The Disappointment of Starfield
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- Опубликовано: 6 июн 2024
- An in-depth review of Starfield, 200 hours later.
0:00 Introduction
0:43 Part I: Exploration
23:00 Part 2: Gameplay, Mechanics & More
52:50 Part 3: Story, Tone & Characters
1:14:50 Part 4: Conclusion 
Игры
Still can't believe they had the genius idea to showcase the galactic war that formed human society within the lore IN A MUSEUM and were essentially like "See that history-defining event? You just missed it, have fun collecting rocks on barren planets though :)"
Yes the factions that do not get a long when they are all soulless, uninteresting faces with different uniforms. Pick a side, or not you can just join them all because at this point even BGS doesn't care.
Never thought about it like that, missed opportunity for sure. It could have just ended up like the Skyrim civil war in space though.
"It belongs in a museum!"
_ Dr. Henry "Indiana" Jones
it's a worse version of the bombs dropping in Fallout you never saw it but your constantly reminded of it in the world, characters, enemies literally everything.
@@agayweirdo5404 Fallout had a reason for not showing the bombs dropping though--pretty much every game is set far into the future and that's the setting of each game. It also doesn't make a lot of sense to have the players spend a lot of time in pre-war times, as the game is all about post-fallout times. We also get the Operation Anchorage DLC which kind of goes into the period before the war. But yeah, BGS missed a huge opportunity for Starfield with the Colony War. They could've made it part of the game's overall conflict (like the Skyrim Civil War questline) rather than just throwing it into a museum exhibit in the game.
Starfields immersion broke for me when I started searching for the ancient Temples, structures untouched for millennia and whose location and existence is a mystery undiscovered yet by humanity.
I land to look for one, it’s within 100 feet of the landing zone, and within view of a farm, a pirate den, and another ship landing.
How about joining a group dedicated to exploring the universe, only to find out they've actually done no exploring and know almost nothing about the universe? Constellation has been around for decades when you join, mind you.
Same "Were the first humans there likely ever" literal pirate base there
@@rodafowa1279 You also don't see them do any science on anything, ever. You'd think they'd run literally any experiments on, you know, literally anything, but instead they just sit uselessly in the clubhouse while throwing out baseless theories without any plan to actually test them.
Lol it's funny really. Jokes
Rather than introducing the player to useless Constellation that knows nothing. I think it would be better if we are the one that make the 1st contact with an artifact accidentally during one of our expedition as a scientist. Then we decide to explore it and research it our self. Then come in a whole new research mechanics that's look like a talent tree or something, that we can invest a point to augment our abilities. But later on we learned that these artifacts have the an abilities to traverse time. And later we encounter a different entities/race/alien the artifact origin from which they used for their own agenda that may destroy the universe, and we need to stop them.
Or to make it even further interesting, we can get into multiverse which the artifact was originated. The artifact was actually a bad entities kinda lika chaos in 40K. Then we actually encountered our self from different universe that actually evil version or possessed by the artifact or something.
😂
Starfield's melee system should be officially known as The Bethesda Melee System, since it seems like they've been using it in every RPG game, since TES Arena.
im on your side about criticizing bethesda but youre just completely wrong, its been a similar system since Oblivion, and even Oblivion had more depth to the melee progression. We need to be accurate with our criticisms to be taken seriously by the powers that be otherwise they have every reason in the world to ignore criticisms.
Bethesda games are honestly glorified walking sims when you think about it. No real decisions or different outcomes, it's just reading lore and conversations and selecting dialogue that ultimately does nothing. And the gameplay elements like combat are as simple as the most basic form of attack on any other game. The swing and hit. The bare bones mechanic that most games would IMMEDIATELY follow up with ANOTHER kind of attack in the tutorial level.
I really never liked Bethesda games. Some of their worlds are mildly interesting but damn are their games the most overrated, boring walking simulators I've ever played
Combat in Oblivion was a little better than the rest of their games because you actually get stunned if your opponent blocks.
These games would be 1,000x better if they had co-op, so you could run around with a friend. 100% the reason they’re boring sometimes is because of the lack of co-op. They even added followers in Oblivion and Skyrim - NPCs that could easily be replaced by your friend if Bethesda had any idea what they were doing. Been calling for co-op in these games since before Oblivion. Maybe one day it’ll happen for us on console.
The Cyberpunk fighting montage was so good, its actually a crime that this isnt a seperate video, more people need to see this
The montage was sick but way too long. I'd of actually enjoyed it if it was it's own video, but for the sake of this video it ran for about 3 minutes too long. I completely forgot what he had said before it started, and the point he was making with it came across very quickly into the montage. I'd watch and hour of that if it was it's own video titled "Cyberpunk 2077 vs Starfield Montage".
@@lofl6968 ever heard of skip ?
This video made me re download cyberpunk lmao
@@gokufirespit8418 And so loud, wtf?
Its vapid trash. Literally the zoomer game dash meme.
Its supposed to be an RPG yet all hes doing is spam abilities and shoot people.
Where is the challenge? He might as well spawn npcs in gmod and throw grenades at them. Same depth just less flashy.
Starfield captures the mundanity of real life in a setting that should set the imagination ablaze. Its actually quite the achievement they managed to do that.
One of the best and most damning comments I've read about the game. It's not just a bad game, it's a fucking insult to all of us.
You nailed it!
oh boy i cant wait to come home from my mundane 8/5 to do 8/5 crap in my freetime wuhu!
Actually if they captured the fun of mundanity it would’ve been decent. Like for example space trucking or mining in Elite Dangerous was.
Probably is Starfield couldn’t even nail the mundane aspect.
How'd u cook the sweet out of the sweet potatoes, Francine? Hmm?
Bethesda really outdid themselves this time. They made a space exploration game without space or exploration 🤣
I know they do not try to beat eachother but No mans sky as a 7 year old space exploration game developed by an indie corp with less the 30 people has it all and better. Full planets (yes they are empty too but still more alive than Starfield) alien races with languages, upgrade systems, no voalization but choices that change the story (yes NMS has a story many people do not know) NMS goes full on exploration in over 70 combinable biomes .
Starfield also tries to lure you as exploration but is boring as hell. And then the lead writer has the nerve to tell us that the moon was empty too when Neil was there and it certainly wasnt boring. Of course not it was humans first interplanetaric landing ever... Starfield dies that in es daily basis so there should be something to make us excited. Story also is intentionaöly boring cause all his employees that tested his storys for older games skipped them because they where shit. And what he learned wasnt tgat he should write GOOD story no... he started do make shit story in purpose because no one wants story. Yeah because Insomnaics Spiderman 1 and 2, God of war 2018 and Ragnarok amd Baldurs Gate arent popular because of their good stories of course
too much space to explore with nothing interesting in it imo
@clouddash-qr7xh lmmfao imagine talking shit about a game you've NEVER played
Typical dumbass new age gamers lmao
@@clouddash-qr7xhWeird comparison with BG3 having 2 years of early access from a team that already made two big CRPGs. While Hello Games was a small indie studio that got way in over their head.
They're not even remotely comparable as studios. As games that's actually insane to try and compare.
HahahahHa
The part about Very Hard ship combat speaks to me so much. I was adamant to stay on Very Hard but when I got to that Crimson Fleet mission I died *literally* instantly after the dialogue ended and the combat started, dozens of times, with the best upgrades in the game at the time. I didn't even have time to accelerate before exploding. It was the most obviously untested piece of content I've seen in a "complete" game in ages.
Well, I don't think Bethesda "tests" their difficulty setting at all; I think they test it on normal, and then slap on the basic multipliers for difficulty changes and call it a day. Skyrim's highest difficulty wasn't much better; that's what happens when you quadruple enemy damage, or more.
My friends and I ALL had to reduce our difficulty down to easy when we got to that point. Shop combat was a massive let down compared to any of their other games
What is most weird is that on very hard FPS enemies were tough typical bullet sponges but I could take them out if I was just the tiniest bit not a Leroy Jennnnnnkins and running into the middle of them all. First 20+ hours of game I had to constantly turn down difficulty before jumping to next planet just in case I got jumped coming out of quantum. Stood zero chance at space combat in the beginning. Even on easy my ship would take serious damage.
They had an AI write AND code this game in one month. But we won't find that out until 2060. Cuz Bethesda's real skill is marketing and manipulation.
@@tonyw6451 If their real skill was manipulation I'm pretty sure their in game dialog checks would be less "You just said you won't do what I want, but what if I ask you again but angry/whiny this time? Great thanks."
I just wanted to talk about the scene from 2077 with the Flathead and Dumb-Dumb. I actually felt tense in that moment. The tone of the voice actors, the music, the little non-verbal ticks of both the gang members and your partner clearly being on edge, and the aggressive motions of the characters built an amazing stand off for everyone involved. Throw in the fact that if your too trusting and don't show enough "cojones" to make them take you seriously you can and will die from a bullet to the head mid-cutscene with no further chance to stop it.
