It's gonna take a long time for me to figure out how I feel about this game. I enjoyed it enough to give it 3.5 stars! Here are some pretty disparate thoughts copy-pasted from a conversation I was having with a friend of mine:
I think there's some sense of discovery for certain things. LIke I enjoyed getting through No Man's Land and seeing Plainsong for the first time, that was really fucking cool. And there are other places where when you crest that hill and you see something in the distance it's exciting. But navigating the actual map is a chore. I don't know why they feel the need to put campsites everywhere. Just make saving something you can do whenever you want when outside of combat, and get rid of campsites. Make the occasional shelter and town the fast travel points. Get rid of Machine Site icons and determine a different system for finding specific machines. Get rid of rebel camps, don't need 'em. Fighting machines is the interesting part of the game. Make all side quests relevant to some specific location that is interesting to explore, and less about using your focus to follow tracks or examine things.
still think I’m pretty burned out on AAA open world stuff, it still all feels samesy
There are a very small handful of side quests in that game that feel impactful and I wish all of them were like that
Could have done without a billion rebel camps and I don’t think the game needed hunting grounds or melee pits
Also, and this is very minor: yet another open world game with shit fog of war where it’s next to impossible to nicely clear the map of fog
I’m interested in where they might take the series for a third one
I think with the type of game it is they could stand to learn more from a Bethesda or Obsidian RPG. Have each location be interesting by itself with an interesting side quest and good lore to find that expands your understanding of the world.
I think there's some sense of discovery for certain things. LIke I enjoyed getting through No Man's Land and seeing Plainsong for the first time, that was really fucking cool. And there are other places where when you crest that hill and you see something in the distance it's exciting. But navigating the actual map is a chore. I don't know why they feel the need to put campsites everywhere. Just make saving something you can do whenever you want when outside of combat, and get rid of campsites. Make the occasional shelter and town the fast travel points. Get rid of Machine Site icons and determine a different system for finding specific machines. Get rid of rebel camps, don't need 'em. Fighting machines is the interesting part of the game. Make all side quests relevant to some specific location that is interesting to explore, and less about using your focus to follow tracks or examine things.
still think I’m pretty burned out on AAA open world stuff, it still all feels samesy
There are a very small handful of side quests in that game that feel impactful and I wish all of them were like that
Could have done without a billion rebel camps and I don’t think the game needed hunting grounds or melee pits
Also, and this is very minor: yet another open world game with shit fog of war where it’s next to impossible to nicely clear the map of fog
I’m interested in where they might take the series for a third one
I think with the type of game it is they could stand to learn more from a Bethesda or Obsidian RPG. Have each location be interesting by itself with an interesting side quest and good lore to find that expands your understanding of the world.