MeisterPear
Slime Rancher 2016
Log Status
Completed
Playing
Backlog
Wishlist
Rating
Time Played
102h 37m
Days in Journal
21 days
Last played
November 2, 2023
First played
May 28, 2021
Platforms Played
Library Ownership
I’ve played Slime Rancher several times—in 2017, 2018 (same file as 2017), a second full playthrough in June 2021—and now, I recently finished my third playthrough that I started in September of this year and just recently decided to put down. Now, obviously since I’ve played this game three times, I like it. These slimes are so damn cute and the gameplay is really relaxing and satisfying to play. That being said, I put off playing this game a few times during my last playthrough because I was getting bored of it. Slime Rancher isn’t a bad game but I don’t think there’s that much reason to keep playing it after you’ve seen it all. I hope Slime Rancher 2’s full release can improve on some of the elements I don’t like about its predecessor.
Pros:
- First up, we’ve got the slimes, your adorable little money-makers. Every slime has a unique behavior, whether it's stealing food they don’t eat (tabby slimes), making giant tornados that pick up anything not bolted down and fling it miles away (dervish slimes), giving you lethal doses of ionizing radiation (rad slimes), or just…sitting around and doing their best (puddle slimes)! They all have their favorite food and toys, and it’s really enjoyable to just sit back and watch them dick around in their environment, devouring hapless chickens and just being adorable little idiots.
- The environments these slimes inhabit are also well-designed, although after seeing what Slime Rancher 2 cooked up I can’t say they hold up. Still, it’s a pretty visually interesting world with a few distinct biomes that have their own little cool lore bits (courtesy of the Slimepedia), such as the Dry Reef (beginning area) literally being a dried up ocean floor. There’s also a good range of environmental elements that have cool interactions with the player, such as the hologram-like phase lemon trees only giving their fruit if you part with one of yours, and tactus plants ensnaring items (and poor slimes) that get too close. There’s also a wide range of shortcuts and paths that intersect each other, which prevents it from feeling too linear.
- Once you start raking in the dough from selling plorts (which slimes shit out lol), upgrades you get make the environment a hell of a lot more interesting. You unlock the ability to…well, unlock Treasure Pods hidden out in the world, which give you decorations and other interactive elements to place around your ranch, and the vast majority of the decorations look AMAZING. I’m a sucker for cool plants and rocks in games, and this game has a whole lot of them you can put in your ranch. Exploration may also yield ornaments and echos (round decorative objects that hover where they’re placed) and Party Gordos, who are big-ass slimes just rocking it out to music. A lot of whimsy in the exploration, as you can see.
- Eventually you’ll unlock the dramatically-named Slime Science, which lets you manufacture technology you can use to make exploration and ranching a bit easier, like portable water spouts, bounce pads, mining drills, and best of all, DRONES! Drones are the single best thing Monomi Park added to Slime Rancher in the full release, and allow for basically full automation of the ranch and I love them for it.
- I also have a soft spot for the sole enemy type in this game (which can be turned off if you want full zen mode!), the Tarr, which are writhing masses of rainbow slime flesh that eat not only other slimes, but you as well. They add a pretty interesting dynamic to both ranching and exploration: they don’t spawn, instead they are created when a largo slime (a hybrid between two slimes) eats the plort of a third type of slime. What this means is that not only do you need to be careful with how you sort multiple types of slimes on your ranch, but also that staying in an area with three or more types of slimes is more likely to result in a Tarr outbreak. It feels very natural, as if its a normal part of the ecosystem, and helps prevent spaces from feeling too static and unchanging.
