There's so much I want to say about this game, but honestly can't. Its flawed, pure and simple. I want to love this game, I equally want to hate this game too. I'm so close to the "end" of the main story too but it's just too teeth-pullingly awful I can't bring myself to do it. I've wasted not only $70 but nearly 30 hours trying to play this and just going back to Cyberpunk or Oblivion or even Skyrim, far better RPGs that do far less to captivate me far FAR more.
The good:
This game is visually stunning when it wants to be. Each planet has its own vibe of the 10s of ones that aren't barren and lifeless. Even those planets look good even if its only rocks. Character design has also made leaps and bounds from Oblivion, they look incredibly lifelike. I do still find myself on occasion longing for the jankness of previous character designs but that's more a personal choice. Additionally the more in depth options were amazing, I saw a character walking around with Vitiligo and had to point it out to my wife who has the condition because that sort of representation matters.
There were a few characters I resonated with in terms of their writing. Notably Vasco, Sarah Morgan, and your parents. The members of Constellation were also fleshed out nicely and provided a great back-and-forth for conversation.
The Bad:
Just about everything else. The game was horrible on launch to where my game would crash as soon as you enter an interior, and I had a 7900xt GPU and Ryzen CPU. Bethesda really needs to change game engines, Creation is absolutely showing its age at this point (as referenced in my video discussing Elevators in Videogames: https://youtu.be/VGSYP1fJLKo?si=5Jjm4GGDEQaS19TB). They've made great efforts in improving stability, but I still feel like this game is awaiting modders to come in and improve itself. Which frankly is just shitty on Bethesda's own part, it goes to show they can no longer stand on their own and depend on their community to do their job for them. I'm sad with how utterly barren the game feels, regardless if that was their design choice. Its awful. I went into the game building my character as an aged up Commander Keen thinking they would have put in a cheeky reference or gear (seeing as how Bethesda has the IP but has done nothing significant with it apart from a failed and scrapped mobile game that was universally panned before it even released) but they added NOTHING. I'm waiting for mod tools and I'll do it myself I guess.
Another gripe I have with the game system in general is the crafting and modification mechanics. Fallout 4 has a FAR BETTER system than Starfield does. Why do you have to gather materials to even UNLOCK THE OPTION to mod the weapon/armor/base and then GATHER MORE MATERIALS to make them. Oh wait, sorry, you don't have the relevant perk to even UNLOCK THE RESEARCH OPTION. Want to scrap the 100s of weapons from dead enemies to make material gathering sane? NOPE! Go sit through 5 minutes of menuing/fast travel to go to a remote planet and mine it yourself or buy it from an outpost with the broken economy of credits from selling the weapons you can't scrap for materials. THEN you can go back and realize you're still missing components and do it all over again.
Base building is also terrible and was done far better in Fallout 76 or even Skyrim (starting to notice a pattern here?). Why are containers limited capacity? This is no longer an MMO where player data is a thing, stop enforcing arbitrary limits to storage when this has NEVER been an issue in other titles. The last thing I would think about when I consider immersive worldbuilding and gameplay is "oh boy this container is a Box of Holding, that isn't realistic for me."
I've said it already, but I think the perk system is also awful. Again, previous games had far better progression systems than this one. You have to waste a perk point to unlock sneaking mechanics, a core gameplay staple of every other Bethesda RPG, which is such an asinine design decision its baffling.
The ship mechanics are so bad to me I would have rather not had them at all. It was one of the bigger things I was excited about, as an avid Gummy Ship builder in the Kingdom Hearts series. It just felt lacking in some areas, but VASTLY over designed in others. Again, why are so many features locked behind the progression system that gives you limited points to use? Why is there such limited storage space, yet they encourage you to build your ship out like a portable player home?
TL;DR I could go on about how this game is a step back with every core mechanic that every other Bethesda game does better.
I could also talk at length about how I feel the quest lines are uninteresting to me (because I just couldn't care less about being a space cowboy or a pirate or a corporate slave). The worst by far is how dull the main quest feels. What was pitched as "you get to explore the stars" quickly turns into "fetch all these macguffins and fly through the same 5 light balls for temples to get superpowers that are as uninteresting and pointless as the quests."
