Reviewing it for what it actually is, minecraft is one of the most dull games I’ve ever played. It fails both as an open world and as a survival game, because the game just isn’t very fun to play. Exploration is dull because you’ll walk stretches of nothing with nothing to do, no real goal to any of it. They fixed it in updates but back when I played it crafting stuff was also a question of having a wiki open at all times. The blocky aesthetic is timeless but in my opinion, ugly. As a creative tool to build complex structures, it’s great at what it does and has many uses. Mods have given the game essentially infinite possibilities. For example, custom maps with quests and actual stuff to find, that sounds right up my alley. Recreations of real-life places are possible and that’s just baffling.

But those are all things that were built around the original. They are, to me, not part of what minecraft is at its core. So because I’m not reviewing the excellent mods nor does the creative mode have much appeal for me, it’s pretty much a failure as a game, even if it’s a grand success as a creative tool.

The more updates come out for this thing, the lower I'd rate it, so I'm just reviewing it now.

The impact Minecraft has had on the gaming landscape can't be overstated, it's part of many people's childhoods. The prospect of an endless world you can do anything with if you put your mind to it was and still is a fantastic concept for a game. I don't think I need to go over what Minecraft is, you probably already know, so I'll get to the heart of what this review is REALLY about; Feature creep.

For me at least, the game peaked a bit before 1.9, or the Combat Update. Most features felt like fleshed-out and worthwhile additions to the game. They increased what you can do with what you already had while still being fresh by themselves. But eventually, features started to stack on top of the game instead of adding to it. It slowly became more and more bloated. After all, what can you add to a game that was already almost perfect?

This culminated in the Nether Update, which fundamentally misunderstood a core aspect of this game and made the Nether livable. The Nether was meant to be this inhospitable fiery wasteland, it's Minecraft's version of hell. That's why beds explode there. Yet they made it just a slightly tougher and significantly less varied version of the Overworld. And it only got worse from there.

The soul of this game slips out bit by bit with every update, it's really sad to see. 6 or so years ago, I would've given it a perfect 5. When I boot this game up, I stay on 1.13 and lower. I wish I could still give it that perfect score, the amount of hours I've put into it is staggering.

The game itself has very limited content and tools both in survival mode and creative mode. Survival mode pales in comparison to something like Terraria. Creative mode doesn't have a lot of tools. To go back to the Terraria example, as limited as it is, you can change the shape of blocks in that game. And it has many, many more decorative items that enhances building, even if it's a 2D game.

Minecraft becomes great/amazing because of what the COMMUNITY does with mods. Which is why I can't give it a good rating.

I have been playing sense Beta 1.7.3, and have continued up until currently release of 1.20.

I haven't found myself disagreeing with many of the newer versions and many have stressed online (and by newer I mean past version release 1.8 and under) I think they have all been lovely addition to the game be them mechanical additions or aesthetic updates (like added biomes or concrete.)

My only grip is how fast updates come up leaving very little time for mod devs to update their mods for the game. Having to juggle many different versions is annoying. I also see the game progressing lack luster which either makes it or breaks it for some types of gamers.

Overall a great game over the years. Was my childhood and now into the early twenties. If you somehow have yet to try it, if you like exploration and building, I recommend typing it out on Java Edition.