Reseñas recientes de deru

Here I am once again making a review for Starfield, this time the DLC. If you want a TL;DR, here you are: It is a story focused DLC with not much in the way of material content (some new weapons, no new ship parts, some new cosmetics, some outpost stuff), but rich in lore, dialogue, and narrative. If you need material content to make the DLC worth it, this is not the DLC for you. If you were curious about House Va'ruun and wanted to know more alongside a neat narrative, this is for you.

I recommend grabbing it on sale if you are on the fence, but if you enjoyed the base game and what it offered this is just more and improved so it gets a recommendation from me, someone who enjoyed their time with the base game despite having complaints.

With that out of the way, I will structure this review the same way as I did my first. The bad, the common criticisms, and the good. I will try to remain spoiler free but there may be light spoilers in my descriptions of the content.

THE BAD

1. Material content
No new ship parts sucks. I know Va'ruun just used Stroud parts but painted black, but more could be done here. The new outfits are nice but there are not many of them. Most of the new weapons are existing weapons but made into particle weapons, with the exception of some new melee weapons and heavy guns. I was hoping for extensive decorations to use as well to theme some builds off Va'ruun but no dice save for some outpost stuff you get by completing the main quest. None of this was advertised so this was more wishful thinking on my part but it still sucks.

2. Companion Comments
Andreja was unfortunately affected by a bug for a lot of people playing this DLC (though how much dialogue they missed may also be a product of people skipping over content or rushing -- more on this later) where some of her comments would not play where they should so she was very silent. That this wasn't caught in QA is crazy. I was not affected by it so Andreja has been very chatty both just walking around and in comments made during quest lines, but what is really a bummer to me is that there really isn't any direct conversations you can have with her save for after the DLC. It was a huge missed opportunity and very disappointing. Echoing something I said in my review of the base game, coming off of BG3 this just feels depressing with the lack of companion interactivity.

COMMON CRITICISMS

1. Yapping or "Shattered Spacebar"
I genuinely do not understand this, and maybe this is just an issue with my frame of reference for RPGs being different from other people. I've played older Bethesda titles, Daggerfall and Morrowind being shining examples of this, where there are no map markers and people tell you where to go with descriptions and directions. You have to pay attention to what is being said and asking more questions gets you more information and helps you immerse yourself in the world. It is utterly baffling to me that people would pay to experience something and then skip it entirely. Yes, the DLC will be very short if you go checkpoint to checkpoint but you miss a wealth of worldbuilding, dialogue, lore, and context to your decisions and the story of the DLC. If you skip all the dialogue and cut to the shooting then yeah you're probably going to have a bad time because that's not what the game is made for. If you don't want to listen to the story and talk to people and experience the content, just don't buy this. This isn't for you. It's like ordering food at a restaurant, asking for most of the ingredients and seasoning to be removed, and then saying the food is dogwater because it's flavorless. No, you just ordered boiled chicken with no seasoning.

2. No Mechanics or Substantial Changes Outside the DLC
I agree with this one. I think viewing the DLC as a silo, as it as it is an experience that I enjoy. However, if you compare it to some other Bethesda DLC that do something similar (introducing a new worldspace with self-contained content) it is still lacking in what it brings to the rest of the game. Nuka World had raider content outside of the worldspace, Dawnguard had expanded vampire content, and Dragonborn had Black Book perks and new shouts. From my understanding, there are a handful of new Va'ruun Zealot POIs and new grenade crafting but otherwise nothing to bring outside of the DLC to add to the base game. IMO, this is a similar complaint I had about Rimworld's newest DLC Anomaly. While it was never advertised that Shattered Space would introduce more content, I think it should.

