just good enough to scratch the adventuring itch, if that's what you're after. very much a one-dev project with a variety of jank in its movement and controls. i honestly appreciate the imperfections; they add an extra layer to the experience and there's a lot of heart and raw effort in here to make up for the quirks. i enjoyed learning the map and finding the hidden nooks and crannies. the combat gets trivialized by the introduction of a spammable aoe that doubles as a universal block, but it's strangely satisfying to cheese all the encounters this way. the platforming is less fun; there are some frustrating segments to navigate, but they're not long and death is mostly a suggestion anyways.

If you let it, this game will show you some incredible landscapes. There's a lot of mediocre systems in this game - the gathering, crafting, trading, quests, story - none of it is particularly great. But these are just excuses to hang out and move through this stunning world.

Once you finally start rapidly hopping across systems, it's just a thrill to see these richly colorful planets and discover the many dozens of planet types. The quadrillion planets might be a gimmick - there are probably only a hundred basic planet variations, but there's a satisfaction in knowing that the iterations you've encountered have never been seen before.

It's the best tactical iso strategy to date. The expansion's good too, but I didn't find it as necessary as others.

It's perfection all the way through. The gameplay is expertly tuned, always hovering between challenging and comfortable. It keeps you on your toes. There's always more ways to make it harder.

Leveling up characters is unbelievably satisfying. The high-level skills and equipment are all useful and powerful. This means losing veterans is painful and memorable. Naming your characters is extremely important to the core gameplay experience. Give them silly names and curse at them as they miss the 87% shot.

The UI deserves special mention. It's rock solid. I never found myself struggling with movement or actions, it's unobtrusive but informative. There are satisfying boops and bonks for every action. Criminally overlooked element of the tactical strategy experience.

I enjoyed Factorio but never got deep into it. I figured that these sort of games weren't for me. It turns out that navigating a maze of conveyer belts and machinery in 3D is a fundamentally different and awesome experience.

The last time a game made me feel like this was when Minecraft was in alpha and I spent weeks on end building dungeons and cities. Satisfactory taps into that same freeform creative element. You're working with limited tools and more specific instructions, but how you end up solving the problems will be an expression of your identity. My factories were sprawling, messy, and chaotic, and I loved it.

The multiplayer is its own joy, too. It's so fun to collaborate on big projects for a while, and then you just naturally split apart as you start chasing down little problems and side efforts.

The world is beautiful and exploration is exciting. The systems are easy to learn but deep and complex. The combat is ♥♥♥♥ and the enemies are silly - but for me, this is barely more than a footnote. The end game is incomplete, but it took me 60+ hours to get there.

Drink water and take breaks.

What an aesthetic! Can't say enough good things about the style and presentation. This is proper future dystopia with a killer soundscape to boot.

Unfortunately, it feels pretty bad to play. For a game so eager to focus on its violence - and by all rights this ought to play like Hotline Miami - the combat just feels disjointed and wonky. There's no oomph, the timing and hitboxes are off, the animations are wimpy. The level design is missing; the environments are beautiful, but the terrain is too simple, too forgettable.

I was dubious at first. What's with 4-player co-op revival all of a sudden? This is just Left for Dwarves! But there's three elements that make this a special game.

The first is a phenomenal cave generator. It's not just about the excellent variety - it's quality. Most caves will have highly distinct, memorable setpieces that makes exploration exciting. The scale, terrain, and depth create awe-inspiring environments that repeatedly had my group saying "holy shit come look at this". These are fun spaces to explore with many moments of surprise and joy lurking around each corner.

Then there's the lighting. These caves are dark, and that's important for creating these moments of surprise. Specifically, the flare throwing mechanic is a constant source of delight - watching flares tumble around the landscape, seeing how far that hole goes down, or revealing enemies hidden in the crevices. You're throwing them constantly and it's a critical piece of the spelunking experience.

Lastly, the class skills offer just the right tools for exploration. Everyone's got their specialty and once everybody's gotten comfortable with their skillset, you feel like a well-oiled machine as you take turns building platforms, digging tunnels, setting up ziplines, and lighting up rooms. These mechanics feel good to use because of how great the cave generation is. That's the secret sauce of this game.

But it's not perfect. The sound design is frequently annoying; within the first hour I turned announcer + dwarf volume down to 5%. The enemy types are mostly uninspired - with a few BIG exceptions - but most of the time you're going to be fighting the same few crawdads. These issues are offset by good mission design and great randomized variations in cave hazards, which keep your focus elsewhere - but if you're looking for satisfying gunplay or tightly-tuned combat, that's not what this game does best.

My biggest issues are with the half-baked progression system. Seemingly half of the game locked out until you invest 20+ hours - and much of that is bound to individual character classes. The perks and skill/weapon upgrades feel like an afterthought. There isn't much customization to be done, even on the cosmetic front. You're always going to look and play pretty similar to the other dwarves, even with the dozens of beard types on offer.

Give it a few hours to warm up - find the class you like, unlock some of the basic skill upgrades and mission types, and then pull your buds together for a good time.

The whole experience is a warm hug. It's perfect.

I ignored it for a while because it looked, frankly, a little boring (albeit charming), but it's actually great fun. There's just enough to learn about it that your brain is engaged and curious, and the movement feels excellent. There's some issues with the camera but I've come to recognize that I'm okay suffering the occasional quirk if it means I don't have to deal with camera management. Plus, that extra simplicity makes it easy to recommend to anyone, even folks with limited experience in 3D games.