Recent reviews by Zynj

Yes. Good.
Has bad? Yes. Good still.
F2P.

Recommend.

good game

Starfield, a proof-of-concept collection fused into an abomination—an affront to Chekhov's Gun.
Do not allow the political, performance, and visual discussions distract from the disappointment Starfield is, even if it had been perfect in all those aspects.

Minimum System Requirements
- Blind Consumerism
- Cognitive Dissonance
- Exploitable Dopamine Receptors

Score
3/10 (5/10 for those that like what's there)

I spent 26 hours in Starfield as someone that went in with zero expectations about it, and I spent each minute in bafflement at how impossible it was to rationalize ANY decision made as to its creation.


Does Starfield allow us to shoot and loot? Indeed, it does! But to what purpose?

I opted to not participate in combat, as to walk past the enemies or slap them with a fist, on repeat, is a more viable option. That'd be awesome, if it was a deliberate decision to allow it. But even on the hardest difficulties, enemies are irrelevant. Is that a problem? Yes and no: what's the purpose of loot? Is it not to conquer more difficult enemies or otherwise advance? Starfield thinks, "No. Weapons and armor are optional cosmetics. Pick a flavor! Have fun!", which once more, if intentional, would be awesome! But, as with all development choices made in Starfield, it is obvious that it's not an intended implementation.

Starfield isn't a "looter-shooter", it's an illusion of choice, cosmetics. Be warned: all Starfield has to offer are mere illusions.


While Starfield offers immense amounts of points-of-interest, both hand-crafted and procedural, the scope and its contents both feel—and are—pointless and soulless; a prime example of "quantity over quality".
I, at no point, found locations that had more than the illusion that it contained meritable content.

You can land on planets and head to POIs (points-of-interest) but, while it's called a POI, there is no point or actual interest for exploration.
I encountered this cave that had dead scientists in it, a beautiful location too, with exotic mushrooms that lit it up, and carcasses strewn around in its pits. Sam, a companion I had with me, seemed to alert me as he stated, "I sure hope whatever killed all these people isn't still around". I was on alert as I explored. Then questions formed. What threat did Sam allude to? There's no threat here. I checked all corners and paths. What are these carcasses here for? There's no life on this planet! What about the mushrooms? Can I sell them? Gather them? No. This location served no purpose. It was pointless. As are ALL other locations.

Starfield uses insinuation after insulation as its core exploration incentive, but does not deliver, ever; in turn it dissuades one from participation. One will not want to explore.

The scope does not reconcile its pointless locations: all exploration is done on a room-to-room basis.
You perhaps remember the sensation one has when a POI is completed in past Bethesda titles and one return to the "open world"? You won't have that experience in Starfield. It is box-room to box-room—whether that's space, a planet, or populated area.


Starfield, as a narrator, does not utilize Starfield as an RPG—I don't know how to well put into words how hard it fails to deliver.

Take for example the MAIN NARRATIVE and MAIN QUEST LINE:
In past Bethesda titles, such as TES5, the NARRATIVE ENABLES GAMEPLAY as it introduces "shouts", these are obtained from both EXPLORATION AND COMBAT, thus a reason to participate in them. You then utilize these powers for puzzles, enemies, and other potential useful means.

In TES5, the exploration entails to find altars strewn around the world. One MUST EXPLORE to find these. It also has the additional DYNAMIC that it requires one to participate in COMBAT to obtain "Dragon Souls" to expend on a "shout" once an altar has been found. A HARMONY between EXPLORATION, NARRATIVE, and COMBAT, has been established.

In Starfield, the narrative introduces "space-powers", but these DO NOT necessitate EXPLORATION NOR COMBAT.
In Starfield, the "exploration" is replaced with: Get quest. Teleport to Quest Planet. Walk a DIRECT PATH to temple. Pick it up. Done. Combat-wise, well... a reason to do combat wouldn't be fun here, so I suppose that's cool. Now, is there a Dragon to fight? A boss? ANY reason to use these powers ANYWHERE? No.

While past Bethesda titles incentivize GAMEPLAY via their NARRATIVE and vice-versa, Starfield does neither in either direction.

GTA: V Online has frequent random crashes.

I like this.

Notice, this was written prior to update v1.2 and v1.4 that might have rectified a lot of the complaints...

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Hellslave has unfulfilled potential - which is a dreaded term, especially in a released game.

It requires a more readable and comfortable UI/UX experience - there are a lot of obtuse and illogical interactions and design in most of the interfaces.

In the storage chest, the 'LMB/RMB' interactions do not work despite the tooltip stating otherwise, so dragging items is needed.
After each battle or loot interaction, the inventory opens and one has to do some tedious management - missing sell junk features, animation skips, clear distinction of what items are good, bad, or important crafting materials etc.
In the skill tree, learning and unlearning skills are separated into two different buttons instead of just being 'LMB/RMB', so there is a lot of moving back and forth with the mouse.
It seems that one must unlearn a skill to remove it from the hot bar instead of just dragging it off.
In the sub-categories of the skill tree, on something called 'Momentum' and 'Postures', the skills are dragged/undragged into slots instead.

Gameplay-wise,
While there are a lot of skills, both passive and actives, most of the active ones are boring enough that it would be better off having them as passives. I cannot be bothered clicking the skill although it is advantageous to do so. In the instance of skills that require a 'Critical Hit' before it can be cast, the experience would be a lot better if it was a passive with automatic execution on said requirement. Some adjustments to the strength of the bonuses would be required, but I'd rather have a weaker version than a bloated hot bar and needing to press ten instant casts each turn.

Movement - random encounters seem unnecessary and seem to exist just to justify the existence of the 'Stealth' mechanic which is a button press to avoid random encounters for ten seconds.
You can apparently sprint by double-clicking around, but that feels inconsistent and also tedious.

I do not tend to write reviews because it feels opinionated - which it is - so keep the short 'time played' in mind, but also that those sparse two hours made me bored enough to write a review.

Edit: Finished the game on hardest difficulty, it was not a particular fun experience, but the developers seem to be active in fixing complaints, so I wouldn't disregard the game in its entirety, it's just very flawed and monotone as it stands... which may or may not get better over time.

...

Go agene

No.

Fun, but it's still a broken mess after release.