Recent reviews by Invader Dem

The graphics are pretty and the concept is unique. But it's also another "person needs X item" game, mixed with crafting and harvesting. The mini-games are unique enough that the grind can be broken up a bit, but a counter-argument is that the mini-games become tedious because they are required to progress the story.

The "Relaxing" tag fits when you're first starting out, but as you build more buildings in order to craft - you may start to feel a bit pressured with everything that you have to do. Grow/collect/buy, then cook/smith/sew, then take it to another crafting station, etc., and while some of these items are being crafted, you have to keep an active eye on the progress or else they'll fail - the forging won't progress unless you actively provide air, the cooking will fail if you leave it in for too long, and the crops will die if they're not watered. It's realistic, but takes away from the relaxation.

It seems like I'm focusing more on the negative than the positive, but I did enjoy the game and think it's a good game overall. I don't think my complaints flaws of the game, but it just didn't really resonate with me once objectives started to pile up.

No Man's Sky has done an amazing 180 from their launch, which was an utter dumpster fire. The things that were promised at launch are mostly implemented in the game, but it's pretty clear looking back that they either rushed, or were rushed, to get the game out when it probably could have developed under Early Access for a few years.

I've probably put about 80 hours into my most recent save file before getting to what I consider endgame - finishing all quests that can be completed, upgrading the multi-tool and ship to S-class, finding an S-class freighter, and maxing out your exosuit. So there's a lot to keep you busy, but it's also the standard grind formula - go get this, go to this location, or go kill that. Still, if you're having fun with it, it's not time wasted.

As for what endgame is, once you've upgraded everything, all that's left are collectibles that you get through seasonal expeditions and daily/weekly rotating quests. Otherwise, you just keep exploring. After awhile, you get familiar with the type of planets that you'll encounter - but occasionally you'll find a unique planet, such as one dominated by floating metals, bubbles, monochromatic planets, and the really nasty planets that have extremely hazardous weather and annoying aggressive sentinels.

Base-building is simple at first, but it gets overwhelming as you unlock new things to place through salvage cards. But if you slowly unlock things and not buy 30+ things at once, it's not as intimidating. Their snap-system, while sometimes difficult, provides an easy way to build and not have to do a lot of backtracking and they have a system in place to move already built components, recolor them, or delete them. Placing also terraforms the area so you don't have to worry about much collision, and the terraforming is reversed if that area is cleared out. You can also turn off the snap-function if you really want to get creative with your base. When deleting base elements, whatever products that were used to create what was deleted returns to your inventory, which is really nice because no resources are lost - but make sure you have space in your exosuit before removing things. If your exosuit is full and you delete things, you risk losing those elements/components (I don't know if the base salvage module recovers these elements lost).

On the topic of bases, the concept of having one base on your freighter is great - but it's a lot easier if you utilize bases as easy-access points. If you find a portal (which allows you to go anywhere in the universe provided you have the coordinates), build a base there and you'll always have access to one. If you need resources from red or blue galaxies, build a base when you first arrive in one so you can just jump back to it when you need resources specific to that galaxy. If you find a planet that you feel would be beneficial to go back to at some point - plant a base.

For game bugs - I encountered only one or two bugs that required a manual reset to an old game, so it's a pretty stable game as well. Overall, Hello Games had a difficult hurdle to jump over with their abysmal launch, but they did a great job. This turned into a solid game with an overwhelming amount of things to do. And eventually you'll run out, but that's when you keep an eye out on the seasonal expeditions.

I'm generally pretty hesitant to play re-releases, because to me a lot of the nostalgia is about the time a game was played rather than the game itself - back when I played this game on the SNES, my biggest worry was homework in junior high, not feeding a family of four and staying afloat in a pandemic.

I'm also not a big fan of taking an old game and re-releasing it on a new engine, with completely revised graphics, either. So I liked the idea of the Pixel Remaster series, where it's just a small bump in the pixel graphics and an improved soundtrack.

FF4 was my intro into the JRPG genre (which "back in my day" was simply the RPG genre), but the Pixel Remaster series is a good trip down memory lane. The developers have done a good job keeping it true to its original style, while still improving on where they can. The magic effects are beautiful and the music is really well done.

The criticisms for how easy this game is are valid, because I haven't really gotten stuck on any boss, which is not what I remember from the SNES game. But to be honest, I don't have much time to grind away endlessly anymore between work and family life, so this is a change I don't mind.

If you're okay with that, you'll probably be okay with this game. Personally, I'm enjoying it and am looking forward to the FF6 Pixel Remaster.

Overall good game, but it takes awhile for it to hit its stride. Once you get familiar with the different playstyles of the characters, the game gets pretty fun. Really interesting skill tree setup, too, where leveling up other family members eventually benefits all the characters.

