I am torn between pure awe and being impressed at this game, and hating it with seething fury the next. There is a masterpiece inside Starfield, and when this game is hitting on all cylinders, it is the best of all Bethesda games, its better than Skyrim and Fallout 3, and yes it's Better than Morrowind (and its definitely better than Oblivion and Fallout 4 lol). When this game is firing on all cylinders it has the best story of all Bethesda games, the best characters, the best cities, their best quests, best factions, best lore and backstory, and just these amazing, magnificent, eye meltingly gorgeous vistas in outer space that you can see with your naked eye that you would never be able to see in your life otherwise. When you are in the handcrafted areas in the world, that sense of wonder and discovery in the most organic way possible, along with amazing atmosphere and a real sense of existing in the world.
But holy fuck is so much of the moment to moment stuff bad. The menus and UI are straight bullshit. Like, I have nothing nice to say about them, they barely function, they look bad, they add as many unnecessary steps to every action as possible, while somehow also giving you as little information as they can. The ship customization controls are just baffling - I was playing this with controller for the first few hours and I just could not understand how the controls could possibly be this bad. Like, my mind couldn't comprehend it. Switching to kb/m made them better, at least. The loading screens! So many loading screens! I will at least admit that the world we get is amazing and impressive, but the loading screens sometimes actively harm it. They get in the way of the immersion. I have a good SSD so at least the loading times aren't too bad, I just wish there weren't so many of them. And I just hate how bad discovery on most planets is. They're just barren rock. There's nothing interesting, you just pull on scan mode and follow the marker. It does pay off sometimes with some gorgeous sights of planets hanging in the sky or an eclipse or something, but that's very rare, most of the times it's just a waste of time. At this point I'm straight up ignoring most of the "non quest" planets. In the actual hand designed areas, the exploration is amazing, but so much of the game is not those.
I dont know. I think in a few years, when a lot of the jank has been modded out, this will be recognized as Bethesda's best. In fact if you can put up with the bullshit, it already is. No matter how mad it makes me, the minute I get free I want to play Starfield because it is literally the best at doing what Bethesda is good at. It's just also... very bad at all the things Bethesda is bad at, lol.
But holy fuck is so much of the moment to moment stuff bad. The menus and UI are straight bullshit. Like, I have nothing nice to say about them, they barely function, they look bad, they add as many unnecessary steps to every action as possible, while somehow also giving you as little information as they can. The ship customization controls are just baffling - I was playing this with controller for the first few hours and I just could not understand how the controls could possibly be this bad. Like, my mind couldn't comprehend it. Switching to kb/m made them better, at least. The loading screens! So many loading screens! I will at least admit that the world we get is amazing and impressive, but the loading screens sometimes actively harm it. They get in the way of the immersion. I have a good SSD so at least the loading times aren't too bad, I just wish there weren't so many of them. And I just hate how bad discovery on most planets is. They're just barren rock. There's nothing interesting, you just pull on scan mode and follow the marker. It does pay off sometimes with some gorgeous sights of planets hanging in the sky or an eclipse or something, but that's very rare, most of the times it's just a waste of time. At this point I'm straight up ignoring most of the "non quest" planets. In the actual hand designed areas, the exploration is amazing, but so much of the game is not those.
I dont know. I think in a few years, when a lot of the jank has been modded out, this will be recognized as Bethesda's best. In fact if you can put up with the bullshit, it already is. No matter how mad it makes me, the minute I get free I want to play Starfield because it is literally the best at doing what Bethesda is good at. It's just also... very bad at all the things Bethesda is bad at, lol.