I will never not give a chance to any Terreria/Starbound adjacent project. I was really enjoying my time with this one which has a bit more of an RPG focus, until I got to the fourth town when things suddenly seemed to ramp up in terms of the amount of content but also the amount of aggravation.
The fourth town is split in two and not only has an endlessly labyrinthine sewer system but it has a huge amount of fetch quests which require you to run all over both halves of the city looking for specific NPCs. Previous areas may have had you look for one or two people but getting hit suddenly with a long string of quests that had me running up to every single person in the city over and over again to check their names, looking for 4 or 5 people each time, was too tedious and I was fine with tapping out and ending my journey with the game there.
The overarching story is not so compelling or unusual that it could propel me forward through the tedium, (look for head bad guy running a cult of necromancers or something- which is awkward if you've decided to become a necromancer,) and the game loop as you progress through each unlocked part of the map becomes quite predictable by then. Ramp all your crafts up another ten levels with the new ingredients, rinse, repeat.
Doing all your various crafts is mandatory to progress through a lot of quests but the game makes it not a big deal as the scrolls you can find all over the place in treasure chests give you boosts. Still, it takes away a bit from the idea that you are building your character as you wish and concentrating only on what you want. You must become an expert in everything.
With all of that said I did find the art pleasing and enjoyed the build-it-myself home base and "unlocked" areas that function much like the games it borrows from. I think to work as an RPG with this 2d format, the game loop needs a bit more variation and the quests need to remain simple enough to draw you through without wearing out their welcome.
The fourth town is split in two and not only has an endlessly labyrinthine sewer system but it has a huge amount of fetch quests which require you to run all over both halves of the city looking for specific NPCs. Previous areas may have had you look for one or two people but getting hit suddenly with a long string of quests that had me running up to every single person in the city over and over again to check their names, looking for 4 or 5 people each time, was too tedious and I was fine with tapping out and ending my journey with the game there.
The overarching story is not so compelling or unusual that it could propel me forward through the tedium, (look for head bad guy running a cult of necromancers or something- which is awkward if you've decided to become a necromancer,) and the game loop as you progress through each unlocked part of the map becomes quite predictable by then. Ramp all your crafts up another ten levels with the new ingredients, rinse, repeat.
Doing all your various crafts is mandatory to progress through a lot of quests but the game makes it not a big deal as the scrolls you can find all over the place in treasure chests give you boosts. Still, it takes away a bit from the idea that you are building your character as you wish and concentrating only on what you want. You must become an expert in everything.
With all of that said I did find the art pleasing and enjoyed the build-it-myself home base and "unlocked" areas that function much like the games it borrows from. I think to work as an RPG with this 2d format, the game loop needs a bit more variation and the quests need to remain simple enough to draw you through without wearing out their welcome.