Recent reviews by Coach

Its a "privilege" to say that this game still has audio hitches and terrible combat experience. Grand Campaign Map is a downgrade from Rome 1 and the senate feature is simply a "throw money at it" problem. I think the community likes this game because of the mods more than the actual game itself and that is okay. But the bottom line is if you are playing the base game with the intention of actually investing time into learning systems and strategy elements to improve your time with this game, you will find out quickly that its completely trivialized the combat to "big number = i win" and if that is your idea of fun then cool. I like strategy to my strategy games and having to run units from 10 minutes around the map because the enemy isn't "shaken" by army losses or their general dying makes this game really not very fun. Somehow this game learnt nothing from the strides that Shogun 2 took. Don't even get me started on the tiny ship battle maps that don't do anything special and combat mechanics that are even dumber (although ships entering in on sieges is a really cool idea I wish they expanded on). Total war games should learn to never be as boring as this game but it seems as though this game started the trend that the saga games aspired to be like.

6/10, get on deep sale if you really want it but I'd rather play Rome 1.

Consider this my personal catharsis

I had many expectations for this game like so many others from the trailers and the gameplay showed that this game would be the universe that I wanted to spend many many hours living in. It promised the universe but sadly, it delivered another bethesda game with far fewer options to make yourself truly distinct in the world like a skyrim or fallout. I will go through the 3 core components to show my experience of the game and what I felt.

Exploration

In general, the exploration is you going into a menu and selecting different planets and then going there via your ship and crew through cut scenes or by fast travel. There isn't anything really to see in space so you are going to pull up that menu and proceed to the many different biomes to choose from depending on the planet.

Planetary exploration is all over the place because it is "procedural generated" maps in which different vistas will spawn in on the planet with resources as well as flora and fauna if the planet sustains life. Unfortunately, variety starts to become a problem after about a few hours as I hit the same spawning locations very quickly and start to memorize the identical layouts of different facilities occupied by mercenaries, pirates, and spacers. Oh and lest you think there are fun ways to traverse the distance between different locations, it requires you to run a kilometer between different vistas. Cities too fail to make a positive impression for me outside of Neon.

Oh and I will never forget how awful this game's map system works. It is almost as if they saw the success of elden ring or zelda where some typical features like focused directions and checklist quest lines and limited HUDs and said "you know what will be completely mind blowing? I got it, no useful maps to identify the terrain nor the indoor facilities (which, again, are just a pool of the same facilities and caves) that outta make waves for people to see the genius gameplay and design choices of this game." It might be one of the worst map systems I have seen for a game that sets itself up to be this big space for you to explore.

Story

If exploration wasn't the reason you were looking to buy this game, get ready for the wheel of modern Bethesda storytelling. If you don't know this then you haven't played or really considered the story lines of bethesda games in the past to be why you play these games which to me, is a little odd. Nevertheless, I have played through the main story and all the main factions as well as some of the major side quests to give you a taste of what is being served at the table.

The main story is where I have to be honest, I couldn't have disliked it anymore than I did. The Constellation story line is the last thing I ever want to do in this game again. The plot revolves around previous troupes already explored in previous Bethesda games as well as movies and tv shows. There were exactly one and a half missions I liked from the main story and that is it. For the sake of not spoiling anything, I will limit my comments but the worst part is that that one mission (entangled) might have been one of my favorite missions for the pure story element as well as the interaction your character has on the fates of those you meet at this facility. It is a shame that you never quite get that power of investigating and creating a unique solution to problems like you do in this one mission.In general, nothing surprising happens. The game uses offscreen actions to progress the story instead of making the emotions felt in front of you. It was that uninspiring and ungrateful of the time you might be willing to spend on learning about the universe's mysteries. It's a slap in the face and even when it shows the potential, it just slaps you back into the reality that you are in the constellation story line museum and the painting is that painting "Take the money and run."

Soooo, why even play the game? Well, since I put the main story to the side, let's look at the other story lines who somehow don’t do anything in the constellation storyline?

UC and Crimson fleet. Do these two stories in order, trust me. Memorable characters, unique quests, it's good and pulls you into this game.

Ryujin is maybe the other one I would say give it a shot early and don't look back. Starts off with an absolute stinker but then someone comes and cleans up the mess to fill the view with intrigue and potential. It wasn't the best but it's a good side story that lets you rummage through all the different aspects of Neon and corrupt corporations.

Freestar is the low point because even though I wanted to roleplay as a galaxy cop at some point, this was not it.

Sooo, sidequests. There are a few and some are pretty good. Many are quick in and outs but a few are super well done. I was traveling on my exploration runs through a system and one distress call forced me into a multi part story about saving a research facility and had to running all over trying to save what little is remaining of the survivors while introducing you to more backstory on the spacer faction, the norsca faction of starfield full of apes and idiots trying to do everything to get stuff. These can be interesting like this or your standard fetch quests that just give you some exp and money.

