Recent reviews by Yuki

The BY FAR worst version of the trilogy.
Unbalanced, outright bad level design, just not fun and:
Not a "tower defence" anymore.
The forementioned balancing is focused on weapons only, traps provide at most some crowd control while you chip away with your gun or bow on insame bullet sponges.
Its a shooter now, and for that there are thousands better ones out there.
Go back to 2, skip this.

How can this not be in the Steam top 5?

Seriously!

There is a ton of Survival/Crafting games out there.
The best even have a "colony" system with your personal NPCs.
Saleblazers has all that and more (half a dozen "shops" with 16 or so staff), and already fully working!

Some have an item quality system, maybe even combined with loot from different enemies.
Check! Besides everything is a weapon, you will even see enemies attacking you with surfboards!
(Most have "proper" weapons though, but slapping the crap out of bosses with a fish is a community favorite :steamhappy: )

Style-wise its very close to Palword/Craftopia, from the strange mix of magic and automated weapons downright to a certain silly disregard for human life.
(Selling suicide potions anyone?)
It could even be set in the same world. In difference to both it actually has Worldbuilding and a proper Story!
(albeit pretty silly - but well working)

This game deservers a LOT more attention. With proper marketing it would have blasted the competition easily.

And for the lets be honest part: Yes its early access. Yes there are (a few) bugs. But nothing game breaking and the devs are very talk-active, listen to players and react fast!

The building works flawless, the style is cartoony but fitting to the fun world and story and selling all your hoarded stuff is kind of a dream for many survival games, aint it? Thats Saleblazers! With the recent surge of survival and shop games it should be set up for a rising success, because it offers the proper combination already.

Grab it! Ensure the survival of your islands population through the power of commerce!

It got a lot of potential.
But at the moent there are too many serious critical show stopper bugs.
I can not recommend a game where you play for dozens of hours just to have all your progress being none.
And its not just one bug, its several that apparently persist for a long while by now.

-Planned builds can not be altered
But you need to work on a checklist to complete a building (which can take anywhere form 2-18 real hours).
Made a mistake? Your loss (and you loose all materials)
Didnt make a mistake? The game likes to forget doors. Or the placement of stairs bugs out. And not on the ground level. Most commonly at floor 2 / 3rd level, so after many hours of building!

I had tried. Often. Long.
I have never encountered a single construction site without a critical bug. NOT ONE.
Maybe if they finally start working on the pressing issues instead of a boring, unrewarding, repetetive and grindy "go green" mission campaign no one likes, maybe then its worth coming back.

EA pulled this out of the most dusty cabinet they could find and just threw it on steam. However without the necessary support, e.g. SERVERS.

You will be locked out of the majority of the games features.

And beware if you contact their "support" about this.
It doesnt exist anymore. Just a chatbot interface that FAKES having support. It scrolls through a few preset phrases and tries to find the most useless knowledgebase snipplet for you. And if you dont answer yes if asked if this was helpful the ticket is just closed with "solution:no fix"

-Borderline fraud. Stay away.

Grab it!

A fun cozy survival game, indeed.
So what is it? I think the store page doesnt put enough emphasis on a few things:

A survival game at its core with a more complex system of temperature, satiation, nurishment (...) with cute graphics, but suprisingly complex systems. You build a house- or even a city and recruit a group of up to 32 "partners", followers that will also mine, collect wood and farm for you!
They need places to sleep, tools, weapons, armor, food (...) It can have a bit of rimworld here.

The game is already very far for an early access and easily provides dozens, if not hundreds of hours of light hearted entertainment. Combat is an essential part but easy enough, yet complex thanks to the vast weapons and armor system.

Hundreds of building pieces, water physics, terrain modification, furniture (...), the building system works well and leaves little to desire.

Hundreds of equipment pieces as well as an equipment combination system- attach shoulder or breast plates to basic armor, form new weapons from different hilts and heads to get a unique combination that perfectly fits your fighting style and bonus (...)

The cooking system alone is breathtaking and will need its own guide. Which... doesnt exist (yet, i may...)

Which brings me to the downsides. The systems are surprisingly deep, though its usually on the side of "easy to learn, hard to master". It starts more than simple enough but gets "wide" very quick. Wide, not UNnecessary complex, its content creating complexity.

But not all is always explained proper, despite best efforts on part of the developer (there is even an ingame wiki). There also isnt much coverage in the terms of wiki and fanpages yet, and a game with so much content would certainly benefit from it. If you aint a wiki-fan, eprfect, there is a hell lot to discover!
However the community is among the best ive seen in such games, very helpful. No matter if in the forums here or on the official discord, so you can get help.

It is an early access, there are also a few bugs, some people have performance issues and the balancing (especially the chi/temperature system) will probably need a pass or two. But- a pass or two, its not broken, just there are a few parts that aint as highly polished as most of the game already is.

So certainly worth it!

It looks good and the technology is top.

Thats it.
-WORST leveldesign i have ever seen
-no balancing
-worst storytelling, if any
-NPCs are as shallow as they can be, the few there are

Especially the leveldesign, or rather- LACK thereof is an issue that will probably be impossible to fix by now. The whole world only consists of random obviously generated "canyons" that look as artificial as they can be. You will spend 90% of the time just running around to find that tiny something they hand-added somewhere to get from one canyon over a likewise randomized top to the next.
And that is if you can even see anything. In the morning it takes 3 real minutes until you actually can. But it gets drk in 5 seconds. And dark means really dark, even with a lightsource everything out of melee range is just pitch black.
You will die, often, often without anything you could do against. No warnings if you enter "death zones", enemies appear out of nowhere who behead you in a single blow. A fight against a single enemy 5 levels beneath you can be tough. So make that 15 at once who appear out of nowhere the moment you entered some invisible beacon range.
There is stealth in the skilltree. Sad it doesnt do a thing.