It was unfortunate that 2077s gameplay needed a major overhaul because the role playing and experience in this game is top notch and I'm glad that it won the labor of love award.
I skipped Starfield completely and I'm glad I did. Everything I've seen about it looks mediocre at best
Which led me to come up with a description that made my zoomer nefew laugh. "The game isn't bad, it's just on the low-end of mid."
I'd highly recommend playing cyberpunk now with phantom liberty if you haven't already. Probably my favorite game ever.
On the quality of animations:
Panam's wink in that one bar scene, after you make that 'suggestion'. You know the one.
everybody goes to this scene when talking about cyberpunk, of course this was the most fleshed out scene in the game because it was in their initial showcase for it. after the heist mission the game doesn't have anymore scenes/situations even close to this in terms of variety and choice. at best you get passive/aggressive options but that's about it.
This game has totally killed my hype for ES 6. If this was allegedly Todd's 25 year passion project, I can only imagine the lack of care that will go into a sequel they feel like they have to make.
i feel the same with es6. i would be disappointed if they released it in the same state as starfield.
Depend too much on modders
Wah wah
@@88heisenberg88Zip Mr. Howard's pants up when you're done.
ES6 will be the St Anger of video games.
Exploration gets even worse when you decide to join the pirates and suddenly 80 % of human enemies are your friends.
Ha! I was completely done even trying to interact with the "exploration" by the time I got to that quest line, so I just went from quest to quest until I was through it, so I didn't even consider that.
Holy shit that's hilarious.
I'll admit, I felt a little defeated when I rolled up on a large base with tons of high level enemies just to have them all be like "HI FRIEND!"
there is only one pirate faction in starfield??
@@linuxrant Yeah, and every single pirate is part of that faction. Only other enemy faction is a merc faction, but you don't run into them often.
@@linuxrant nah there's also the Spacers and the Va'Ruun Zealots. But as you might have guessed, the apostrophe in Va'Ruun is the only thing that stands out about them. I spent 100h in the game and I don't know shit about it.
The irony of Todd going back to Daggerfall in a sense with procedural generation...when it was his insistence back in the Morrowind days for handcrafted fantasy gameplay.
Give them some slack, let them iron out the kink in Starfield 2.
the game is not that bad, it had a huge potential for future expansion,
yes there are a lot of flaw, but there are also a lot of good things that they done right as well.
and i'm sure your compain was heard loud and clearly by Todd Howard Himself
this is a new IP, if you kept raising Pitchfork whenever a Dev decided to create new IP,
in the future, they'll become a coward and won't make any new game for you anymore.
@@samanfang5139 well, your opinion aren't equal to everyone opinion.
Most haters are never even played the game, Most of them only watch the Review or Gameplay footage, then jump to the hate bandwagon.
the Proportion of those people are way too overblown.
despite all of the flaw, there are so many people enjoy to play this game, but they're not too vocal about it.
The numbers shows that people actually play this game, that this game is one of the most played.
so, this game might not a good fit for you, and you should keep your opinion to yourself.
play whatever you like, and let other people enjoy whatever they like.
@@jensenraylight8011the numbers do not show that people are enjoying the game, 3x more people are playing Skyrim on steam
Got Rich, Got Arrogant, Got Lazy. But the second one is really why I now hate him and his company.
@@jensenraylight8011"the numbers show that people actually play this game"
Yeah, they show 5k monthly players.. helldivers 2 has went through a PR nightmare and has lost most of their player base and the lowest they've had was 40k players.
You keep trying to act like you're defending this game from an unbiased stance, but you're horse feeding and clearly a jaded fanboy. If you enjoy the game go ahead, but don't unsult people for not liking it when you're citing lies.
It's insane that some of these gameplay problems (particularly movement) are really simple things that literally are part of a beginner's Unity/Unreal tutorial.
In Starfield entering the club involves enduring a loading screen, in Cyberpunk entering the club Totenanz involves having to share an elevator with a tweaked out Maelstromer whose too high to hit the buttons.
that really was such a huge element of feeling like youre in a living city - the intense vibe change going from the street to a club to a rooftop to some dusty far flung outpost to a gang den. it flowed, it felt alive.
Cyberpunk 2.0 is an incredible game, easily the best first person game this year
And not to forget the girl which always makes a compliment about your face, when you enter the lizzy wizzy
the 3 missions you spend with Jackie are more memorable than every companion in starfield put together.
I'm dreading the end, I sent him to Viktor.
Aw, my boy Jackie... Cyberpunk is god damn lightyears better than Starfield. Currently am on my first ultra-modded Cyberpunk playthrough and I rarely ever felt so immersed in a title. I really wanted to like Starfield since I am a huge space/astronomy nerd, but I had to give it up after over 75 hours of patiently waiting for the game to get better. I guess Star Citizen and Elite Dangerous have to continue fulfilling our space needs. Starfield completely lost me when doing the pseudo-wannabe Cyberpunk quest line of Ryiujin Industries. It was so bad that I was visibly angry, turned the game off and haven't started it up ever since.
Shit son, I wasn't ready for that to happen to my boy. Rest in Power, you big adorable himbo. What a way to intro the game tho. That's how it's done!
i think Jackie is my second favorite companion. my first is Parvati. idk why but helping that awkward mess of an asexual romance her hero/crush is adorable esp when ya somehow become the awkward 3rd wheel after basically setting up the date and then dragging her to it.
The first mission as Corpo meeting with Jackie and then getting ambushed in the club by Arasaka henchmen was more pulse pounding than anything SF had to offer. I understand it's basically Fallout in space and I really enjoyed Fallout, but it's a night and day difference in the mission intensity.
Mass Effect Andromeda was going to be full of procedurally generated worlds too. Even that team figured out that was not going to work and needed to be scaled back. Not that it ended up great but at least they recognized that specific problem
Andromeda has the same problem as starfield though. Forgettable characters and a bland story
@thedonofthsht76-58 I remember enjoying andromeda more then stsrfield though.
@ConstantEve it's close but I liked starfield better. I beat that atleast, I couldn't finish Andromeda. I'll have to try again after I finish 3( replaying it now)
@@thedonofthsht76-58 eh. Mass effect andoroma was decent. The story was way more "safe" and alot of rpg aspects were just entirely scrapped but it was generally enjoyable. Great combat. I think the main thing that screwed them is because it was attached to the Mass effect name and thus people just expected alot more. Plus it's glitches on launch
A lot of people were perhaps rightly disappointed with ME:A, but if you forced me to play through all the content in Starfield 5 times or Andromeda 5 times, I'd rather do terrible things to my eyes with a spoon than play through Starfield even one more time.
honestly I feel like if they took the whole "parallel universes NG+" mechanic to its logical extreme and made all of the factions mutually exclusive, and allowed you to choose ONE faction to pursue the main story and their faction storylines as an interconnected plot, even if each version was slightly shorter than the current main story by itself, that would make for at least four meaningfully different playthroughs based off just one decision, and actually encourage replayability.
But that would mean Bethesda would have to make a game like New Vegas and there's no chance that's happening.
@@snattlerake4417 damn, I didn't even think about how that exact narrative framing device was used in a better written RPG than any bathesda ever wrote, but you're right it is in new vegas.
Starfield had a great idea with the option to choose your characters backstory. Then they decided to make you a miner for the opening scene making the player have to bend over backwards in their minds to justify the career change.
Just... wow... they couldn't even create a proper beginning to the game before fucking up the roleplaying in this supposed RPG 🤦♂️
There is a popular Skyrim mod that lets you choose a backstory for your character and then starts you with some gear and in a location that fits that backstory. If a Skyrim modder could do it years ago, how the hell can't Bethesda do it now?
@@mememaster695 I'm personally convinced Bethesda makes RPGs for people that hate RPGs
@@derickbowne8633yea, they make "RPGs" for the large casual crowd that doesn't ever want to use their brain during playing.
The backstories also don't interact. You can be a freestar settler, a Va'ruun faithful, and if you pick to have living parents, you're also from the UC. Meaning you're somehow from every major faction at the same time
It gets fun after NG+ 23. 14000 hours in I'm finally beginning to see the brilliance of Starfield. Just be patient.
Why Should I wait to enjoy it starfield is trash cyberpunk beats it in every category stop riding Bethesda and it's terrible engine and game design
@Zumi909 I can't tell if you're joking or just this cringe.
@@MrDrManPerson are you mad I made fun of a outdated shit game
@@MrDrManPerson cringe Bethesda fan defender
Wow you guys really can't detect sarcasm ^^^
I couldn’t even remember where some of the cities were after i first visited them. You’re spot on with the whole categorization of places. It’s such a mess.
Yup 200 hours in and I have no idea where the ships parts MFGs are. No idea where the cowboy HQ is. I do know where Atlantis is though. And the wolf den. That is honestly all I remember about all the planets. I have to hop through all the planets on left half with one of those important stuff markers on them to figure out which is for neon or the cowboys.