- Okay, I talked about the actual gameplay ramifications of slimes, drones, and Tarr. Now I can talk about HOW DAMN CUTE THEY ALL ARE AHHHHHHHHHHHHH. Slime Rancher is the cutest game on the entire fucking planet. Slimes have perpetual dorky smiles (unless a Tarr is nearby) and make the cutest little “woahs” and “wheees” as they bounce around (sometimes bouncing into you to give you a hug!!!!!!!!!!!!!) There are kitty slimes and slimes made of honey, and by god if you combine them into a honey tabby largo your head would explode from how ADORABLE they are! Puddle slimes just sit around and they get shy and blush if they’re near too many other puddle slimes, saber slimes have cute little tooths, boom slimes get dizzy if they explode, hunter slimes try to scare you when they’re invisible ehehehrhehehebewfjbfvds,bvqjvqaqa AND THE DRONES! THE DRONES!! They’re little bees with holographic faces and they smile when they do their tasks and they DO CUTE LITTLE BACKFLIPS when they finish one AND YOU CAN PUT LITTLE BOWS ON THEM WITH FASHION PODS OH MY GOD
- clears throat Ahem. Might have gotten a little carried away there. Anyway, the core gameplay loop is supported with some side gigs that other ranchers will offer you. Each of these gigs involves handling slimes in a significantly different way than normal—Mochi’s quicksilver slimes need to be fed with electricity as you zip around a racetrack trying to catch them, Viktor’s disguised glitch slimes need to be identified amongst others in his slime simulation, and Ogden’s feral saber slimes must be avoided as you collect his favorite fruit in a primeval nature reserve. These are great minigames that not only add flavor to the admittedly repetitive gameplay of Slime Rancher, but also provides a little insight into the characters that preside over them. Mochi is best girl and no I don’t take criticism.
- Like most tycoon games, Slime Rancher has an outlet for the exorbitant amounts of funds you’ll be receiving in the form of 7Zee Rewards, which are for the most part cosmetic but also do unlock a few gameplay-related items. It might just be me but I really liked being able to have a clear goal to direct my funds towards, even if the intrinsic value wasn’t that much. I also like that the game pretty much admits that its a waste of money, but do YOU have a three-tiered slime statue on your ranch? Didn’t think so. There’s also a “rush mode” where you have to get as much money as you can before time runs out if you want to get rich or die sliming (I just really wanted to use that pun, okay?), which is fun if you're into min-maxing your gameplay.
- Slime Rancher does have a story, albeit a very simplistic one. As you explore the Far, Far Range (the setting), you can find logs made by the previous owner of your ranch, Hobson, which give insight into his life before and during his stay on it, as well as his experience finding love and deciding if it outweighs his passion for adventure. It’s not that mindblowing of a story but I really liked it and it complements the relatively lonely gameplay very nicely.
- Finally, the flavor text in this game is really funny for no reason. I love the descriptions of the slime toys, such as the stuffed chicken (“Reduces agitation of nearby slimes, especially Hunter Slimes who love toys they can pretend to murder.”) and the glitch slime, which has a great joke on cryptocurrency.
Cons:
- The biggest gripe I have with this game is that basically the second you’ve obtained every slime and been to all the biomes, it gets boring. There is little to nothing to do in the game world after having explored it—no recurring events or rare occurrences or anything—save for the occasional fire storm in the Glass Desert that really only serves to make it harder to see and to get fire slimes. The only things to look for are Treasure Pods, which almost exclusively give you things to do on your ranch, and even those are almost all just decorations that don’t have much use beyond looking pretty. The side gigs are fun but again don’t have all that much to do once you’ve unlocked everything.
- Not even the slimes can help quench this boredom. There is definitely a degree of enjoyment from watching them just be cute, but the act of ranching them leaves a lot to be desired. The Slimepedia has a section on “rancher risks” that lists some of the difficulties of raising them, but aside from the puddle and fire slimes (which need specialized enclosures), these difficulties are all mitigated in the same way—just put them in a corral and buy all the upgrades. You only need to be picky with the upgrades when you don’t have that much money, and by the mid-game, you’ll have more than enough of it. This means that all the quirks of the slimes become essentially cosmetic, and they all act the same from a gameplay perspective. There’s little you can do to “spice up” Slime Rancher. Every playthrough plays the exact same.
- Performance-wise, Slime Rancher is fine but there are a few things that bugged me. The biggest is that you’ll often see frames drop and the game freeze for a split second whenever you load a new area, which always struck me as weird given how the textures in this game aren’t all that detailed. It’s probably something to do with the entities. It’s not that impactful but is visually jarring. The sprint in this game is also kind of wonky since it doesn’t spot immediately after you stop holding it.
