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What I liked:


The humor
Exploration based gameplay
Lite combat


What I didn’t like:


Co-op feels like an afterthought
Grappling
Ending and bosses


My Score:

C

Quick Summary

Bite Sized No Man’s Sky is all about exploring a planet with a heavier focus on combat than it should, it does allow a friend to tag along, just don’t expect it to be a great experience with said co-op as it doesn’t have any mechanics that reinforce collaboration. Also without the humor I and many others would not recommend the game.

My Personal Curator List


More in depth:


THE HUMOR IN THIS GAME I THINK IS THE BEST PART, if you’re into jokes like ads that parody stuff about life, an dark ones like killing babies and the description when scanning enemies, and even in some gameplay ones like getting animals to fart to give resources. It hits a very sweet spot of being dark, stupid and witty without being cringe which it could of easily done like so many before. I really did love the ads alone, every one of the them made me just stop and watch.
The COMBAT gives you one pistol that you do upgrade with meaningful damage and reload ones with a charged shot that felt un-needed and cumbersome with how to activate it. With the final tier requiring to hit the reload button while full ammo twice to let only one shot bounce, so much work for nothing. But other than that one issue, YOU DO BASICALLY ONESHOT MOST CREATURES BUT A GOOD CHUNK REQUIRE A UNIQUE WAY TO SOLVE IT, dodge to the side and shoot it’s back tail, sneak behind and poke it’s eye out, or is it a boss, that I thank them for not being a chore to fight. Having bosses last under 2 minutes is perfection if it’s not going to be a souls-like game in my opinion.
Most of the gameplay involves exploring the planet using plant life and upgrades in the standard metroidvania way to reach new locations to progress the story. YOU GET LOTS OF SECRETS WHICH THEY TELL YOU THERE IS ONE AROUND WITHOUT TELLING WHERE, which is a nice compromise to keep the pace from coming to a crawl while searching every nook and cranny blindly. You get either resources to unlock these gear upgrades or a health and stamina unlock which require more to increase with each rank up. The jumping especially with the jetpack booster feels and looks nice with that black smoke trailing behind and just traveling the planet is fun and highlights non-combat can be fun.
THE GRAPPLE FEELS WEIRD as it’s mostly just a point and grapple to that point, with rare swinging sections. It just feels either laggy or not knowing if the prompt will show up or not. It’s hard to explain but it feels like almost like a quick time event in feel and not an organic extension other games do better. But I did just come from It Takes Two and that felt way better than this.
The BOSSES were a huge letdown, luckily they don’t last long. They are either just shoot the weakpoint while they do nothing and you barely need to move to not get hit. I don’t think they should have had these as they are a huge sore on the games polish and speaking of polish. The end of the game is by far the WORST ENDING I’VE SEEN. YOU FIGHT THE FINAL BOSS THAT IS LACKLUSTER AND THEN IT JUST CUTS and ends right there end credits, it was such a shocker and felt out of place we both laughed it. You can continue afterwards and return to the ship to get another cutscene ad thing that is all story without any jokes and man the story is boring AND WITHOUT AN HUMOR REALLY SHOWS THE MEDICORE EFFORT AND CHARM THE STORY HAS.
For those looking for a CO-OP experience, this is a basic as you can get, it’s what I call a tag-along experience, nothing wrong with that, but for an exploration game, you can miss out on content if you guys aren’t literally doing the same thing. You can goof off and laugh at the jokes and engage in one cool fight where one aggros an enemy and the other shots it’s back, but the rest is JUST BASICALLY PLAYING SOLO BUT WITH A FRIEND, and I expect more when a game has co-op. And also ended terribly because the final boss had a poison pit that I spawned in and you don’t respawn and miss the ending because the game is way too easy. I just wish the co-op system had more like the ones I mention below, but I feel it’s on par with people that also like No Man’s Sky

PAID: $15
COMPLETED IN: 6 hours
https://youtu.be/DGPE6LYQlRE

Games Similar I recommend:


It Takes Two
Outer Wilds
Supraland
Deep Rock Galactic
Overcooked 2
Slime Rancher
Journey (Played on Playstation 4)


Games looking to try next:

Book of Travels
Trash
Biped
Snowrunner