I had just finished talking to Songbird at the nightclub/party and Lizzy Wizzy came out to do her performance. I stood there on the balcony mesmerized. I was there. The emotions were powerful and I was thinking about everything I had learned about the situation in Dogtown, worrying about Songbird, not wanting to disappoint Solomon, and caught in the spell of that amazing song and the performance. It was one of my top ten gaming moments of all time. CDPR, knowing they hit one out of the park, even provided us with a braindance recording of the performance because they knew many players would want to revisit it. This was a scene built with pure inspiration and artistry.
I've recorded that concert like ten times from different angles and I'm thinking about making a video of it.
I won't say the DLC or whole game is perfect, but man it has come a long way since release
I cannot understand why so many people are upset this was not nominated for GOTY.
Because many people unfortunately have zero taste in video games.
@@2K-Tan I think it's more that most people don't play a huge variety of games. They don't really have a frame of reference when they mostly play GTA online and Sports games.
It's a game for people who play 3 games a year.
Yeah it's alright, if you've never played a better game, or you don't question what it could be. You go to the procgen planet, you soy react, and go to your day job.
@@adriadelafuente3648 I definitely got the impression that a lot of the "woah, people don't like this???" sentiment was coming from dads who haven't really played anything for the past decade but always take a day off work for a new bethesda or rockstar release. From the perspective of someone like that I can see why they don't see how dated it actually is, and are getting what they want
@@2K-Tan I think the GOTY stuff is more being driven by console war bullshit. There is a painful amount of people who unironically believe that the criticism of this game is coming from bad faith "sonyponies who are just butt mad they can't play it" and not, you know, people who have been playing Bethesda games for 20 years. So the GOTY narrative is being pushed by xbox fanboys because I guess it's like their magnum opus for this gen, and the "snub" is being interpreted as some sort of political slight at xbox.
Starfield feels like a game that was based upon a checklist that Todd wanted. The devs sought to complete checklist (limited by the ancient engine) and not question if the checklist makes a fun engaging game.
"(limited by the ancient engine)"
Stop bringing up their engine! Like many other engines they have upgraded it along the way. Just to bad their mindset of good enough has effed up the code.
To help smooth brains like yourself understand, RAGE was created 2006 and the same engine was used to create Read Dead Redemtion 2. That engine was/is also based on an even older engine. But Rockstars engine developers are more competent than BGS's.
Wow. The engine is notoriously buggy and is really old. This is a fact. Calling a random person "smooth brain" because they mentioned it seriously pisses me off. Seriously, what is wrong with you?
I hope you dont disrespect people so friviously in real ife because you will eventually get what is coming to you.
From all accounts that have come out, it really sounds like Todd Howard's "vision" and level of control on the project crippled and ruined Starfield from the outset. As a lot of the failures of the game can be directly traced back to his direction.
He tried to do a Kojima... and failed catastrophically.
@@Varangian_af_Scaniae The difference is RAGE got iterated. The Creation Engine is still fundamentally the same thing as the 1997 engine it was based on. All of the bugs from other CE games and even Gamebryo games are possible in later ones.
Jesus Christ it wasn't until a few years ago that F076 stopped tying the game physics to the framerate. Things other games figured out how to do decades ago.
This is so well explained from you... im stunned. You come up with so many points and point on details of games ive never thought about but actually make a lot of sense. Good job 👍
Starfield is like having a thousand pots of soup that all taste like water, while Skyrim was one pot of soup with flavor to the extent you would expect ones clothes to explode off like a cooking anime from Japan.
Skyrim was as wide as ocean but as deep as a puddle
But man starfield is multiple dried up puddles
@@koraegiSkyrim has its flaws for sure. It has nowhere near the depth of Oblivion and is a galaxy away from Morrowind’s depth. However, at least i can boot up Skyrim after the many playthroughs i’ve had and still have fun RPing and exploring the world while doing some fun (not particularly well written) quests along the way. Starfield just doesn’t have that, every time i boot up the game i just feel bored after 15 minutes. Coming from someone who put in 150 hours at launch btw
Skyrim more like a lovely bowl of glorified ramen. Very much comfort food not necessarily good for you but easy to eat on a bad day and just enough protein n plant dlc with mods to make it as spicy as you like.
@@koraegiskyrim is far from perfect but at the time it was quite innovative and very special, Bethesda innovated alot in the open world rpgs its sad to see how they are doing now
I think you meant to say Oblivion, because Skyrim was just a cash grab based on obilivion's success. Play Oblivion, just don't buy it and give these greedy fucks any more money.
I have more fun listening these audio essays on Starfield and comparing them from different creators - than I actually do playing Starfield 😂 What a fucking shame.
Same, originally I actually liked the game, but then I started to notice all its glaring issues. I stopped playing altogether after 70 hours. It became way too boring.
I’ve watched a lot of them and each time I’m thinking yeah but when it’s on sale I’ll probably get it cause I could probably have some fun then they’ll mention something and I think maybe not. This time it was realizing that the planets in the system don’t move and you can’t get closer or further to them. I just feel like I already have No Man’s Sky and it does everything Starfield doesn’t
Been playing through the Mass Effect trilogy again while watching these reviews and I feel like I'm having the better time of it 😊
They all say pretty much this that "It's Janky, repetitive and Boring, and the Dialogue sucks" & when they finally finished it their reaction is usually "Is that it".
Oh and many people complain about the sheet volume of un-killable essential NPCs too.
Then they usually end by naming an older games they'd rather play instead and say they have no reason to ever go back to this one.
@@gabemissouriI was similar I actually defended it at release lol… but yea the fresh new game paint fades and you see the reality underneath
starfield literally feels like the kidz pop version of mass effect including the kid friendly writing and themes.
Right? I can deal with Bethesda's usual jank, but the bland writing and boring characters was unforgivable.
@@joe19912Agreed. The only quest I actually enjoyed in the entire game was the Crimson fleet questline. Mainly because it felt like Delgado and Matthis actually had personalities, unlike most other NPCs in the game.
@@joe19912 I remember one of the quest designer, not sure who or how up, did a talk panel or something and shared his quest philosophy. "Make it simple, stupid". This was such a shock to me, really? No wonder...
yeah game comes across as space adventures for kids and you are the hero
please don't make any comparison with ME it's like comparing a Ferrari (ME) with a bicycle.
Very good breakdown. I hope BGS devs/management see this. I played 300 hours, finished it (didn't bother with NG+) and haven't gone back since. I'm now back in FO4, having actual fun again.
They don't care about your Dissapointment, they only care about this guy 200 hours, or your 300 hours gameplay.
even with a flaw, you kept playing it.
if the game was bad, you won't even pass the 10 Hours marks.
same like me, i noticed a lot of flaw and bug, but i kept playing it,
the crafting, Skills, shipbuilding, and outpost alone was enjoyable.
i think the game is okay, it's entertaining, the character was good,
it just people want this to be the Superior Version of No Man's Sky,
which is absurd,
and when it turned out not like that,
People act as if Todd Howard deliberately trying to ruin their day for no reason.
Starfield is a new IP, so treat it like buying a New Enthusiast device,
people kept punishing Game Studio for taking a huge Risk, and make a new thing.
but that same people also complaining about Game studio not taking any Risk or keep churning COD every years
just let them fail and learn from their mistake, after all Skyrim won't be so beloved
if they never create the previous elder scroll game and perfected the Formula.
@@jensenraylight8011 tbh I think they do care more than you think. Todd specifically said that this game was meant to be played for years over and over again. That's kind of what I was expecting (I wanted to make mods for it).
For me, this game wasn't awful, it's fine for one, played two playthroughs, but its no fallout 4, NV or Skyrim. Those other games are so complex and interwoven with faction allegiances and possible outcomes and crazy dynamic maps that each playthrough is unique. Starfield can't do that... and that's why there's no point for me to play it again but with a different build... the story will be 90% the same. I've played fallout 4 for almost a decade and each playthrough feels almost entirely unique. I've played SF 1.5 times and the second playthrough was almost identical to the previous one, even with a different build. There are other issues but that's the main one for me.
SF is not bad, the shipbuilder and level designs and planets are gorgeous, the general feel is good too... but the quests are dull, the world isn't threatening and I'm just bored of it now.
Your having fun in fallout 4?
It's def better than starfield but man that game had the worst writing
@@ringodooby yeah the story is a bit whacky fo sho. FNV is better from what I remember. But the map and quests work WAAY better than SF.
@@ringodoobygood gameplay though
Honestly, I'm kinda surprised anybody actually LIKED the shipbuilding. It was the aspect I was most hyped for...but at the time that I played (they may have patched this by now, in which case, whoops, egg on my face) I had to spend fifteen minutes sussing out why having two hab sections next to each other removed the crafting station I needed, and over an hour trying to figure out why placing a window in the roof of a hab caused my cockpit door to go AWOL, stranding it on the ground. And the inability to ROTATE ship parts (aside from a handful of decorative parts that could be flipped on a single axis). Like...I understand if your cockpit and / or loading ramp need to face a certain direction, but the lack of ability to rotate rooms took all the wind out of my sails. In the end, I must have wrestled with shipbuilding for the better part of five hours to end up with a subpar clunker that didn't look ANYTHING like the traveling Space Mobile Home Of My Dreams™.