I have to shelve this game, probably for a long time. It feels unfinished, souless, a step backward, but also everything I would come to expect from a Todd Howard production. Unless they have some DLC upcoming that miraculously fixes everything for me or some modder takes it upon themselves to do Bethesda's job for them and fix it Captain Billy Blaze will forever float in space with the Starborn fleet facing him down.
The good:
This game is visually stunning when it wants to be. Each planet has its own vibe of the 10s of ones that aren't barren and lifeless. Even those planets look good even if its only rocks. Character design has also made leaps and bounds from Oblivion, they look incredibly lifelike. I do still find myself on occasion longing for the jankness of previous character designs but that's more a personal choice. Additionally the more in depth options were amazing, I saw a character walking around with Vitiligo and had to point it out to my wife who has the condition because that sort of representation matters.
There were a few characters I resonated with in terms of their writing. Notably Vasco, Sarah Morgan, and your parents. The members of Constellation were also fleshed out nicely and provided a great back-and-forth for conversation.
The Bad:
Just about everything else. The game was horrible on launch to where my game would crash as soon as you enter an interior, and I had a 7900xt GPU and Ryzen CPU. Bethesda really needs to change game engines, Creation is absolutely showing its age at this point (as referenced in my video discussing Elevators in Videogames: https://youtu.be/VGSYP1fJLKo?si=5Jjm4GGDEQaS19TB). They've made great efforts in improving stability, but I still feel like this game is awaiting modders to come in and improve itself. Which frankly is just shitty on Bethesda's own part, it goes to show they can no longer stand on their own and depend on their community to do their job for them. I'm sad with how utterly barren the game feels, regardless if that was their design choice. Its awful. I went into the game building my character as an aged up Commander Keen thinking they would have put in a cheeky reference or gear (seeing as how Bethesda has the IP but has done nothing significant with it apart from a failed and scrapped mobile game that was universally panned before it even released) but they added NOTHING. I'm waiting for mod tools and I'll do it myself I guess.
Another gripe I have with the game system in general is the crafting and modification mechanics. Fallout 4 has a FAR BETTER system than Starfield does. Why do you have to gather materials to even UNLOCK THE OPTION to mod the weapon/armor/base and then GATHER MORE MATERIALS to make them. Oh wait, sorry, you don't have the relevant perk to even UNLOCK THE RESEARCH OPTION. Want to scrap the 100s of weapons from dead enemies to make material gathering sane? NOPE! Go sit through 5 minutes of menuing/fast travel to go to a remote planet and mine it yourself or buy it from an outpost with the broken economy of credits from selling the weapons you can't scrap for materials. THEN you can go back and realize you're still missing components and do it all over again.
Base building is also terrible and was done far better in Fallout 76 or even Skyrim (starting to notice a pattern here?). Why are containers limited capacity? This is no longer an MMO where player data is a thing, stop enforcing arbitrary limits to storage when this has NEVER been an issue in other titles. The last thing I would think about when I consider immersive worldbuilding and gameplay is "oh boy this container is a Box of Holding, that isn't realistic for me."
I've said it already, but I think the perk system is also awful. Again, previous games had far better progression systems than this one. You have to waste a perk point to unlock sneaking mechanics, a core gameplay staple of every other Bethesda RPG, which is such an asinine design decision its baffling.
The ship mechanics are so bad to me I would have rather not had them at all. It was one of the bigger things I was excited about, as an avid Gummy Ship builder in the Kingdom Hearts series. It just felt lacking in some areas, but VASTLY over designed in others. Again, why are so many features locked behind the progression system that gives you limited points to use? Why is there such limited storage space, yet they encourage you to build your ship out like a portable player home?
TL;DR I could go on about how this game is a step back with every core mechanic that every other Bethesda game does better.
I could also talk at length about how I feel the quest lines are uninteresting to me (because I just couldn't care less about being a space cowboy or a pirate or a corporate slave). The worst by far is how dull the main quest feels. What was pitched as "you get to explore the stars" quickly turns into "fetch all these macguffins and fly through the same 5 light balls for temples to get superpowers that are as uninteresting and pointless as the quests."
I have to shelve this game, probably for a long time. It feels unfinished, souless, a step backward, but also everything I would come to expect from a Todd Howard production. Unless they have some DLC upcoming that miraculously fixes everything for me or some modder takes it upon themselves to do Bethesda's job for them and fix it Captain Billy Blaze will forever float in space with the Starborn fleet facing him down.