The graphics are definitely pixel pretty and I loved the storytelling. I also appreciated 100% achievement is a possibility, you just have to put the time in. Have a controller ready, though.

Hopped back into this for a third time and I just can't get past the RTS portions of the game. They're just not enjoyable and I threw in the towel after the third event. Great concept for a game with some great musicians, but it just wasn't fun.

Fun shooter to get lost in with some fun weapons. The kill methods feels fresh at first but there's not much variety to them after you're a couple of hours in.

The sequel doesn't disappoint. This is a phenomenal game/series.

If you take one thing from this review, it's this: You're risking investing a lot of time in building a team only for them to die due to a ridiculous jump in difficulty out of nowhere. I've gone back to this game multiple times to give it a fresh start, but in the end - it just feels like you're setup for failure. Not a "you're gonna' have to make a few tough choices," type of failure, but a complete wipeout of the team you've been building up.

I was able to get a good group setup. They were given their own name, their stress resiliency was good, skills were leveled up and they got to a point where the easiest dungeons were trivial. So I took it to the next difficulty level and was decimated by the boss of the dungeon in a matter of turns.

Interestingly enough, the fights before the boss were pretty trivial too, so I thought maybe I've been holding this team back. Then comes the boss fight. Considering the past few enemy fights have been extremely easy, I figure the boss fight will be a challenge, but doable. Nope. In roughly four turns, my team is gone.

So, what's my motivation to start over and try again when I apparently have to spam Level 0 dungeons forever and then hope they get strong enough to fight a boss?

There isn't any.

In it's current form, I would not recommend this game but it definitely looks promising. The issues below are what pushed me away. If they address these, I'd be more than happy to give this game another chance. If the majority of these things won't be a problem for you, then it may be worth checking out.

After having played the game for about two hours and doing two games (which will be explained later), I ultimately felt lost with no direction to go. Outside of general metals, I had no clue where to even get basic materials to build the vast variety of items that you can build. I don't mind large exploration, but as I explored, I didn't encounter new things, just the same stuff I've already harvested.

It also wasn't a good feeling dying immediately before I realized that the tape in my inventory patches up my suit. The UI is a bit overwhelming at first so if there was a message on how to fix the suit, I didn't see it. You're also required to stay hydrated, but on a Mars-like planet where there's no indication of liquid, I'm not sure where to get water. Survival mode is fine, but I think you should be given a direction for basic survival. Show me how to get water, then make the resource difficult to get.

There was also a bug I encountered (I hope its a bug): Mining for resources was very - VERY - picky. Resources appear to be multiple nodes clumped together, but the hitbox to get them to break apart seems ridiculously small. I have to move my cursor along the node, waiting to hit the sweet spot. Otherwise, I'm just aimlessly swinging at it.

Enemy fights were frustrating. If they get up close to you, it's difficult. And if they hit you with a melee attack, it forces your camera to move as your character reacts to the attack. I actually had to start a new game because there were two of them that were at my spawn/camp, so I couldn't easily get my corpse, had no ammo for my assault rifle, and the pistol does nearly no damage to them, especially because it's very difficult to aim at them as they go all over the place. They literally spawn camped me. Let's just say I dreaded fights, wasn't excited for them, even at a low spawn rate.

Finally, the the game didn't run nearly as smoothly as the promo videos show, which made the enemy fights that much more frustrating. This could be my machine's age ... but considering I'm just moving around, mining resources and doing some random fights, that shouldn't very demanding on my system.

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On the positive side, this game is very pretty and the environment does make you feel like you're on a different planet. The weather effects and how it impacts your visibility with your visor is amazing. When it's dark, it's friggin' dark. The storm effects were pretty as well.

There's a lot of upgrade aspects - everything you do provides some form of experience, so everything improves as you continue to do it. There's personal stat upgrades, and then science/battle/engineering upgrades through a skill tree. So no matter what you do, you're improving your character.

The number of items to build is massive - even overwhelming at first. It's pretty clear they want you to be able to build a massive base with a lot of unique visuals.

It's unfortunate that all this stuff seems difficult to get, as well as the vehicles that will help you navigate more quickly/easily. I would have loved to learn how to get more of this stuff. But the fact that I felt so lost after having spent about two hours on the game, I ultimately just lost interest.

I'll keep an eye out on this game and see if things improved. But if you were to ask me if I should buy the game, I'd suggest waiting. But again, if the items above won't be an issue for you, it may be worth checking out.

Very amazing game. The visuals, music, story, platforming - they do it all really well. This game will be one of the gems that gamers will remember years down the road.