For me, this game was a complete disappointment, back to front. It felt like the design document was a note in crayon, LADEN with spelling errors, that read only: "FALOUTT 3 IN SPAEC & ASLO WITH STAR-BOATS".
200 hours? Nah, you need at least 500 hours to fully understand the greatness of this game.
- Starfield fans, probably
And IQ of 501
I have 200 hours already ^^ lvl 71 and going strong ^^ love this game. Fallout in space but some elements could be better.
The amounts of copium Starfield fans must ingest would kill a mere mortal.
@@johnnybravo4566 some flaws ? The game has a lot of flaws crazy how people are satisfied with just playing rubbish nowadays
@@danielainger8666 Cyperpunk is garbage ^^ even today unfinished game compared to Witcher 3. Starfield is unfinished too but it is copy / paste Skyrim and Fallout just in space. Flaws? For me you can't swim and dive underwater. Food balance is bad but easy fix with mod. Funny bugs but also I lost 4 ships cuz they bugged out. Other than that it is Fallout 4 with better graphics. And yeah I wanted Fallout 4 in space and Starfield is like that. That's why I like to play this game. Yeah Cyperpunk have better story and gunplay but open world and exploration sucks. You can't grab an object in Cyperpunk and place it on the table like in Starfield. In Cyperpunk you can't customize your car. In GTA or Starfield you can customize car / ship. I like Bethesda games cuz it's big open world to have some fun and do stupid things not just story, missions and then pick new game. Base building in Starfield is a lot of fun and ship customization, ship combat is great had a lot of fun. Starfield is good game but yeah some elements could be better but it is also sandbox with lot of fun and freedom.
I love the companions in starfield. They are exactly what to expect from a dead marriage, sassy, alway criticizing you and getting mad at you for no reason.
Can we talk for a minute lol
LOL
and for some reason they hate you at times and just expect you to know what youve done wrong.
😂
Don't look at me with that tone of voice!
A point about your demo of the negotiation scene comparison. It's worth noting that in many of those scenes, you can move your camera around and use your optics too, as you demonstrated. The way you played those scenes looked so cinematic, and it was cool to see that zoom in to Royce in the background. It's something I didn't notice when I watched my first let's play of it, since the player didn't notice it either.
To be fair, BG3's cutscenes also consist of mostly static camera shots. But there is just so much choice, such a great story and characters, and such good writing and acting that nobody minds. There's more than one way to skin a cat and a game like BG3 couldn't have been made with the expensive cutscenes of Cyberpunk.
BG3 has camera angles and handle cinematography.
There is an angle and a back and forth in the directions the characters are looking at, left right, left right.
While starfield is always face first straight into the camera, they are not talking to each other while you watch, they are all talking to you even when 2 npcs are talking.
@@Phrikeares feels like you're in a zoom meeting, isn't it
@@Phrikeares I don't think a classic shot reverse shot is any more difficult or complex than the Zoom meeting setup. It's just less inept.
@@tanthokg nail on the head right there
Yea they are similar, but the facial animations & voice acting makes a ton of the dialogue in BG3 so much more engaging
Imagine being on the dev team at BGS and trying to give feedback to Todd Howard that they need to rethink their approach but being constantly ignored; "it'll work, people love us, don't worry"
...all whilst playing CP2077 2.0 in secret and rubbing your temples in disbelief. What a life.
I think BGS have just used up their last get out of jail free card. If they mess up ES6, they're a finished studio.
Todd said, on the record, Starfield is his "magnum opus."
His greatest work...
I pity TES fans. They're in for some deep disappointment.
@@bchin4005 He meant to say it's his magnum oops.
@@nickv1212 ah, now it all makes sense
@@nickv1212Massive opps.
For me, they already messed up, I won't be wating my time with ES6, Fallout 5 or anything else Bethesda hypes up. Shit company, the Walmart of gaming.
You made the absolute best piece of marketing that CyberPunk ever had... Amazing. I am buying that game tomorrow.
I know! My main takeaway here was I need to give cyberpunk another shot
Well you sure are in for a treat. Wish I could play it again for the first time!
I’m waiting for the Xmas sale!
Imagine thinking that empty big piece of garbage cybertrash is good😂
Got it when phantom liberty came out. It is a cool game worth getting
you still making fantastic video, im glad.
Your brilliant, spot on critique of this empty game is infinitely better than the game itself. You also provided, at least for me, the best game review of 2023. Well done.
When I play an RPG, I never skip dialogue. Even generic repeat lines, I love it.
Starfield is the first RPG I found myself just skipping forward in hopes of finding *something* interesting. That something never came tbh.
Same
Ah yes “rpg”. So many roles to play with the constant 3 dialogue options of: agree, agree but sass, and I’ll come back later. There is only one role to play in this game.
The thing that worries me most about Starfield is that people like it. Meaning it will enforce and encourage the same type of design and gameplay elements for BGS's next games. And that just kills me a little inside.
people like it because its not a bad game. its just not amazing. there are a ton of other games that people like even though they are mediocre, or even bad.
Even in this video he calls it "Decent" yet I'm 40 mins in and he hasn't said a single good thing about it.
People surely don’t like it. It’s rather mediocre in the eyes of the critics and even more in the eyes of BGS fans. What are you talking about? It’s a huge flop, just look at the numbers of active players on steam. This is a financial disaster for BGS, despite selling a good amount of copies by now. No one will be enganged in a year, and the nearly spend a decade for this trash. This excuse of a game will greatly diminish the hype for ES6 and rightfully so.
It doesn't really matter if people like it or hate it when they simply payed for it. Because if it sells good Bethesda will keep making the same stuff.
@@marcosdhelenoits not a bad game, its a boring game.
Dude that roulette sequence in Phantom Liberty is unbelievable. Such an underappreciated scene. You really feel like you're a spy in that moment
Fantastic analisys 10/10. I subscribed. Looking forward to see more content.
Shortly after starting starfield I was excited to explore the planets I was on, thinking to myself "it's a bethesda game, if I go explore this planet instead of going to the quest marker they gave me i'll be rewarded with atleast something to do right?" After reaching my first poi that was just a bunch of flowers, I was like "huh this is...pointless but the next one just over the cliff will be interesting right?" only to discover it was literally the exact same set of flowers in the exact same positions...I uninstalled the game seconds later
lmfaoo just a bunch of flowers
When I tried playing it I got a horrifying feeling that I was alone in this boring thing that bathesda created. I did not feel adventurous at all, it felt very empty and repetitive to me.
I hope you refunded it
@@sunbleachedangel Played it on gamepass wasn't ever gonna spend money on it 🤣
And got a refund?
Your argument about Starfield having lots of planets with very little content reminded me of a 2003 game. KOTOR is also a planet exploration RPG. It may not have thousands of planets, but man were each planet really deep in terms of content and world building.
Edit: I cant believe Bethesda did not learn from a 2003 game in 2023.
And Bioware even remembered to include consequences for cheating in their games too. And, you know, actually compelling characters and romances.
even the blight area in morrowind was more interesting, and i hated that.
They haven't even learned from their own game
I just picked up Starfield. Long time Bethesda fan, and played KOTOR. After my first 15 hrs in Starfield that was my exact thought: this game is a lot like KOTOR. Nice game, even fun at times, but has almost zero depth. I'll probably get some mileage out of it when they release survival mode, then i'll do a perma-death run. Until then i'm just going to blast through the main story.
Thought about KOTOR too when I saw Starfield.
They should’ve done the same thing KOTOR did: small amount of planets that have limited accessible area. Basically planets = separate big locations.
HAND-CRAFTED.
It would make exploration and quests more engaging. Also the world would make more sense, because everything would be placed with PURPOSE.
Writing is still way more boring that in KOTOR, but at least exploration would be kinda like in Skyrim.
the 1600th youtube essayist to make half their starfield analysis a cyberpunk video
😂
When I first got Starfield, the thing that horrified me most was melee. I tried sprinting towards an enemy but couldn’t hit them unless my character first came to a complete stop and let go of the firing button. This didn’t seem to be a problem in third person but in first person it was. And don’t even get me started about how you can’t mod your melee weapons.
So sad. Fallout 4 had me making serrated machetes from scraps and hunting for new melee weapons. Plus drugs were very useful for side stepping and vats. This game’s melee system is what made me quit.
@@jacques8823 same
i thought i was crazy for being the only one who noticed how EVERY creature in the game have the same behaviors and are essentially just reskins of one another, finally someone else said it
You ARE cracy. Nowhere in the videos is that being said. You just imagined it, like so many things.
In fact, this video doesn't exist.
This comment doesn't exist.
.... ... .. ...... ... !
@@Zett76gaslight, gas station, girlboss
at least they look different, really little difference especially in combat with spacesuits from vanguard, spacre, crimson fleet or anyone else in starfield.
@@VideotimeEmi it is told!
