Recent reviews by Mythily

I got interested in the game because I wanted to see more after watching the anime adaption Zestiria the X (which I recommend watching if you don't want to spend 50 hours on this game. There are major differences though. Both have good and bad parts story/character wise).
So why is this mixed? The character interactions and parts of the story save this tales game from being bad.

The combat is atrocious in all kinds of ways.
The AI is inconsistent and will get mauled by bosses over and over again on higher difficulties.
The bosses themselves leave a lot to be desired. Balance is all over the place.
The ONLY thing I liked about the combat is the way equipment works, I had more enjoyment making good combinations than the combat itself.
Don't buy this for the combat, you'll be disappointed. Definitely the worst combat out of any tales game I've played so far.

This might not be the same for everyone but my experience with this port was bad. Crash fest bad. Don't ALT+TAB this game.
Save before going to another area, the crash demon could be just around the corner when you don't expect it.
Seriously, what's wrong with this port? Most unstable JRPG port I've played so far and I've played plenty.
*rant over*

Use your own judgement whether to buy this game or not. Definitely play Berseria and Vesperia first if you're looking for a tales game.

You'll enjoy it a lot more with friends. None of mine are interested anymore, unfortunately.

And of course mods make the game even better.

It's a good thing this game has great mod support, otherwise I never had 2k hours playtime. That's why it still gets a thumbs up. On the edge of a thumb down:

Can't recommend it for the base game anymore, anyone who played the earlier alpha's will likely agree. The game had it's "golden age", which is now probably gone forever. Devs are indecisive, they change core mechanics every alpha. No wonder this game is still in alpha.
.

There are two reasons why I would go for all achievements in any game.
1. It's (relatively) easy to get all of them, usually need to play once through the entire game.
2. The game has a significant meaning to me. I'll go for it, even if it's painful.

Which one could OMORI be?

Buy the game, you'll see for yourself :)
(Don't focus on getting achievements on your first run)
...
Good thing nobody saw me crying for about 10 minutes, that would've been embarrassing.
This brought back a painful moment of the past I would rather forget.

One ending, I'll always remember. I didn't expect it in a Neptunia game, at all.
Prepare for the feels :P
If you like that ending, I suggest looking at death end request. Has a similar dark setting as this ending does.
Unfortunately, people won't accept dark endings in these kind of games and as a result, the sequel suffered from it.

Other than that, I did enjoy this. Lots of endings.

DLCs:
Additional Content Pack 1 - Worth it, will make one achievement easier. (level cap 99>399)
Additional Content Pack 2 - Depends, if you really want to grind and be OP. (level cap 399>699)
Additional Content Pack 3 - Same as above, but more. (level cap 699>999)
Histy's Rescue Plans - Yes, will reduce grind significantly. Just don't enable Super EXP UP on your first playthrough.
Nepgear's Beam Zapper ZERO - No. Gives you an OP sword straight away. Balance thrown out of the window.
Deluxe Pack - Doesn't affect gameplay. Art book, soundtrack and wallpapers.
Mini/Giant island - Not required. Just get Histy's Rescue Plans instead.
Lily-ad dungeon - Reduces grinding. Recommended if you want all endings, but I did it without this.
Shares quest - Not worth it tbh. ACP 1 while not mentioned is required, because the bosses you have to defeat are just way too strong. Just spam colosseum battles.
I don't have the other DLCs I didn't mention here. It doesn't seem they have a big impact, I guess if you are a Neptunia fan you can get those as well.

Fortunately, all achievements can be obtained without DLCs.

Don't let the negative reviews fool you.

I was sceptical about it first, but I decided to stick with it. That is likely the issue why people give it a negative review. This DLC takes some time to really get going. The time limit might seem annoying/discouraging at first but once you know what to do you can use it to your advantage.

TLDR, don't give up. Stick with it and you'll likely enjoy it nearly as much as the vanilla game. I did.

