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Still writing up my attempt at a Starfield review, it's not going to be professional, but I wanted to get this rant out of it, Lol.
I feel like a lot of people had a lot of preconceived notions coming into Starfield and expectations were wildly out there. People were dreaming up this impossible game, it had to be Elite Dangerous + Baldur's Gate 3 + Skyrim + Fallout + Dishonoured (Lul IGN) + Star Citizen and do everything these games do but better and if one system wasn't as good or better than it's a massive disappointment. This is starting to feel like a bit of a trend on how people criticise games, if it doesn't do everything these other games do at the same time and even better then it sucks. Halo is in a similar situation but it wasn't taken down by reviewers for it but there are a lot of people who, despite Halo offering so many things, way more than any other FPS in the market, if it misses one thing for launch then the reaction is an insane amount of hate, despite the fact that other games don't offer anywhere near as big of a suite as Halo does but Halo will be called unfinished. This is like Starfield but not matching all the systems about 5 other games have, Lol.
To use another example, I saw a few Lies of P complaints which complained that it didn't change the Dark Souls formula up enough, I found that a bit funny considering From Software titles are all very similar but that isn't a bad thing, it's what people like. But then thinking back on things, I don't remember seeing anywhere near the level of comparison and criticism for Skyrim in saying that compared to Mass Effect it's barely an RPG, or for Fallout about its awful gunplay and how practically every shooter on the market did gunplay better, Lol.
I also feel like a lot of complaints have people specifically pursuing activities that they know they'd find boring, like forcing themselves to explore random POIs as if they're made to and there isn't dozens of other activities to pursue. It's a sandbox like previous Bethesda titles, so treat it as such, don't focus only on activities that you aren't enjoying and instead find your own fun, it like other Bethesda titles just tells you to go out there and do whatever, there's no hand holding or force path. The game has exploration still but I think it's done differently from previous Bethesda titles and that is also jarring to some, I feel Starfield is more about the quests and not just aimlessly wondering around on dead planets, sure you could do that and maybe run into fun encounters but explore the cities, listen to the people, pick up quests from them, join a faction(s). Don't just spend your whole time doing procedurally generated random content, Lol. I think Starfield's quests are the thing which encourages exploration.
The game does have flaws for sure but I feel like a streamer said it best, I can't remember which one it was, that if you specifically seek out activities you know you won't enjoy then you won't have a good time and I feel like some people are doing exactly that and forgetting what a Bethesda sandbox is all about and it doesn't help when you stack up 5 completely different games with completely different design goals and say Starfield has to not only meet all of those things those games do but also exceed every single one.
Starfield Imo should be compared to previous Bethesda titles, not 10 other titles individually that have completely different design goals. When compared to previous Bethesda titles it's a massive step up in multiple ways and even if you want to compare it to some modern day RPGs, it does some things better, and some things worse.
I feel like some of the reviews lowered Starfield on the basis of what they hoped the game would be rather than what it actually is, despite it never being advertised as such that it would replace all of these games. It was always at its core advertised as a Bethesda RPG in Space. I don't believe games should be criticised for what you "wish" it had but what it actually is. If say Mass Effect released today but with a star map to travel system to system still instead of seamless flying, would it be criticised for that? I honestly don't have a clue why anyone would find it fun to fly in a single straight line for hours on end to go from one planet to another, and no you can't just say "make it faster" because it's literally the games lore, if you want immersion then they can't just break it whenever you want, Lol.
Too much dunking on the game for what it isn't whilst ignoring what it is. It shouldn't be criticized for the imagination in your head. Ignoring all the good things that it does that others aren't. The whole point of a Bethesda sandbox is the choice of finding a bunch of different things to do and finding your own fun, even if some of it you dislike, there's a freedom to Bethesda titles. As much as people complain, there are still few titles that do things on the same scale as a Bethesda title so they're still unique in themselves and I see little reason to compare them to everything else, in multiple different genres, rather than comparing them to games in their style, which are, Bethesda RPGs.
Zero-sum mentality that a lot of gamers have today. Every game has to now be compared with each other to see where they outcompete other games and where they fail, even if they aren't even in the same genre, have the same design goals, etc. Starfield is a great game with flaws, it's not a Rockstar-level GOTG but it never needed to be, there was a lot of ridiculous pressure put onto Starfield before releases (like if Starfield isn't a 9/10 at minimum then Xbox is dead) and unfair to the team. Starfield, Cyberpunk, BG3, etc. Can all be successful in their own right and excel at different things yet there is a constant comparison between Starfield and in particular, BG3, it's tedious.
Wanted to get this out of my review so I could focus solely on the game, rather than ranting about some people's criticisms, I'm just tired of the constant comparison of every single aspect in a video game and constantly looking for reasons why one game does something worse than another, if I treated all my games like that then I don't think I'd enjoy any game, every game does something better and something worse than another game.
Last edited by Ryuu96 - on 30 September 2023