;)
10,000 planets. 15 creatures.
Hot off the heels of Baldur's Gate 3 I jumped into Starfield, and the difference in writing and conversation quality hit me like a truck. I had that sinking feeling in my gut, and sure enough it never got better, it in fact only got worse as the game progressed. I have never skipped this much dialogue in a game before.
I don't think it really matters I would be surprised if any choice changes anything.
I came off Armored Core 6. The characters in that game are 100x better and you literally only see 2 of them as a sketch if you hardcore secret hunt. Also the combat is worlds better in ways that just can't be described.
They really need to hire better writers at this point, the, lack of, quality has been the same since Oblivion. That was 17 years ago.
Baldur's Gate 3 every choice was pretty profound how it impacted the story in Starfield the choice literally don't matter...
Kinda like the games that came out around Elden Ring. Lots of cope because it was so glaring. Gamers can sense if a game is sterile, and it can even be a decent game.
I've started this video but you've already hit upon a point of contention for me: the exploration aspect. Even looking back at Bethesda's games pre-Skyrim, the way they want you explore is so different. Go back as far as Morrowind which has no compass, and how it felt rewarding to go exploring and find a daedric temple or stumble upon orcs worshipping Malacath. Travelling around and spying a Dwemer structure from afar, a shape in the fog, felt like actual exploration.
Hell, using a different game entirely, I have recently been going through Dragon's Dogma Dark Arisen, which came out around the same time as Skyrim. There are map icons, but no overworld compass. What you find is due to quests and exploring, and more often than not you are rewarded even if you do initially end up finding a more challenging foe to defeat before you can get it. The swathes of open field and dense forest are pleasant to walk through after you've run into a bunch of bandits, that downtime needed.
Starfield feels like it's all downtime. Planets feel like a checklist - go look at the points of interest, go get some materials, defeat some space raiders. Rinse and repeat. A shame, when a space game could have benefited from dense, multi-planet excursions, with the corpos and politics that should be involved with sci-fi settings.
AMAZING video, this deserves at least one mil views.
The only fun I had in starfield was giving myself unlimited money and building cool ships but that quickly dries up once you realize you can’t do anything with said ships
Fly them
Dog fight
Board spaceships
Land on planets
Hold a crew
Walk around inside and see the interior of amazing creation you made.
Mine asteroids
Scan planets
Etc
@@SOV_Gambit Jesus you're boring. "Walk around?" Really?
@billjacobs521 yes, walk around in the spaceship you just created, launch into space, check out the view. Pretty incredible.
I'm boring and you are another entitled gamer that doesn't know what they have.
Each to thier own, I'm definitely not bored with the ship builder...
@@SOV_Gambit Yes, Starfield was made for people like you. Shame they couldn't have made it fun and engaging instead.
@@SOV_Gambityes, walk around, look into the bland, white walls with good detailing, yes, but other than that what? Did you pay 70$ to walk around virtual spaceships with nonsensical routes? This is like talking about Tears of the Kingdom critically and only discussing the art of the food items and pots, despite a game being around it. Also, nice “etc” because you literally can’t do anything else with ships other than what you listed.
As soon as you played the Cyberpunk 2077 combat I got so engrossed into the footage I forgot I was watching a Starfield video. Theres just so much style and flare.
Starfield is an amazing game & is the greatest game I played in 2023 & I've played all the top rated gamed & most hyped up games released in 2023.. people just love to hate
@@504Trey is @SubzeroBlack68 lying ? Is there something he missed ? You didnt bring anything to the table to counter what he wrote.
@@504Treywas Starfield the only you game you played in 2023 or something?
@@504Trey that's the fun thing. Nobody is judging you for enjoying it. People enjoy it and there's nothing wrong with that. There's also however nothing wrong with criticizing it.
@@504TreyWhy you mad?
I like your voice. It calms me. Subbed. :)
That cyberpunk combat montage followed by Starfield "Stealth" kill was just soooo well done! Got yourself a sub, great video.
After watching this video, I realized that Bethesda have completely lost their touch as game designers. Even ignoring the technological innovations they could've added to the game, they appear to be completely creatively bankrupt in terms of even working around engine limitations to create a fun game, and the results speak for themselves.
It's because most of the company's most talented members are no longer there. They also only have like 2 writers, which cannot create a breadth of story and quest content that is both wide and deep for a game of this sheer scope. You need at least a dozen or more, with someone overseeing them to make sure their ideas mesh together as cleanly as reasonably possible.
@@Draeckon They have one singular writer, Emil Pagliarulo
@@ohwellplaythecardsthatimgi9494That's just false. Emil led the writing team but did not individually write the entire story. Other writers have been credited for the various quest lines, like Will Shen.
I think a really simple but fundamental flaw with exploration in Starfield is that the points of interest map markers are already there when you land on a planet. In Skyrim they would pop in as you got within a certain range so you would visually assess the landscape and walk towards something you think could be of interest, the game would then affirm your curiosity by saying 'yes there is a cave here' and then you would discover the cave and go in an explore it, it felt rewarding. In Starfield you already know as soon as you land how far away the map marker is so it's literally just a case of making a b-line straight to that marker with no sense that you've actually discovered anything. It's strange how they could mess up something that seems so insignificant but actually has a massive impact on exploration.
Elder scrolls 6 is gonna be trash and people will still be surprised :)
Exactly!
Fantastic review! it's one thing saying something isn't good but a completely different story fairly validating why it's so. Best review I have seen to date +1 sub
Here are my biggest problems with Starfield
1. The world design does NOT have any history to it. Remember Word Walls in Skyrim? Each one would be in a totally unique place, and have its own story. One would be in the deeps of a tomb, guarded by a Dragon Priest, and on the way you would pick up journals of people who tried to rob the tomb and meet sticky ends. Another would be atop a mountain, where you would have to brave Ice Wraiths through the forest, only to fight a newly-awakened dragon. But the Starfield "Temples". Go to a Temple in a barren wasteland, complete the same boring minigame and unlock a new power. How is this interesting? How is this a worthwhile experience? Where is the story?
2. There's NO such thing as exploration. When you explore a map in Skyrim, you find things "off the beaten path". So you might try to get from Whiterun to Riften but, on the way, find an ancient, abandoned Shrine taken over by Spriggans. As you go deeper into the Shrine, you can find it's actually haunted. The tale becomes so exciting that you forget about Riften entirely. No such thing happens in Starfield. It's literally just "go through boring planets to make a beeline for a map-marker 400m away" rinse and repeat ad infinitium.
It's like Bethesda have taken the best parts of their games, stripped them out and thrown them in the bin. As a die-hard Bethesda fan who literally defended and highly enjoyed EVERY major release (including FO4 and FO76), the extent Bethesda fumbled this release just astounds me.
I agree, main problem with starfield is the world. They made the most boring and world that just doesn't make any sense.
Getting side tracked by location markers off to the side of the path to your desired destination *is* why Bethesda games before Starfield worked so well. It's the core of what makes a Bethesda RPG it's own, unique type of RPG.
Which is weird that they threw that away for Starfield. Now it's a mediocre at best open world RPG with hardly any "world" to it.
So anything but extreme, obvious shite will solicit praise from you. Get out fanboy.
Id rather have Daggefall level of openess to the detriment of what we have now, at least it felt like a world. This a small levels sewed together without any links
Starfield needed to come out after elder scrolls 6, not sure why it even got made.
THE definitive Starfield review/analysis imo. You nailed it perfectly.
❤
I think they even take the critique and fix bad designed things like the movement or shooting action/power integration:
... WITH V.A.T.S.
Hehehe
The patrician review definitely covers many more aspects and in more detail, but a few small issues mentioned here aren’t mentioned in that video.
@@dieSpinntwhat are you talking about
This is a great video Tonald, you really summed up the issues with this game perfectly.
Perfect analysis, thank you
What a great take on this game. I just finished Cyberpunk, my first play through. I'd avoided after the launch fiasco, but I was blown away by the game, especially how alive Night City was. Then I fired up Starfield, and in less than a week, I was playing a new background/build in Cyberpunk again. I have zero intention of returning to Starfield, everything just feels so outdated and the interaction with NPC's are so stilted.
I had a similar experience to you. I played Cyberpunk on release and enjoyed it, but struggled with a lot of bugs and lack of content. Played Starfield and was instantly bored. Went back to Cyberpunk with the new DLC and the massive 2.0 update and the game is just night and day better than starfield.
Cyberpunk was NOT just a technically broken game at launch, it was fundamentally lacking in nearly every aspect of its' gameplay loop outside of the main story. Very few side missions had anything interesting to offer, there was little to do in the open world outside of the main story and the gameworld itself just felt.... Dead.
Cyberpunk now, is vastly improved. But to say it was just technically broken at launch is a lie. It was an unfinished game in every sense of the word.
