access. The game in its current state just feels like it's too small for its current price. I recommend you pick this up if you don't mind farming daily with no actual goal or objective once you finish the game.