Gameplay

First of all, combat is great if you are shooting a gun. Melee is a joke and shouldn't be thought of as any more than that. No impact, no nothing. Guns, however, feel the best in Bethesda game designing history. Variety is plenty and many humans and aliens to shoot them with. But there is only shooting or the worst persuasion system which just works in mysterious ways.

Stealth is weird. It's your average stealth in the modern bethesda game so prepare yourself to be spotted by a guy who is behind a wall, sitting in their chair, and drinking a coffee.

There is also a decent crafting system, though it is locked behind a grindy resource system and perks that become incredibly scarce once you understand that there are so many different things you want to improve.

Difficulty is a strange thing. Very hard difficulty is incredibly difficult at the start and suuuuuper easy at the end. Ship combat (Very Hard difficulty): Mercs spawn right in front of you and destroy you instantly unless you pour all your money and perk points to make the hyperion have auto turrets that do the combat for you. It wasn't the best flying system though.

I didn't touch the outpost system but from what I can tell, it's another grind to do and not the most rewarding. Boring and uninspiring so I left it alone.

Lastly, this game might have featured the fewest bugs for the general masses but there are plenty of bugs that will either be hilarious like the meteor pieces becoming part of your ship as you travel the galaxy and even to the point that you can see them when you land, or break your game as I have had to load saves from hours ago multiple times. But does the game generally run well? Yes, amazing considering recent years.

Conclusion

Starfield is so inspired by other ip's and fan fiction that it forgets to tell its own unique twist and becomes this uninspiring mess. It's hard to not look at the generation defining games of recent history like an elden ring or zelda or even the recent Baldur's Gate 3 and then ask what the heck starfield did. Todd is a liar in that this game would set upon us a great revolution. It didn't live up to the promises that they made but it's okay to do that if the game is still good and I think so. I think I am one of many other reviewers who wrote a long article describing their experience with both positives and negatives and likely still recommending it. A refreshment as we see what else is out there.

Amazon basics of MMOs

If you buy this game, know that this is probably the most bare bones MMO i have ever played. The game sells you by making a bunch of streams play this game and show you how fun it is with all your friends. If you have a group of people you can play with then this is fun.

Be warned that this game has barely anything to offer outside of PVP.

The story doesn't exist or is so bad at telling itself that I have no idea what it is. The combat is a mix of Guild wars 2 and Skyrim but taking only the superficial level of both, by which the combat becomes incredibly stale after 3 hours of fighting. There are differences between the weapons and have a few abilities but you cast the same ones again and again and there are no changes to them other than the numbers they pull off. And the lag makes this "double the fun" when you try to do an AOE ability and the target (NPC or PC) just teleports out of the way. The dodge mechanic works sometimes and might be the more powerful ability that you can use and that tells you something about the way the combat for any class outside of the musket is. Because for the musket and any other ranged class, the world is a little more fun to play because you are bringing a gun to a fist fight much like the mage but they have AOE to aim. Its clunky and needs a lot of improvement before I ever come back to it. Go play ESO or Guild Wars 2 for better versions of this style of combat. They started with a better idea with morphing abilities and still having classes (Almost as if removing features that are the center point of MMOs is kind of dumb and makes the game much more simple and boring).

*Can't believe I recommend Guild Wars 2 but there you go

What else, the professions? They are interesting if you have the time to just go around and cut down trees or mine ores or harvest... things. Its a more dynamic looking runescape, what more can you say. Does it do it better? Heeelllllllllll no, The game is muuuuch more simplistic than even runescape. Cant even tell the real difference between some of the resources. Heck there are more combat styles in OSRS than in this game.

This brings me to the graphics of the game. Plain, boring, and absolutely not a game that looks like it was made in 2021. The game looks dated. There are no cool textures, abilities look kind of dum. The frost gauntlet looks cool when you pop it out but the way the abilities just sort of happen and pop out of no where. Its ugly. For all of WOWs faults, the abilities in the game look much different, even in classic. Blizzard looks muuuuch better in WOW than what ever the hell you cast in New world. The landscape has pop in and the views are from 2017. Nothing special.

Music? If you listen to your local streamer playing the game, do you notice how they don't even have the music on? Yeah because its kind of ♥♥♥♥.

Overall, this game is like a wow expansion today but even that is pushing it. It draws you in with great marketing strategies but then when you see it, you find Fallout 76 at launch. A boring world with nothing but other plays inhabiting an empty sandbox. The questing that leads to nothing. The combat feels unrewarding. The PVP which might be its only saving grace? The look of a game from 2017. Everything is just so lame that it doesn't fit the title of a "New World", it copies so many of the strategies and gameplay styles that other games did better. It doesn't have a proper identity. It just sort of exists. I hope the game improves and that the people who made this game learn from it and create even better things in the future.

But for now, it is just the Amazon basics of MMOs

5/10

Don't you even dare