I'm playing Oblivion again for the first time in 6 years after being disappointed in Starfield and I forgot how fun Bethesda's older games are I put over 500 hours into Oblivion before starting again and I still ran into quests I never seen before like wow the amount of content, detail and care that was put into it still impressive especially considering Oblivion is 17 years old and Starfield is a new game😆
Dark brotherhood quest line (chef kiss)
oblivion was a masterpiece... janky as hell, main story meh and repetitive... but it had soooo much character... the dark brotherhood and thieves guild questlines were brilliant... crafting your own spells too
You should try morrowind or daggerfall unity
i just started another playthrough of oblivion as well. The difference is night and day.
Heh I've just started up oblivion again. It's been years since I played it. I absolutely love it.
*Bathesda COULD have made the procedural generation work... had they been like 30% smarter:*
1. _Create all the usual handmade locations for players to discover._
2. _Integrate these handmade encounters into the procedural generation, so the player can encounter them on pretty much any world._
3. _For setting-specific encounters, create an internal checklist system to ensure they only spawn on planets where they make sense._
4. _Create a system that monitors what the player has encountered. Once they've seen an encounter, it gets removed from future generation._
5. _Instead of 1000 useless planets, have the game generate enough to ensure by the time the player has encountered all the content prepared for them, they've also run out of planets to explore._
This system would allow for an endless variety in experience, while ensuring those experiences remain tailored and interesting. One player encounters an illegal smuggling ring on a swamp planet, another find the same ring on an ice planet. Both feel like they've encountered something completely unique to their game while ALSO getting to experience a fun side quest.
Spot on! this is exactly what I felt playing Starfield
Skyrim biggest hook was it's Music and atmosphere, the taverns were cozy with it's somber bard music, warmth of the fireplace, you walked down roads next to streams with fish in them and as they splash against the rocks, swamps is coated in ankle high fogs and the lands around Falkreath is lush and dense with green, ALL cresendoed by a masterful soundtrack that makes you want to look up in to the night's sky in awe.
What do you get in Starfield? well, Todd was being very literal when he called it "The space game"...it certainly is Todd, it's just a game set in Space, no lore to discuss or theorize because everything's explained on the spot, no bigger mystery about it, even the origin of Earth drying up isn't that grand, it's basically just a plot to push people in to space colonization, that's it, not aliens, divine intervention or even cosmic horror, just scientists being wide-eyed to Space colonization.
They didn't rehire Jeremy sole for ES6, be aware ES6 will be bad
I also cant remember a single track from Starfield. I dont even know if there was music at all honestly
All I can remember hearing is the sound of me being encumbered and still trying to run, so my health is low and I can hear my muffled heartbeat, with the occasional sound of my jump pack trying to get me back to my ship a little faster. @@smexizool
Cyberpunk's launch was atrocious, but the things that where wrong with it where mechanical problems. Most of them have been completely patched out or overhauled to get to the point they are now. Starfield was a functioning game at its launch, but the problems it has are issues with its core design philosophy. Those can't get patched out.
Exactly. Under all the bugs, cyberpunk still had a great story, gameplay loop, and world to explore. No matter how many bug fixes and quality of life changes they make to Starfield, they will never be able to patch out the hollow and boring gameplay loop. Even ground vehicles wouldn't be able to override the sheer terribleness of loading screen after loading screen and boring quest design.
Cyberpunk was and still is trash compared to what we were promised. This terrible game at least didn't overhype aspect that were cut because they were to incompetent to handle it.
@@Varangian_af_Scaniaewhile i certainly agree with you about Cyberpunk, the part of the game i want is skipped over in a cutscene. But i can acknowledge that the game game we got has a decent story, a decent gameplay loop, and an environment that feels like it's lived in.
Starfield lacks that.
@@Varangian_af_Scaniae One could say the same thing about Fable. Or No Man's Sky. Except that would be dumb, kinda like what you said. >__>
And OP hits the nail on the end.
Starfield is fundamentally mediocre, and only copious modding could ever hope to redeem it. Question is if it will ever see the level of mod scene that is going to be needed to get to that point.
@@Varangian_af_Scaniae bros still furious his ps4 couldn’t run it😭😭
I always look for character customization in games, whether it's the character's face, outfit, or vehicles. Immersing in the universe feels more complete with appropriate clothing. Imagine my disappointment when I found out that Starfield's outfitting system went back to FO3/NV era where you can only equip helmets and overalls instead of being able to equip modular clothing pieces like Skyrim, Fallout 4, or even Fallout 76. Sure you can customize your ship to your heart's content, but most of the time you won't see your ship, especially when you're dealing with other NPCs.
That really sucked for me too. No cool pants, boots, shirts. Just an outfit, can’t change color. Bleh
F4 clothing system isn't modular, you had 'body armor' 'eyewear' and 'hat' and that was it, so I'm not sure what people where expecting. Making different armor pieces to have people mix and match is a lot of work so Beth threw that concept in the trash after Skyrim.
@@UncomfortableShoesfr cant even look cool in starfield
I don't say this often about stuff I watch on YT, but your video is just brilliant. Very good flow, not too long or too short, perfect comparison to CP77. The one thing I've missed though would've been a quick comparison to Star Citizen in terms of space flight, spaceships, and exploring planets. I've enjoyed Starfield when it was first released, I liked the introductary pacing and that the game can draw you in and you can spend a lot of time doing side quests. Funny enough, I've never touched the main questline when it was dooming on me that I'd be playing as yet another chosen one-character. I already disliked that approach in Fallout 4, although that game was way more fleshed out (despite the game-breaking bugs and poor PC performance at launch).
Imho, the worst thing about Starfield is not the ambition behind it to build a huge space game, but that Bethesda prioritized quantity over quality. You've made a really good point that in the end, Starfield is just plain and boring and just doesn't deliver on their promises. Although this can be said about a lot of modern games, it doesn't make it better. After at least 3 months of not playing this game at all, I have yet to return to it, but I probably won't for the forseeable future. If I want a faster-paced, well thought-out and high quality action-rpg-shooter, I'm gonna play Cyberpunk 2077 again. If I want to explore space, fly around or just do whatever I want in a sandbox game, I'm gonna play Star Citizen. Both of these games are also a lot more enjoyable than Starfield will ever be - even if I'd count in mods.
The only two interesting things in the Starfield lore had already happened(the war) or were completely missing(Va run and space serpent).
Lore is a poor excuse for anything, no one sane reads LORE, it counts for nothing.
@@davewills148 Welcome to RPG videogames! You sure you're in the right place?
Yep. An aged-feeling RPG with poor mechanics I can forgive. An RPG with boring story, uninteresting characters, no choices and shallow lore. That’s a critical failure! Starfield is awful.
It's funny cuz you could say the same thing about elden ring except the game is competently made so it made everyone curious and not roll their eyes
@@shanegale6143 Elden Ring IMHO is more about brutal gameplay than anything else (which is why I deleted it from my drive as soon as I finished it). There is a certain lore to it and they do stay true to it, but IMHO that's not really the point of the game.
Bethesda games are supposed to put you in a world that is fun to explore. Bethesda NPCs have never been the best nor have their quests. However, the NPCs of Skyrim were good enough that they added to the game instead of actively subtracting enjoyment. Most of the quest lines were reasonably enjoyable, even if the were not the deepest. Most of all, exploring the game world space (Skyrim, Cyrodil, Boston, Washington) is the real joy of Bethesda games. That is totally missing from Starfield.
What we get is a bland game universe, the worst NPCs I have ever seen in a Bethesda game by a long shot, and mostly unimaginative quests (with a few that are actually good). The gun combat is fun. The stealth is not. Ship building is fun despite the UI implementation. Ship - ship combat ,,, meh. It's OK. The game is not all bad by any means, but it just gets so damned boring. I played over 100 hours, fueled mostly by the combat and the thought that it will pick up. It never did. After I had murdered the 1000th generic human baddie I just said "enough" and put it away.
We'll see if modders can make something of it. Many of the basic tools are there.
Your point about seeing the exact same base twice and how it breaks immersion is so spot on. Within my first 10 hours I saw the same base 3 or 4 times across 3 or 4 different plants and systems.
It blows my mind that they released with something like 30 unique locations that will spawn on planets. You put 1,600 planets in your game, made them all explorable (well, mostly, with the invisible wall bullshit), and thought that would be enough to sustain "exploration" in this game???
I refuse to believe it. They knew what exploration was, and they still trotted it out as one of the selling points of the game. Truly, after F76 and this, Bethesda is a husk of a game developer.
Why does all of the "insane club music" from Starfield sound like the Human Music™ from Rick & Morty?
Man, I am sorry you were excited, and I hope it was a learning experience. It's my hope that in the next few years, we can change the gaming industry for all of us.
59:44 It's funny that you call this Starfield's most ambitious scene when all of the dialogue options have the exact same outcome. I've heard so many people describe this as the best part of the story because it has so many options, but none of them bothered to try out the other options before putting it on a pedestal. Even if you try to fail by selecting the worse options, the game makes you succeed. That one scene is the embodiment of everything wrong with Starfield's storytelling.
Lol I thought people say that sarcastically.
