Rather poor, lazy and generic survival elements covered up by shallow and boring exploration. The game certainly is pretty when you're ignoring the various graphical bugs. But aside from gorgeous music and selectively gorgeous visuals, the game doesn't have much to offer.



Your super limited inventory space (even after upgrades) makes exploration a chore that you simply can't partake in Rather poor, lazy and generic survival elements covered up by shallow and boring exploration. The game certainly is pretty when you're ignoring the various graphical bugs. But aside from gorgeous music and selectively gorgeous visuals, the game doesn't have much to offer.



Your super limited inventory space (even after upgrades) makes exploration a chore that you simply can't partake in as you'll have almost no inventory space to spare when you factor in upgrades and resources for just maintaining your redundant hazard and life support meters. Your best hope while exploring is finding some super boring wildlife that simply runs away when you get near it, or looking at plants that look like slightly different than real world counterparts (trees, cacti etc.). Its also not very fun discovering planets, wildlife or plants when you have no one to show off too or share your 500th meaningless discovery with. Discovering things doesn't feel fun, isn't rewarding or worthwhile, so why bother exploring?



What about survival elements? Well you have a health bar that refuses to empty (read: its impossible to die this game is so easy) and lazy, generic "Life support & Hazard suit" gauges that depletes based on planetary conditions. The way to refill the gauges is simply using the super common resources found all around you. So survival is a non-issue at all times, and death doesn't set you back at all. Where's the tension and fear of the unknown when you essentially know nothing will harm you, and even if something does harm you odds are it won't do much of anything? It all seems very tacked on, as if Hello Games realized that the bland exploration caused by proceduraly generated planets would be boring if they didn't tack on various gameplay elements. Problem is, those elements don't enhance the game, its just frustrating.



Further adding to the list of faults is the combat. With poor aiming mechanics and lackluster enemy variety and design, there is no depth. On foot combat offer very little in the way of challenge or fun, and ship combat doesn't really change much at all. Fighting enemy starships is a tedious "blown one up blown em all up" affair, and outside of pirates occasionally trying to blow you out of the sky,you'll probably forget your ship even has guns attached to it.



The trade and economy system are lackluster. Galaxies have different values for items, but with such limited space and no way of knowing what the next galaxy's trade rates are, keeping your selling items (indicating by green boxes) in-between trips is sort of impossible when you're always bleeding for inventory room. Trading with NPCs is sort of pointless as well, seeing as how they all behave the same way and you always get the feeling like you're paying or losing out on trades to get next to no benefit. Whenever you walk up to any trade ships you encounter, the flavor text for what the interaction is like may change, but your options are still “Trade for ship or stop talking to this person”. When you finally go into the trade screen, you may think to yourself that you're going to get to bargain, or offer your valuables in exchange for the trader's valuables that can be used to craft upgrades or something. But no, its a black and white “Buy at this one set price or don't bother talking to me”. The whole trading, buying and selling system has about as much depth and is about as interesting as NES RPGs like the original Final Fantasy.



The sense of discovery is lost here. What you discover isn't interesting and never feels worth discovering. Alien life is boring and dull, and you can't share your discoveries with them or any of the other players. What good is it that I discovered this galaxy when all of maybe 10 NPCs inhabit it, and no other human player will likely ever get to witness it or use my discoveries to aid in their survival there? Exploration proves fruitless, as the randomized planets lack the setpieces and gorgeous handcrafted vistas that such brilliant exploration games like Abzu, Shadow of Colossus, Flower or Journey have provided in the past or present. Combat is dull, survival feels like I'm babysitting some constantly depleting bars rather than using my wits to outsmart the universe, and the economy system is about as generic and uninteresting as any other game's despite its shallow attempts at depth or intrigue.



In short, if all you want from a game is pretty scenery and can handle the worst pop-up you've ever seen in a game as well as lifeless planets with no personality, than by all means pick this up, you can take some wonderful screenshots for your desktop. But if you're looking for absolutely any substance in your exploration or interactions with the universe, or hope to discover some truly breathtaking moments on par with the aforementioned exploration games, I recommend looking to the upcoming Abzu, or the August PS+ game Rebel Galaxy for your exploration or space trader/pirate needs. … Expand