Not much to say about this, looks good on Firis.
The costumes I like the most is either this or snow bright.

Effect: +50% proficiency

Really helps mitigating the rather annoying process of getting everything to gold/platinum.

What I liked:
- The alchemy system. Not easy but rewarding (and satisfying) when mastered.
- Exploration. Large areas, with loading screens in between. This makes the world more connected, but a real open world would've been nice.
- Time limit. It makes sense in this game and gives you the feel of "do I have enough time left". Almost all quests have no time limit, so keep them for later. Use your time to explore. Try to get all 5 letters before taking the exam.
- Outfits. Each has their own use (effect), adds to the immersion.
- Being able to change the difficulty at any time.
- Character interaction. More between them and Firis (main char) than between others. Each has their own story, quests and ending (only characters you can add to your party)

Meh:
- Proficiency (alchemy). While it makes sense first it becomes more of an annoyance quite fast.
- Large areas, but some are rather empty or are filled with the same tree or bush.
- Placement of points of interest and campfires. Some areas have too many while others have none.
- Area difficulty. Counter-progressive, some early accessible areas where the enemies will wipe your entire team.
- Battle system. It's only interesting on very hard (can't re-use the same offensive item/skill over and over again), otherwise it's just about your equipment.
- Re-used assets. There're a lot of creatures just retextured and/or re-used. If you've played other atelier games you know what I mean here.
- Performance. In some dense areas fps drops significantly (forests), including some weathers. This game is clearly not optimized.
- English dub is lacking.
- Quest descriptions sometimes not clear/wrong

Didn't like:
- Unlocking recipes is guesswork or RNG. It's very likely that at some point you'll have to check a guide/wiki.
- End game. The RNG from items in endgame areas and bosses just made me quite mad. On top of that there's no "register" mechanic (duplicate items) in this game making it even more annoying. Creating (synthesizing) the same item over and over again is fun right?
- Mass synthesis. I'll not spoil what this is, but a potential good idea went to waste.
- Only one location to save/load your game.
- Bad controls for KB+M users.

I recommend failing the exam first (just sleep till the time is up). You'll unlock some useful features. If you want to play on very hard you have to do this.
You can get all endings in one playthrough.
I realised way too late that you can run in this game.

Overall I did enjoy this game, but it has problems. I got all achievements and called it done.
If you want a number, 6-7.

Since there's no mixed option, I chose for red since that's more noticeable. It doesn't deserve a full recommendation in my opinion.

Graphics
Rated: good
I'm satisfied with the saturated theme (subjective). Sometimes though, the ground looks blurred for a short time - probably has to do with the voxel like (?) system. I didn't play with the settings a lot but there should be enough to get stable fps for the majority.

Exploration
Rated: good
I enjoyed exploring the POIs and planets for quite some time. Especially the planets is where this game stands strong. A lot of different possibilities here. I've encountered some really weird ones (I have a pic of one: https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2148815199) including funny/weird looking creatures.
The issue I have with the POIs is that they are only interesting when you see them for the first time. They are the same.

It's sad that I can't use the portals to travel to random systems. I understand why they put a restriction on that, but it made them less useful than before.

Starships are good as well. Lots of possibilities - I'm satisfied.
The ranking system (C,B,A and S) is something I didn't really care about. I was satisfied with B or preferably A. S is for dedicated players (very rare compared to A)

Building
Rated: great
I'm not someone who wants to spend time in building a massive base, but if you're a creative person that likes to build amazing bases or something else then this is another strong point for NMS.
For me though, it's overwhelming. I just used glass cubes and was happy with those.

Story
Rated: average
I usually care about a game's story. However... while it has a direction, it just feels like it's missing immersion. The other "travellers" don't get a real purpose, it's almost like they are just a narrator all the time. The story itself is most of the time about exploring (go to a POI, trade station etc.) If you're expecting an deep story then this game is not for you.

