Since the other thread is titled for the demo, figured I'd start afresh.
Having had some more time to work in. Yes, the Demo is not a good first impression for this.
If you enjoyed Remnant from the Ashes, I'd say think of this as a more AAA-sized and sci-fi take on that. It actually has quite a lot of similar mechanics to it (minus the more explicitly souls-like stuff).
Tackling some sore points from the demo:
Loots:
Well I still haven't gotten one of the higher tier guns or that far in the game. But they do seem to generally have the same base categories. That said, each of those categories is pretty customizable when you get the crafting (early in the 2nd chapter, 1 main quest after the demo ended). Letting you adjust each of the 16 (if I counted right) guns out a little more, and giving a pretty solid over all base.
Mods also do some majorly different things when you get into rarer ones. Lower tier mods are elemental damages, status effects, some conditional perks and stuff. Higher tier mdos will spawn minefields when you kill dudes, or encase enemies in flaming chains, etc.
Armour Mods mostly modify or improve specific skills, letting you kind of go all in (I currently have Cyclone Blades pretty built up).. There are some more generic ones as well (I have one that changes the dodge roll into a teleport dash that lets you go through enemies, arguably essential for a melee build)
All items can be upgraded through rarity tiers (uses Titanium which drops from minibosseS), the base armour/firepower stat, and also will have a couple of other attributes that you can upgrade using Attribute shards of the same type from dismantling items with those attributes). So you tend to Have Armour + 2-3 other upgradbl;e random stas (health, firepower, anomaly power, skill cooldown, healing received, etc)
Another important hting with loot, when you leave area (either by dying and returning to checkpoint, or leaving normally) you pick up all loot on the ground. So other players mining or opening chests out of sight of you won't actuallly mess up your loot.
Skills:
The class tree I'm still kind of mixed on. One big thing is that each subclass path in the tree tends to focus on certain skills, but they also attach a gun categiory boost to some of them. Which may be on the opposite side of the tree from your skills. So my teleporting psychic blade dude uses the bottom path on the skill tree and I have to significantly astray into another path line to pick up the big shotgun perk (the assault weapons perk is in my normal path). ITs not undoable, but feels like they could've put the weapon nodes in more neutral tree locations. One interesting thing is that if you take such a perk, it also skews improves drop chances to that weapon category as well, so you're more likely to get suitable weapons for your style.
Story :
Haven't completed it so far (I'm just hitting chapter 3). There does seem to be a pretty large space left to go, so the length seems there. The leaning so far definitely seems to be that the planet they landed on actively fights against sufficiently advanced tech, which is kind of a generic sci fi trope to go with (also seen in No MAns Sky, for instance). But its servicable enough for a looter background plot. It does have some weirdly out of place comedic moments, where its suddenly making a (Decent) joke amidst the other serious atmosphere which can be kind of weird.
There is one kind of glaring thing where they can't seem to decide how the Anomaly effects electronics. They say repeatedly that it disables anything more advanced then a gas engine. But characters regularly are talking on radios. the trucks they use have modern LED lights, etc. Its just kind of a weird inconsistency. And part of the ploy does involve a Macguffin piece of tech that has to be kept in its sealed case so it doesn't get disabled.
Tacking onto the End:
Microtransactions : None to be seen anywhere. There are some guns they give you with high tier mods iin themr as preorder bonuses. But they're fairly low statted so you'd need to invest in upgrading them, and they can't be dismantled for those mods to be put in other gear. Emotes/Checkpoint banners/Truck customization exists in a style that seems like its designed for Desinty-esque engrams, but actually all just comes form "Accolades", which is basically an ingame achievement system full of stuff like "Kill X number of neemies with htis ability" etc)
Bugs:
Definitely here and there. A common cosmetic one seems to be your model disappearing (whcih can be resolved by requipping your gear, but can be annoying if happens mid combat). HUD vanishing has also come up on me a few times which is much worse because you can't see your health or skill cooldowns. The most egregious (on PS4) for me is that you can't Return to Lobby to switch characters or the app crashes entirely.