Reminds me about the kellog encounter in FO4
I went through each and every option
they were all like, 1 word different from one another
even the tone was identical
I was enjoying Starfield before Phantom Liberty. I felt some it’s flaws from the beginning but decided to ignored them. I was hyped for the game, but as soon as Phantom Liberty came out and played it, I tried returning to Starfield to finish it and couldn’t. It just feels like a chore.
That's the problem. If I am going to go to work I expect to be paid to do it. With Starfield, I paid somebody else for the "pleasure" of mining rocks.
buzz buzz buzz ...
on to the next rock
buzz buzz buzz ...
Oh what fun!
@@patwilson2546Not only that, but Bethesda just craps out a broken product and expects modders to work as well by fixing their game for them. Bethesda are lazy and creatively bankrupt.
@@UnityAgainstJewishEvilAbsolutely that part. 💯
Really its just a early access game, with good graphics, it feels incomplete some how. (Maybe its because there are no alien races?)
@@gerwyn8340 Yea the fact there’s no alien-humanoids made it also seem very bland and uninteresting.
I missed the VATS system a lot while playing, being able to shoot weak points, and teleport around as melee.
And having activated crits being guaranteed hits added just that little bit extra to combat strategies when you open with a 50 yard missile crit to the biggest dude's face.
Jet was also pretty sweet for bullet-time on demand.
I wish they'd pulled more from Fo4, but seems they took inspiration from 76 instead.
I like that you used Cyberpunk for comparison clips. The game came out in a messy state on consoles, but playing it on PC I had an absolute blast with it, and I really feel like it set new standards for what you can expect from games in terms of cutscenes and just general environmental design, which was absolutely top notch throughout the entire game.
Bethesda is doing the exact same thing they've been doing 20 years ago, while the rest of the industry are moving leaps and bounds with each new release. For a 60/70 $ game, you really have to bring the best stuff possible, not just the exact same thing again and again.
23:07 - 25:00 looked immearsuably more fun than all of Starfield's combat combined. Now I want to go back and give Cyberpunk a second try.
You absolutely should, it's phenomenal. The disaster surrounding its launch feels like a strange fever dream that never even happened.
Try it now in a new save.
Publisert transport is fixed and it really feels fun, fresh, dense and that the city is kinda alive
I'll give it a go soon, but I very recently got a brand new computer and can play Witcher 3 for the first time in top line graphics and I'm loving it.
Wait until they add the new metro system 👌 then GO GO GO
@@giomjava it has droped
My theory is that Todd Howard is a secret Daedric prince, the Prince of Disappointment, and Bethesda's releases are how he grows his power.
He's really Clavicus Vile, playing tricks on us all with his bait and switch at this point.
Love to see your reaction to the Star Engine video and the SQ42 walk the line, to see the future of what Starfield could have been, with greater ambition.
I don't own a rig good enough for SC, but I catch up on Bored's videos every 3 months to see what it's shaping up to be. SE looks jawdropping. I would buy a top shelf rig FOR SC
I made a huge mistake buying Starfield over Baldur's Gate 3, I 've only been to Mars after leaving New Atlantis and checked out mentally when real life stuff came up for me and there's nothing there that will compel me to come back to it. BG3 I bet would be a story that makes me want to come back to see to completion.
Good video.
One thing I've been noticing a lot in my recent playthrough of Cyberpunk was just how much Night City feels like an actual place that people live in. There are NPCs just walking the street, but then you go into the alleys and you see construction workers discussing projects, kids playing around, some dude spazzing out from an overdose, people hanging out and watching some tv, et cetera. You can't go into every building, but the ones you can are constructed like real buildings - everything is where you'd expect it to be, everything is properly placed, they feel like real spaces. I'm sure there are some patterns and cookie-cutter structures, but it's hard for me to tell, even though I've sunk hundreds of hours in the game. It's an insane level of detail, and it makes Night City feel alive in a way that few games even come close to.
Agreed. Sometimes watching people tweak out, crying somewhere or stumble around drunk and vomiting is actually sad.
Just from watching NPC’s in a fictional world you can actually get a sense of desperation and dysfunction, like Night City is eating them alive.
You don’t get that feeling of “reality” on any of Starfields 1,000 planets, ever.
Just cheap robots from 90’s Epcot, reciting their lines while others walk by staring at me like a ghoul.
Yep, the design of the city seems really purposeful too, it feels like they hired an actual urban designer to design the city. The overpasses, buildings, stalls, etc, don't feel like they were just randomly placed in places just to fill out the city. Also, even the ncpd scanner hustles, which are the smallest type of content in the game, beats out any procedurally generated content Starfield has because the ncpd scanner hustles have background story to them which you'll find out if you read the shards that can be found in them and also examine the scene.
@@vincer7824Yes! The game felt very much like a cheesy Disney ride. No adult themes, no gore, no real consequences, NPCs like talking mannequins. Compare Neon city to Night city, just Laughable.
All faaacts
I wish CDPR had more time to really lean into some GTA style life sim stuff to maximize immersion (luckily mods exist) but even still Night City is hands down one of the most believable cities I’ve ever seen in a game.
Very few open world games will have me traveling at walking speed between objectives or driving like a normal person just so I can take in the atmosphere, but Night City always gets me wanting to take it slow.
After playing phantom liberty for a couple hours and getting hooked instantly i realized how bad i was gaslighting myself into thinking i was having a good time in starfield lol. I think the most interesting thing that happened in my entire 48hr play through was the AI mini quest.
So I chose to let the AI go in that quest, and it hints that you might see it again at some point in the future. I was like "Okay cool, so clearly they are foreshadowing that this is part of a larger questline right?" Nope. Never mentioned again. I only regret spending any of my limited time on Starfield
I played Starfield for around 3 days after it released (actual playtime), I was hyped for the game. Now don't get me wrong, I had some fun with it genuinely, but I was the same as soon as Phantom Liberty dropped. Starfield was/is unfortunately incredibly boring to play (especially when you're expected to replay EVERYTHING at least 10x to get the best version of the powers and the other NG+ stuff.
After completing Phantom Liberty, and then restarting my entire playthrough to do it all again just to try new things, I uninstalled Starfield, and excluding the ship building (as finnicky as it is), I haven't missed the game in the slightest.
The UC Vanguard questline was legitimately fun, and had one of the games most interesting characters with Vae Victus. But that's the only part of the game I can properly compliment.
Haha i do that too. All of sudden I'll stop myself and think "wait wtf am i doing with this game", and it's usually over then. With something as hyped as Starfield, there was an assumption it would get good, and you even had all the people saying oh it gets good later. That was BS.
It astonishes me how Bethesda still uses lazy stiff facial mocap that looks like it was made 12 years ago while games like Baldur's Gate have mocap so detailed that it feels like you're speaking to a real person.
8:10 I've seen this outpost multiple times in my playthrough, and multiple other times in other peoples videos. It goes to show that they didn't even bother to make more than one or two different outpost types to litter around the game world. If there were dozens of different layouts to find, then it wouldn't be as bad to stumble upon this identical outpost 2 or 3 times in a 100 hour playthrough. But the fact that I've seen it more than 5 times in around 40 hours is wild. And that wasn't even with me actively exploring landmarks.
That part where it goes to the club in Neon and the dancers are going "Come on people, drink some Aurora and get crazyy!" before it pans to a completely dead dance floor had me dying. Kinda sums up what I didn't like about this game, zero effort put into making it feel like a real place instead of a video game. Meanwhile Skyrim had like a hundred books you could read and tons of little details that brought the world to life
The club scene in Phantom Liberty was such a beauty to behold. I recall having just finished one of the mission parts and I was supposed to go meet someone, but the shows starts, and since the game doesn't rush you and lets you just really notice it starting by how striking it is, that I just did. No reason to stay and watch, but so glad I did. The golden wings and the performance have stayed in my mind still.
Is that in Starfield or Cyberpunk?
@@CharlesFerraro Cyberpunk, Phantom Liberty being the name of the DLC/Expansion.
@@Frenchfraeis ohh I saw the thing you were talking about later in the video. The angel thing is Grimes. Thought I was looking at Starfield there but it makes more sense that it was 2077 since Grimes was in that. Earlier I thought “oh crazy Grimes is in Starfield too” 😂
I bought Cyberpunk a week ago and man this game is an absolute masterpiece. After 100 hrs I still haven't even thought about using fast travel. I gladly walk, run, and drive everywhere. The world is just that damn good.
it sets the tone that one of the first points in the video is how skyrim has locations that make logistical sense. the bar is SO low since starfield that this is worth pointing out
What we learned from starfield is that Todd wasn't the one making those games of the past great it was other people who must have retired
watching people get sick of the slop is long overdue and extremely gratifying.