- Two more minor things to complement the admittedly big problems I mentioned above. The end credits sequence is in a really strange place, being tied to you having emails your character receives from a friend/lover they had back on Earth. The content of those messages is just fine and I don’t have strong feelings about them one way or the other. But I think it’s weird that the credits (and thus, the end of the story) are tied to that and not finding Hobson’s last log, which I always thought was the more momentous accomplishment. Second, the artstyle in this game is great, but it kind of gives me a headache. I think it has something to do with the lack of fine detail and the color choice. It’s similar to a headache one might get when they play Minecraft. That might just be a me thing though.
Objective rating: 3.5 stars
Subjective rating: 4 stars
Pros:
- First up, we’ve got the slimes, your adorable little money-makers. Every slime has a unique behavior, whether it's stealing food they don’t eat (tabby slimes), making giant tornados that pick up anything not bolted down and fling it miles away (dervish slimes), giving you lethal doses of ionizing radiation (rad slimes), or just…sitting around and doing their best (puddle slimes)! They all have their favorite food and toys, and it’s really enjoyable to just sit back and watch them dick around in their environment, devouring hapless chickens and just being adorable little idiots.
- The environments these slimes inhabit are also well-designed, although after seeing what Slime Rancher 2 cooked up I can’t say they hold up. Still, it’s a pretty visually interesting world with a few distinct biomes that have their own little cool lore bits (courtesy of the Slimepedia), such as the Dry Reef (beginning area) literally being a dried up ocean floor. There’s also a good range of environmental elements that have cool interactions with the player, such as the hologram-like phase lemon trees only giving their fruit if you part with one of yours, and tactus plants ensnaring items (and poor slimes) that get too close. There’s also a wide range of shortcuts and paths that intersect each other, which prevents it from feeling too linear.
- Once you start raking in the dough from selling plorts (which slimes shit out lol), upgrades you get make the environment a hell of a lot more interesting. You unlock the ability to…well, unlock Treasure Pods hidden out in the world, which give you decorations and other interactive elements to place around your ranch, and the vast majority of the decorations look AMAZING. I’m a sucker for cool plants and rocks in games, and this game has a whole lot of them you can put in your ranch. Exploration may also yield ornaments and echos (round decorative objects that hover where they’re placed) and Party Gordos, who are big-ass slimes just rocking it out to music. A lot of whimsy in the exploration, as you can see.
- Eventually you’ll unlock the dramatically-named Slime Science, which lets you manufacture technology you can use to make exploration and ranching a bit easier, like portable water spouts, bounce pads, mining drills, and best of all, DRONES! Drones are the single best thing Monomi Park added to Slime Rancher in the full release, and allow for basically full automation of the ranch and I love them for it.
- I also have a soft spot for the sole enemy type in this game (which can be turned off if you want full zen mode!), the Tarr, which are writhing masses of rainbow slime flesh that eat not only other slimes, but you as well. They add a pretty interesting dynamic to both ranching and exploration: they don’t spawn, instead they are created when a largo slime (a hybrid between two slimes) eats the plort of a third type of slime. What this means is that not only do you need to be careful with how you sort multiple types of slimes on your ranch, but also that staying in an area with three or more types of slimes is more likely to result in a Tarr outbreak. It feels very natural, as if its a normal part of the ecosystem, and helps prevent spaces from feeling too static and unchanging.
- Okay, I talked about the actual gameplay ramifications of slimes, drones, and Tarr. Now I can talk about HOW DAMN CUTE THEY ALL ARE AHHHHHHHHHHHHH. Slime Rancher is the cutest game on the entire fucking planet. Slimes have perpetual dorky smiles (unless a Tarr is nearby) and make the cutest little “woahs” and “wheees” as they bounce around (sometimes bouncing into you to give you a hug!!!!!!!!!!!!!) There are kitty slimes and slimes made of honey, and by god if you combine them into a honey tabby largo your head would explode from how ADORABLE they are! Puddle slimes just sit around and they get shy and blush if they’re near too many other puddle slimes, saber slimes have cute little tooths, boom slimes get dizzy if they explode, hunter slimes try to scare you when they’re invisible ehehehrhehehebewfjbfvds,bvqjvqaqa AND THE DRONES! THE DRONES!! They’re little bees with holographic faces and they smile when they do their tasks and they DO CUTE LITTLE BACKFLIPS when they finish one AND YOU CAN PUT LITTLE BOWS ON THEM WITH FASHION PODS OH MY GOD
- clears throat Ahem. Might have gotten a little carried away there. Anyway, the core gameplay loop is supported with some side gigs that other ranchers will offer you. Each of these gigs involves handling slimes in a significantly different way than normal—Mochi’s quicksilver slimes need to be fed with electricity as you zip around a racetrack trying to catch them, Viktor’s disguised glitch slimes need to be identified amongst others in his slime simulation, and Ogden’s feral saber slimes must be avoided as you collect his favorite fruit in a primeval nature reserve. These are great minigames that not only add flavor to the admittedly repetitive gameplay of Slime Rancher, but also provides a little insight into the characters that preside over them. Mochi is best girl and no I don’t take criticism.
