Starbound is one of those games where I REALLY want to enjoy it, but I can't. There are a couple of things that I like about it, but I can't overlook all of the annoying things; the unfinished, unpolished mechanics, the lacklustre exploration and world generation, and I certainly can't overlook the terrible, overarching storyline in a SANDBOX game.

PROS:
- Nice pixel graphics
- Good soundtrack
- Building is fleshed out and fun
- Tech progression is nice
- It's kinda like Terraria I guess

CONS:
- Terrible, annoying storyline
- Limited freedom in character development
- NPCs are practically braindead and useless
- Quest System is dumb
- Little variation in planets
- Exploration is repetitive and boring
- Dumb, random mini dungeons and structures EVERYWHERE (no blank or natural planets)
- Unpolished combat system
- Character mobility is horrid
- Multiplayer is poorly executed (on Chucklefish's part)
- Inexplicable poor optimisation, even on high end machines
- Needs mods to be good
- Still unfinished

Let's start with the pros. At a first glance, Starbound looks like a good game. The design and audio is generally quite good. The amount of building materials and decorations is fantastic for those of us who like to build a lot of stuff. The way that the matter manipulator functions also makes this very easy and lore friendly. Acquiring tech to enhance your mobility and such is also pretty neato.

And although there's a couple of things that I really like about this game, namely the building aspect, there's plenty of things that I really dislike about this game.

Firstly; why does a sandbox game have such a big and annoying overarching storyline? I get that you don't necessarily have to complete the entire thing, but it sets up a precedent that you're some kind of Space Jesus and the world's only saviour, which is incredibly generic and vanilla. Isn't the entire premise of a sandbox game to let the character go out and do whatever they want to do and however they want to do it? You can't really just go out and be what you want to be - the game could do with some actual character development and different paths for you to go down. You want to be a space pirate or a mercenary or something actually cool? Well, too bad. You're Space Jesus.

Now, as I mentioned, building in this game is great, and it gives you the option to let colonists move in via a Colony Deed, which is a nice touch, but the colonists that move in are practically just sprites. They all have ONE line of dialogue and they don't do anything unless they decide to give you a quest every now and again, which is just one of three different quests that is reused over and over. Eventually, you can recruit them as crew members, but having actual colonists is almost entirely pointless.

Another big aspect of this game is the exploration, which is tedious and uninspired. Pretty much every planet you come across is just a variant of another, maybe with a slightly different colour palette and a few different mini dungeons and random buildings dotted across the surface. Which ties into another thing I hate about this game - no planet is just blank. There's something just randomly on every planet. It makes no sense. Why are some planets not hubworlds for the many races in the game? Why do they all just live in random huts across the galaxy? Why can't I have a blank canvas planet to shape as my own? Why does this game hate the concept of sandbox so much?!

The combat system is poorly done. This isn't helped by the actual manoeuvrability of your character, as they seem to be on rollerskates at all times unless you're at a really slow walking pace. Controlling your character is unnecessarily hard, espeically in a pinch, and the NPCs you have to fight are all pretty braindead; not to mention they're all basically just palette swaps. The bosses themselves are all incredibly easy as well.

Multiplayer in any game is inherently fun, and it certainly is better than the Singleplayer in Starbound, but there's absolutely no effort on Chucklefish's part to in anyway streamline or optimise the gameplay for it. Quest progression is still per character, rather than having the option for it to happen for the entire party, which is just kinda silly. Multiplayer could really have been where this game shines, but instead it's just a little mediocre.

For some reason, the game manages to run incredibly poorly for what it is - a 2D sidescrolling game. I don't know how, but even running this game on a system with an i7 8700k and GTX 1080, I manage to get random frame drops and lag spikes, not to mention NPCs and enemies basically teleporting across the screen. I don't know how you can possibly have such poor optimisation on a 2D sidescroller, but Chucklefish have managed to do it.

There's heaps of mods and stuff to really expand on Starbound and make it worth your time playing, but that's just it - this game needs mods to be enjoyable. The vanilla game itself is not really worth anyone's time. If a game needs mods to be good, wouldn't that imply that the game itself is poor?

In the comments of my YouTube review of this game, I specifically remember one commenter telling me "if you just ignore the bad things about this game then it's really good" and you know what? He's exactly right. Just like if you ignore all the bad things about literally anything it's inherently good. If you ignore the fact that Starbound is unfinished and developed poorly in a lot of aspects, it's a great game. That much is true.

Alas, I find it difficult to lie to myself and tell myself that this game is great. Despite having to wait so long for the game's official release (2013 buyer here) I find myself still disappointed at the lack of content. The game still does not feel complete, almost 5 years down the track. There are still so many things about this game that need work, core mechanics that turn me away from playing this game.

I think that the "if you just ignore the bad things about this game then it's really good" comment really just about sums this game up for me. In an industry when products, especially those released in early access, can be so hit and miss, Starbound is unfortunately a miss for me. The game needs more polish and work to be something truly magical - because underneath the pile of issues and annoyances Starbound has, there is something magical. And believe me when I say that it hurts me to know that this game really has not lived up to it's potential.

TL;DR - ♥♥♥♥ you, read my review