Having had some more time to work in. Yes, the Demo is not a good first impression for this.
If you enjoyed Remnant from the Ashes, I'd say think of this as a more AAA-sized and sci-fi take on that. It actually has quite a lot of similar mechanics to it (minus the more explicitly souls-like stuff).
Tackling some sore points from the demo:
Loots:
Well I still haven't gotten one of the higher tier guns or that far in the game. But they do seem to generally have the same base categories. That said, each of those categories is pretty customizable when you get the crafting (early in the 2nd chapter, 1 main quest after the demo ended). Letting you adjust each of the 16 (if I counted right) guns out a little more, and giving a pretty solid over all base.
Mods also do some majorly different things when you get into rarer ones. Lower tier mods are elemental damages, status effects, some conditional perks and stuff. Higher tier mdos will spawn minefields when you kill dudes, or encase enemies in flaming chains, etc.
Armour Mods mostly modify or improve specific skills, letting you kind of go all in (I currently have Cyclone Blades pretty built up).. There are some more generic ones as well (I have one that changes the dodge roll into a teleport dash that lets you go through enemies, arguably essential for a melee build)
All items can be upgraded through rarity tiers (uses Titanium which drops from minibosseS), the base armour/firepower stat, and also will have a couple of other attributes that you can upgrade using Attribute shards of the same type from dismantling items with those attributes). So you tend to Have Armour + 2-3 other upgradbl;e random stas (health, firepower, anomaly power, skill cooldown, healing received, etc)
Another important hting with loot, when you leave area (either by dying and returning to checkpoint, or leaving normally) you pick up all loot on the ground. So other players mining or opening chests out of sight of you won't actuallly mess up your loot.
Skills:
The class tree I'm still kind of mixed on. One big thing is that each subclass path in the tree tends to focus on certain skills, but they also attach a gun categiory boost to some of them. Which may be on the opposite side of the tree from your skills. So my teleporting psychic blade dude uses the bottom path on the skill tree and I have to significantly astray into another path line to pick up the big shotgun perk (the assault weapons perk is in my normal path). ITs not undoable, but feels like they could've put the weapon nodes in more neutral tree locations. One interesting thing is that if you take such a perk, it also skews improves drop chances to that weapon category as well, so you're more likely to get suitable weapons for your style.
Story :
Haven't completed it so far (I'm just hitting chapter 3). There does seem to be a pretty large space left to go, so the length seems there. The leaning so far definitely seems to be that the planet they landed on actively fights against sufficiently advanced tech, which is kind of a generic sci fi trope to go with (also seen in No MAns Sky, for instance). But its servicable enough for a looter background plot. It does have some weirdly out of place comedic moments, where its suddenly making a (Decent) joke amidst the other serious atmosphere which can be kind of weird.
There is one kind of glaring thing where they can't seem to decide how the Anomaly effects electronics. They say repeatedly that it disables anything more advanced then a gas engine. But characters regularly are talking on radios. the trucks they use have modern LED lights, etc. Its just kind of a weird inconsistency. And part of the ploy does involve a Macguffin piece of tech that has to be kept in its sealed case so it doesn't get disabled.
Tacking onto the End:
Microtransactions : None to be seen anywhere. There are some guns they give you with high tier mods iin themr as preorder bonuses. But they're fairly low statted so you'd need to invest in upgrading them, and they can't be dismantled for those mods to be put in other gear. Emotes/Checkpoint banners/Truck customization exists in a style that seems like its designed for Desinty-esque engrams, but actually all just comes form "Accolades", which is basically an ingame achievement system full of stuff like "Kill X number of neemies with htis ability" etc)
Bugs:
Definitely here and there. A common cosmetic one seems to be your model disappearing (whcih can be resolved by requipping your gear, but can be annoying if happens mid combat). HUD vanishing has also come up on me a few times which is much worse because you can't see your health or skill cooldowns. The most egregious (on PS4) for me is that you can't Return to Lobby to switch characters or the app crashes entirely.
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