And bugs, lots and lots of bugs. Not jsut the bug enemies. The items you farmed for so long just disappear, you start jittering around unable to move, boxes cease to open at will (...)

But you can build! Granted- that actually works really nice and could make for a good game.
But you dont get any decent looking building blocks until really late into the game and the ressources for all are a massive grind. A 3 x 3 hut so your blacksmith stops moaning about being outside? Sure. Takes about two whole forests! ~4 ingame days of farming, several axes (which can be repaired easily granted).
You dont mind to go on a blind wood chopping spree? Great! For a few seconds until your stamina runs out and you have to sit down (...)
And when you finally got all those resources- its a waiting game. 7 real hours until your crafting station has processed enough (...)
"Sleeping" to fast forward doesnt do a thing. Your automated stations and NPC stop doing anything with you.

Tldr
-No balancing (could be fixed)
-Many bugs (could be fixed)
-No leveldesign (probably not, the whole world would need to be designed)

-> not recommended, not in its current state and i have little hope for any improvement, less given the slow update speed.

Once upon a time this was a GAME. Unfinished, unbalanced and abandoned.

After years of radio silence the devs returned. Good, right?

Now its not even a game anymore.
This should be pulled from the shop. It's a trap!

NOTHING you see in the trailer is even in it anymore.

NPC stations to dock and trade with - gone.
Diverse weapons with different characteristics- gone, every weapon one shots everything.
Star gates that connect systems, provide a path - gone.
Ship Yards - gone.
BASE BUILDING - gone.
Ship crew- nope.
Movement in 3D- gone. Something as basic as this- GONE.

"Sometimes you have to take a step back to go forward"- but this is back to not even a tech demo, at most a screensaver.
Its so hilarious i wouldnt believe it if i hadnt seen it.

The very epidome of cashgrab ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.

First they want you to spend 60 bucks. Okay. But to actually play the game you need another 50. And while you are at it there are advertisments all over your base- not just posters but "!" in your HUD that tell you "hey, if you want to play the FULL game now, thats yet another 50!"

And for what? For a game that in its ingame interface shows the last news from 2021.
And got GAMEBREAKING bugs up to today.


TLDR: Abandoned cashgrab.

Bethesda for once delivered.
"It just works" is the understatement of the decade!

Beautiful world with a catching story, charming NPC and open world exploration. Craft, loot, shoot.
Imagine you got Star Citizen, No Man's Sky, Elite Dangerous and crossed it with Skyrim, and then went on from that point and pushed it further.

1000 worlds await, and while you surely can run around for hours in an empty wasteland- it doesnt feel as empty. Handcrafted dungeons, side quests, outposts - all with a less "procedural" feeling than those above.
The game allows you to take your time, build an outpost, enjoy the view- and gives more than enough guidance once you choose so.
And what worlds! The Cities for example: Neon easily beats Cyperpunk 2077 on feeling "alive". Even more people everywhere with more reasonable behavior and - they aint just clones of the same 3 all over. They are individuals who wait in line at the shop, go to work, lean over the railing and enjoy the view- react to you too.
And thats just one city with a similar cyberpunk feel. Want more space cowboy action? Wild West covered. Sterile environments similar to Elite's stations? Yep, SF got you. Fancy a 70's "porn style" bar? A classy 19th century club house? A clean asian style indirect lighting feng shui bonsai everywhere office? Yes yes yes, whatever, its in. Never had a world been so diverse.

Warp from Orbit to Orbit, fight there, board ships or space stations, mine an asteroid, loot a debris field (...)
Exploring Space is more akin to eve online without scan probes. No "overshooting after you flew 15 mintues to that planet". Choose planet, choose moon, warp there.
Or land and go mine, explore, kill pirates- steal ships, be a Sheriff- or a corporate spy? What about a loansharks enforcer? Want to reunite a lost child with his parents? Or uncover one of the greatest mysteries of the galaxy. Its all yours.
And all with a huge selection of new companions to follow you on your journey that all have their own story, quirks, personality! or even family they bring aboard your ship. With hours of voice lines and reactions. And: Not one, not five, more than my modded Skyrim had.
And- steered by one of the best AI's so far:
Drop down a wide mineshaft with walkways and stairs all over the sides- and have a shootout.
That roaring sound in your left ear? Thats your companion who uses their jetpack to jump from side, give covering fire or jump right into the face of your foes with their melee weapon. An alien sneaks up on you for a surprise attack? "Watch out" *smacks* - they got you covered.

With next to no bugs and flawless performance, a first for Bethesda.
As long as you fulfill the requirements.
So the fair warning part here:
99% of all "Mimimimi bad performance and bugs" issues are: The game was not installed on a proper SSD. SSD is not just recommended as usual- its a requirement for once.
Yes installing it on a broken SSD or gods beware- an old mechanical will "work", but also cause lags, screen freezes, the AI will bug out (due to those lags)- all those things.
SF does however still "run" even way below minimum specs. Just- dont expect any miracles right?
Make that an NVME and "loading" is fading a split second to black and back when you enter a building/underground mine/space station/boarded ship/whatever.

TLDR:
If you ever wondered how games like NMS or EDO would be if they where "more alive" with an actual story and modern graphics, and can gladly skip over that detail that you are no longer flying 45 minutes on auto pilot to reach Hutton Orbital- but just instantly warp there- Starfield is the game for you.

Utterly incomplete and abandoned.