THE GOOD

1. Story
If you enjoy narrative experiences, taking your time to talk to NPCs to get lore, and wanted more stuff for House Va'ruun that wasn't present in the base game then here you go. You can sink a good amount of time into it, and I caution against proceeding through the main quest too quickly. You get some roleplay in the dialogue on just how into the religion you want to go. You can participate in their rituals but be like "eh, not for me but I'll play along," you can be totally against it, or become the Great Serpent's bravest soldier and start threatening to kill heretics. Explore the town, talk to folks, get the side content. The side content not only gives you more information about the factions but also informs some of your opinions going into the main quest. There is a point where there are three political powers that want leverage or a favor before helping, and I recommend that as soon as you get that quest you stop and experience the side content so you can understand the political powers better, the cultural differences in House Va'ruun, and the general circumstances surrounding the story (namely the state of things after the event that started the DLC's story). The voice work is solid as well.

2. The Planet/Locations/Exploration
They listened to feedback and the area around the city is hand crafted. More to explore, small unmarked points of interest, custom points of interest that are really neat and interesting. There are even some areas that have a genuinely spooky or creepy vibe to it. The visuals are stunning and gorgeous. Combine that with some of the new music and the whole vibes just hit you different. It feels very foreign and they really nailed that. Do the normal Bethesda game thing here. Find a task, get distracted, roam around, find some stuff, read them lores, and enjoy the sights. This was the exploration experience that was desperately missing from the base game and I hope they keep this up.

ALL IN ALL...
Curse you Todd Howard. I was done with this game but I'm having a good time again. The same way I closed my review of the base game, I think this is a solid 7 or 8 out of 10 experience, but I will still be here for longer than games that I rate higher. If you enjoyed Starfield, this is more of that but better. If you didn't enjoy it, that's okay. Skip out on this, save the money. I got 30 dollars worth of enjoyment out of it, but for someone else with different priorities or for whom money is tight, 30 dollars may not be worth it. Look for a sale!

I don't often leave reviews for games but I felt this was one where I had a lot to say. Mostly because of some of the debate I've seen about it online. I'll be going from the bad, to the common criticisms, to the okay but needs work, to finally the good. Adding my TL;DR up front.

TL;DR: If you are expecting No Man's Sky, Star Citizen, Elite: Dangerous, or other space sims and don't want to budge on those expectations, I suggest not playing this game. You'll waste your money and there are other alternatives (you even name them yourselves!) that do what you are expecting because they fit the genre. This is an RPG with a space setting, a Bethesda RPG (I think it counts as it's own genre). One of the things I've always said is that even if a Bethesda game is just "okay" then people will be playing it for the next decade. I think this one is very good.

With that out of the way, let's start with the meat and potatoes. My brain usually goes from bad to good, so that's what I'll be doing here! At the time of writing this review, I am basically done with the main quest, I've finished both the United Colonies and the Freestar Collective quest lines, I've done a very decent amount of side content, and I've dived into the ship building, outpost building/management, and done as many companion quests as I can.

THE BAD

1. Having just come from Baldur's Gate 3, one of the main things that stood out to me as being not that great was the animation during dialogue. Admittedly, this hasn't been a strong point for Bethesda so it wasn't something that I was expecting to be great but I do think it was a step in the wrong direction. The dialogue is much closer to Oblivion in how it works. The game is very centered on character storytelling but the vehicle it's delivered in is not super great when you're zoomed into dialogue. Scripted events? No issues at all. But that's not the bulk of what you experience.

2. I think the game needs more tooltips for things the tutorial doesn't explain or are easily forgotten. Stuff like reactor class, crew capacity vs crew stations, etc. are things I had to look up community speculation and explanation for. Would appreciate a way to quickly get information in game. That information might be easy for some to remember that come from games where systems are much more complex, but for people like me it's pretty hard to keep track of everything.

3. I think resource gathering for particular parts could be a lot easier. Tracking the ingredients is helpful, yes, but you end up flying everywhere looking for particular parts and resources. I think once you discover where something is, it should be searchable. I've been keeping a notesheet of where common things I need are, and I've been setting up outposts to try and circumvent the problem, but I think the playstyle without outposts should be just as accessible as an outpost playthrough and have tools to support that. A skilled trader would know common routes to purchase resources and I think it would be neat to have a menu for this (if such a feature already exists and is behind a perk I don't have yet, please let me know!).

COMMON CRITICISMS

I figured I would go through some of the common criticisms of the game I've seen and give my two cents. This section won't be super fleshed out like my others.