I've played starfield for about 100 hours when it came out. It was a truly strange experience. At first I hated the disrupting limitations set in this "do whatever you want-sandbox" by the game's design. no real spaceflight, no consequences for my actions, no immersion despite my best efforts to feel like I could immerse myself into it. I kept on playing after those first days, gradually getting used to "features" and gameplay mechanics, starting to feel "okay" with the game. But despite feeling so little about it, i kept on playing for some reason. What I didn't knew back then was, that I was probably subconciously clinging to this game, because I knew, once I wouldn't start it up again, I wouldn't do so ever again, at least for a very long time. I kept on grinding on "exploring", trying to set up a good base and looked around the vastness to find my own fun in this game, because at this point i was already fed up with the quest design.
And then I had to go home for a week, because I wanted to visit my parents. Once I came back, I've never looked at starfields tiny desktop icon and thought: "Well, let's try it again."
I was so sick of it. This game - although it's very hard to say this about a team with hundreds of developers - lacks any vision, any creativity, any feel for good gameplay design and any thoughts about past mistakes.
The gameplay just sucks, both in general game mechanics and in quest design. Constant fast-traveling, to the point where it's making me try to calculate the "most efficient fast-travel route" ... I get bad emotions just thinking about this. As someone who hasn't anything in general against loading screens, I thought I could be forgiving about bethesda's level design going into starfield. But I also enjoy the road towards my next poi or waypoint, may it be in a beatiful, organically feeling world of RDR2 or in the vastness of procedual generated space of Elite:Dangerous, the way starfield made me travel was slowly and constantly filling me with despair.
And the quest design... I just say UC Vanguard/Crimson Fleet.
Also, what really bothered me and made me lose any interest in the main story (aswell as in quite many sidequests) is best described by one word: "Starborn"
This totally new IP by Bethesda had me hopping into a group of people to explore the world because I was the chosen one. Also the game wants me to become a Starborn, to save the world or whatever... Sounds alot like I'm the space version of a Dragonblood... very creative. Took plenty of time to came up with this.
This similarity got even more absurd once I looked into the german localization. In german, both are named "Sternenblut" und "Drachenblut" (literal translation would be starblood and dragonblood) and this gave me the rest. They are not only trying to copy their basic story ingredients from their most beloved title, they also lack the inspiration or are just terribly lazy by copying the name for the "chosen one". This may not be as important to other players, but I kinda felt ... betrayed, somehow. Almost as if Bethesda was mocking my wishes for a fresh, new, original bethesda game.
The fact, that they chose to learn nothing from their past, just underlines this last statement. Their engine may not be suited for different level designs, I get it. But how about not trying to make a space game with dozens of star systems and hundreds of planets then? How about not trying to write "humanity's great expansion" into your lore, if the three most important cities in your world are one large plaza with 5 buildings around, one small town looking like a mixture out of an antique city and an american mid-1800s settlement while having space for about 200 people and a bigger than average offshore oil-drilling place. And maybe, just maybe, try to implemet an ESSENTIAL mod like SkyUI or something as capable of managing your inventory by default next time?
I don't know why I'm writing all of this. This is clearly nothing new to every person that tried to find the fun in Starfield themselves. Spoilers: There is none.
Well said. I felt that same sense of betrayal when the umpteenth Skyrim re-release fixed... nothing. Their disdain showed through quite clearly.
yes exactly, i was playing deep into Palworld at that time, and it's an addictive game,
but at that time, i was also curious about Starfield,
despite the flaw and bug, i'm somehow abandon Palworld and get deep into Starfield every single day,
yes, and i'm aware that this is not okay, and i'm supposed to hate Starfield like all the Gamers out there,
and even there was a day where i'm looking forward for crafting, building outpost, and unlock new skill for no reason.
i think Starfield is like Cyberpunk, it can be great if they straighten all of the kinks,
but for now, Starfield is like that sleeper TV show that you hate, but for some reason, you can't get enough of it,
because the weirdness is what makes it good
and surprisingly, all of the Haters out there spent 200+ hours on this game, despite of them hating on this game,
clearly this is a sign of "the game was so bad its good"
Todd Howard is a lying scumbag is why. And because they keep using their crappy creation engine. Their team is DEI hires that took almost 10 years to create something as small as skyrim. He bamboozled us with fallout 76, with rereleasing skyrim 50 times, with focusing on a stupid mobile game, and now this. yet some people never learn and still trust him.
@@jensenraylight8011 "yes, and I'm aware that this is not okay, and I'm supposed to hate starfield like all the gamers out there"
Here you are again with another sob story and long ass rant. Do you work for Bethesda or something? Lol
@@stephengrigg5988 do you enjoy being such a Bigot?
No other opinion other than yours should exist right?
Just because everyone hate this game, doesn't mean you have to put everyone who like the game on a holocaust
Why do you think that you have the responsibility to punish every single people who like Starfield?
Like did you get money from punishing people or something?
Oh you're so scared that because of my comment everyone suddenly interested in playing starfield huh?
Leave people alone dude, don't play as a self proclaim gaming Nazi Police
It's fun listening to your voice, great content
Hope he make more videos like this. I know he had a very rocky history and reputation in that dark cleanprincegaming era but i genuinely believe his videos bright much needed insight.
The splicing together of the two “making a deal with shady characters” quests in starfield vs cyberpunk really just sums up so well where one succeeds and one fails. Also kinda crazy how mass effect over a decade ago perfected having alien powers that you can send out to charge and then send another one to explode the charged enemies and in starfield you can’t synergize your powers like that
Shepard the space mage vs Starfield's 1st year Hogwarts student
It really is amazing, so many fantastic examples of how to do it right and Bethesda ignores all of it. I wonder if this is the limitations of their ancient engine coming back to bite them.
I feel like starfield would succeed in a bubble. If other games didn't exist and only starfield was available. It's be impressive when compared to nothing else
There are no excuses for this game. I wouldn't be surprised if AI made it, honestly
An AI would be much more competent at actually copying good game design. This is old-fashioned human error, fresh from Bethesda's oven.
Given the procedural generation, yes, AI did make a majority of the game.
bethesda has always incorporated these practices into their games but honestly i think you're half correct in the sense that bethesda is essentially trying to develop a human-ai formula for creating pre-made games that only require monetary and chronological expense. that is literally the only reason i can think of for starfield being as empty and half baked as it is
AI wouldn't even admit thay made that trash.
AI should offended someday we suggested it did.
This is probably the best critical review I've seen. Instead of "this game is crap" you actually give comparisons and in depth examples. Truly great video and I definitely won't be playing it as there's nothing that looks remotely interesting to me. Great video, keep up the great work.
Damn you bro. I have so much in my backlog and I was waiting to buy and play Cyberpunk at a later time, but you sold me.
I hope everyone liked the melee in Starfield because that's what you're going to get in the next Elder Scrolls game!! Take care!
The basics haven't changed since Morrowind. You just slap each other.
yeah... because the main focus of combat in Starfield is melee combat.
Lol elder scrolls is coming day 1 for the next generation bud most likely 2025, it’s been like 4 years since the series x/s came out and they sold pretty bad.
Skyrim's fighting still isn't bad. It's still kinda fun to play today. My main concern about ES6 is the story, the depth of the world, the random encounters (or lack of), and the atmosphere. This is where Starfield falls short in ways which just entirely betray the core foundation of past Bethesda games.
@@kyley6487
Oblivion you mean? Morrowind had dice tools for combat.
Regarding dialogue, in Cyberpunk you get Yellow lines, that progress the dialogue and represent choices (this provoke different responses from the NPC and will impact the end of dialogue solutions you are presented with), and blue text is already visualized by the avatar or represent details (so that the player won't waste the time unless they want to). In Starfield all is grey and blend (fortunately only the first or the second option can be progress the dialogue, sadly the choice of dialogue doesn't matter until the last lines in the quest, so you could just select version 1 all the time until the decision at the end, nothing else changes anything). Another thing that is valid in most good RPGs is that if one NPC will tell you some details about some situation, your avatar is assumed that is knowledgeable of that fact and sometimes opens up other endings or variable solutions to quests, Starfield doesn't have this, if you go throw one of the 2 top options is exactly the same as going throw all the dialogue, more knowledge will never open up anything interesting.
Wonderfully said, I wanted to add that in cyberpunk there are many blue options that secretly replace the yellow, and blue options that will then expand and add more things to ask because you selected it first.
It may not have had many world changing decisions but I liked discovering what options said what
Glad I’m not the only one who was bummed you can’t combo any powers in Starfield like you can in Mass Effect. The mana usage of single powers just made it where I prioritized just one or two powers that work for the majority of situations. The rest felt like a novelty.
In Cyberpunk, I open combat with a sniper rifle with bullets that explode on impact, then I switch to an assault rifle, entering bullet time while aiming at the designated weak points for the electrical burst effect, then I finish the rest of the mob off with a hammer after triggering my berserk implant. It’s so satisfying charging into enemies, doing an AOE slam, and hurling enemy bodies into others , knocking them down like bowling pins.
I never achieved that kind of thrill or “combat high” from Starfield.
The carnage from the added vehicle combat is also much more fun than any sensations I might feel from melting enemies in starfields space combat with my starship equipped with three auto beams.
Tonald you are inspiration and a icon keep a good work 👍