- Like most tycoon games, Slime Rancher has an outlet for the exorbitant amounts of funds you’ll be receiving in the form of 7Zee Rewards, which are for the most part cosmetic but also do unlock a few gameplay-related items. It might just be me but I really liked being able to have a clear goal to direct my funds towards, even if the intrinsic value wasn’t that much. I also like that the game pretty much admits that its a waste of money, but do YOU have a three-tiered slime statue on your ranch? Didn’t think so. There’s also a “rush mode” where you have to get as much money as you can before time runs out if you want to get rich or die sliming (I just really wanted to use that pun, okay?), which is fun if you're into min-maxing your gameplay.
- Slime Rancher does have a story, albeit a very simplistic one. As you explore the Far, Far Range (the setting), you can find logs made by the previous owner of your ranch, Hobson, which give insight into his life before and during his stay on it, as well as his experience finding love and deciding if it outweighs his passion for adventure. It’s not that mindblowing of a story but I really liked it and it complements the relatively lonely gameplay very nicely.
- Finally, the flavor text in this game is really funny for no reason. I love the descriptions of the slime toys, such as the stuffed chicken (“Reduces agitation of nearby slimes, especially Hunter Slimes who love toys they can pretend to murder.”) and the glitch slime, which has a great joke on cryptocurrency.
Cons:
- The biggest gripe I have with this game is that basically the second you’ve obtained every slime and been to all the biomes, it gets boring. There is little to nothing to do in the game world after having explored it—no recurring events or rare occurrences or anything—save for the occasional fire storm in the Glass Desert that really only serves to make it harder to see and to get fire slimes. The only things to look for are Treasure Pods, which almost exclusively give you things to do on your ranch, and even those are almost all just decorations that don’t have much use beyond looking pretty. The side gigs are fun but again don’t have all that much to do once you’ve unlocked everything.
- Not even the slimes can help quench this boredom. There is definitely a degree of enjoyment from watching them just be cute, but the act of ranching them leaves a lot to be desired. The Slimepedia has a section on “rancher risks” that lists some of the difficulties of raising them, but aside from the puddle and fire slimes (which need specialized enclosures), these difficulties are all mitigated in the same way—just put them in a corral and buy all the upgrades. You only need to be picky with the upgrades when you don’t have that much money, and by the mid-game, you’ll have more than enough of it. This means that all the quirks of the slimes become essentially cosmetic, and they all act the same from a gameplay perspective. There’s little you can do to “spice up” Slime Rancher. Every playthrough plays the exact same.
- Performance-wise, Slime Rancher is fine but there are a few things that bugged me. The biggest is that you’ll often see frames drop and the game freeze for a split second whenever you load a new area, which always struck me as weird given how the textures in this game aren’t all that detailed. It’s probably something to do with the entities. It’s not that impactful but is visually jarring. The sprint in this game is also kind of wonky since it doesn’t spot immediately after you stop holding it.
- Two more minor things to complement the admittedly big problems I mentioned above. The end credits sequence is in a really strange place, being tied to you having emails your character receives from a friend/lover they had back on Earth. The content of those messages is just fine and I don’t have strong feelings about them one way or the other. But I think it’s weird that the credits (and thus, the end of the story) are tied to that and not finding Hobson’s last log, which I always thought was the more momentous accomplishment. Second, the artstyle in this game is great, but it kind of gives me a headache. I think it has something to do with the lack of fine detail and the color choice. It’s similar to a headache one might get when they play Minecraft. That might just be a me thing though.
Objective rating: 3.5 stars
Subjective rating: 4 stars