There're a few lifeforms you'll meet either through exploration (in my case) or with the story. I like that you don't know their language at the start - at some point you can understand most of their sentences and then you know their behavior and characteristics. This is definitely a strong point and I liked it, however this takes some time and can be seen as a chore for some (basically a grind - one language is learned in a different way and significantly faster - which in my opinion should be an option at some point for the others as well).

Combat
Rated: bad
Ground combat is just... almost not there. The predators aren't a threat at all (you don't even have to fight them), the sentinels ("police") at first interesting they get stale fast (I found it quite annoying that they just spawn indefinitely - you have to go leave and wait for them to de-aggro) and some upgrades are just so OP that you almost can't die unless you mess up badly (looking at you geology cannon).
Ground combat is lacking and unbalanced.

Space combat is more or less the same. Pirates should be able to catch up when you try to escape but this isn't the case. Frigate events aren't great either. The AI is just weird, most of the time they just fly in a circle and barely do anything. At some point they are just no challenge with how strong you get with upgraded weapons. Honestly almost the same issue as ground combat.

Difficulty
Rated: mediocre/poor
Since it should fit the survival theme, I feel it is needed to address this. You've already read my small rant about the combat, on top of that the environmental threats get quickly nullified with upgrades. Recharging these cost almost nothing as you can buy the item needed everywhere.

Periodically there're storms which increase the the environmental hazard - however this can be completely ignored by placing down a portable machine, accessing it and waiting for the storm to subside. I really hope this gets fixed.

The game has a "hardcore" difficulty where you can't die once - but since the survival aspect is like I've explained I don't see how it solves the issue at all. I did play on survival and I didn't die once.

Achievements
Rated: average
Some are way too easy to get compared to others. A great example of this is diamond age which requires you to accumulate 2 million credits. I'll just say that you can buy a cheap starship with that amount.

I'll briely mention some optional content I didn't use: hovercraft, frigates, missions (except the ones required to progress the story), majority of building parts, underwater building parts and vehicles (I probably forgot a few). Most players will likely have something they never do/use. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not but for me it's overwhelming.

Closing thoughts

I think the game has potential. There's likely something for everyone (though if you want challenging combat this game doesn't have it (yet?)). I also have respect for the devs. Tough release, but look where we are now :)

I hope this review helped (my first time I do an extended review) :) if it did a thumbs up is greatly appreciated.

My Opinion - Don't buy right now. Give it time.
I've been thinking about refunding it, and today I did. I'm more strict with games now and this is my very first refund.

With 1.3k hours of ARK I just can't play and enjoy this and I'm not going to hide it either. Though this game has content it also has issues.

Too much is still working similar to ARK. The leveling, mechanics and building all have aspects of ARK in some way which shouldn't be the case. In the end this is an entirely new game isn't it?

That does not mean the game is bad or terrible. It has content that is different from ark and it's strong point is the sea and exploration.

In the end I have two reasons why I refunded the game:
1.
Early access doesn't mean unplayable, though they did release the game in an unplayable state. Especially for solo players this lasted until the colony mechanic (and even then, you still pay tax). They also recently reset the official servers after the mega update 1. I see why the playerbase is near to nonexistent today.
2.
I did tolerate these kind of games in the past but it's not going to be the case anymore. They don't get my money if they can't ship an enjoyable product. In general I'm losing interest in games shipped by big companies because more than just this one has failed.
What set me back the most is the wrong advertising and failed launch. I don't have to explain the advertising and either you ship the game at the release date or delay it ONCE. What they did is not acceptable. Not to mention in what state they finally released it.

E.
Why is the game 120Gb already? Will it be 240Gb at launch then? I can't see why it has to be this big, no other game I have is even half the size of this one (except ARK).

If you are a solo player like me and you don't know ARK I suggest to look at it. It's much more flexible and forgiving than this game (ignore official). Don't get the DLCs though.