Recent reviews by Pewdiepie

Necesse is most similar to Cult of the Lamb, where it takes two genres (a colony sim and a terraria-esque open world survival-craft rpg) and bundles them together. I say similar to Cult of the Lamb, as I have the same issues with both games.

For both games, the combined genres are less complex for the sake of the combination. If I wanted purely a colony sim in the same vein, I would play rimworld. If I wanted an open world survival-craft rpg, I would play Terraria. For a combination of both, Necesse isn't bad, but sacrifices a lot of the interesting complexity from both genres. For the price tag of 10 dollars, you can easily get 10 hours, and that alone nets it a positive review.

The gameplay itself is good, but the slowdown during attacking is an unfun way to balance the combat system. A top down game with bullet-hell like dodging feels awful when you have to sacrifice mobility for the sake of doing damage. I get the risk-reward benefits (and the ways to diminish the effects like the Ninja's Mark) but the system itself is flawed. Fortunately, the bosses are pretty easy and can all be solo'd if you rush desert (deep)cave gear. This game is funner with friends, but also significantly easier.

Speaking of rushing gear, the progression system itself is a little whack. You only know the intended path by the Elder's quests and if you join another players world you have to be manually added to a party to see the quests, which is what I happened to do (I don't knock the developers for this though). The intended progression is easily skipped with rushing desert gear and farming Cavelings. After rushing desert gear and beating the pirate boss, doing it again with deep-cave gear is an option too. I happened to figure this out in my first playthrough and it hastened to gameplay loop a lot. Only after beating the normal-cave desert did I know about the quests too.

The colony building aspect is also foreshadowed by the terraria-like bossfighting/exploration. If you are super into building and micromanaging a colony there is nothing stopping you, but there is nothing pushing you to do so either.

Despite all my qualms, the game itself is good. I experienced no bugs and the gameplay loop was fun. If you are burned out of terraria and are looking for something a little different, Necesse is a great game for you.

It's a 6/10 in my book, and for the price an 8/10.