1. Space Travel: I think this is a hotly debated one. Ultimately, I think if you're wanting a seamless space sim then you've already missed the mark. I don't think this is the game for you! There are ways to make the travel more interactive like using the hand scanner while you're piloting, but ultimately it's going to be a lot of menus and loading screens. Personally, I think this was intentional. You spend more time doing the content that Bethesda wants you to do (the stories and exploration) and less time on stuff Bethesda doesn't want you to do (long periods of downtime between resource gathers). I played Elite Dangerous for a few hundred hours and I do not miss that 90% of that time was travel.

2. Combat is bad: Honestly, my opinion here is going to be a little meh. I don't care for shooters. I think combat is more of a means to progress than a central focus. However, I have seen some criticism on weapon and enemy variety. I think enemy variety for humans is going to be largely dependent on the weapon they're using. However, xenos/aliens DO have a large amount of variety. They can inflict status effects, use different tactics, bully you, etc. It's not amazing, no, but as I said I don't think combat was ever a primary focus of the game. The gunplay has a nice feel to it, and if you like a particular weapon then you can find variants of it with increased damage so that you can use it your whole playthrough (like calibrated/advanced variants).

3. Space is empty: Surprise surprise, space is actually really empty. There are still plenty of planets with life and things to do, and I think landing on the first barren planet you see and being surprised that it's not teeming with life is a little silly.

4. Grrrr pronouns, grrrr woke: Touch grass.

THE OKAY/NEEDS IMPROVEMENT

Another quick list of things I think could use some improvement, or just things that I want.

1. STAR STATIONS THAT YOU CAN BUILD. Big trade hubs, launch little ships to go mine, and see people chill and relax.

2. Crew/Ship Interactivity. I like sitting and chatting with the crew. Let me take them all out for drinks, let them walk around the stations and towns when I land there, let me use the hab modules I have added. It's not something I would expect from a Bethesda title but I think it would be great and having these things missing makes the otherwise colorful and in-depth companions look hollow.

3. Evil Companions. Give me someone who has a full story AND who doesn't care if I shoot people who make hurl insults at me or steal stuff. I generally play good characters but the lack of an evil companion makes that type of playthrough not as appealing.

THE GOOD

1. It's exactly everything you'd expect from a Bethesda RPG but with a new setting that is done incredibly well. Lore and story are genuinely interesting and I've been obsessed with it. Love all the neat locations and the characters in them.

2. The companions are great. So much of an improvement over previous titles (Serana from Skyrim and Fallout 4 were the steps towards this). Tons of comments in and out of dialogue, interesting stories with a personal quest at the end, and very memorable personalities. Really makes you invested in the story.

3. Very bug free. I've had basically no bugs, and all were minor or fixable with a reload. I did have one crash but I don't quite know what caused it.

4. It scratches that itch. I've had a space RPG itch for a long time that was never satisfied by space sims with empty worlds and threadbare content. This is EXACTLY what I wanted and have asked for.

OVERALL

I think it's an 8/10 game. However, I will likely be playing it more and for longer than things I rate as a 10/10. It's a game made in the Bethesda RPG spirit. It's not perfect, but we will be going 'into the Starfield' for the next decade to come. I'm excited to see what the community and future content will bring!

This is certainly a case of an early access game success story. I've been following Kenshi for a while but didn't dive in too deep until after the game was released. I am really bad at it, and I feel like I have barely scratched the surface of the game, but I love the look and feel of the game.

The game is incredibly unforgiving, and I don't typically enjoy games that are pointlessly difficult. However, I think with Kenshi given how many different ways you can approach problems, I always feel like it was a mistake I made that led to me being unsuccessful. When you do overcome something difficult, you really feel like you worked for it. Both the RTS side of the game and the RPG portions blend in together seamlessly.

I don't want to go into a lot of detail in the review, just know that you're really doing yourself a service picking up this game, and the developers deserve the praise that the game receives.

Killed all my sons but one to keep my land in one piece gg 10/10 would murder family again