Slime Rancher 2 Review (Jhinx)
TD; DR: It's an upgraded Slime Rancher, and it lacks novelty.
I was really hyped for Slime rancher 2, when it got announced, I was jumping around like a little girl. After 60+ hours on the first one, I really was happy another one is coming out! The game is just like the first, it's a calm, cute farming game where you're surrounded by little squeeking creatures who are all as adorable as the other. It does its purpose: it's a relaxing game, and I enjoyed playing it.
Yet, I can't help but to be a bit more critical, because I'm still really disappointed about it.
Good points:
- The slimes are adorable, their sounds are really cute and they're bouncy.
- They've REALLY upgraded the tech farming system for the better. No more waiting for 20-25 minutes doing something else for my drilling machine to give me something I don't even need!
- The surroundings are astonishing, their colour are really vibrant and it's really soothing.
- Unlike in the first game, you can do anything you want, and go to any area you want without locking yourself out of another like with the key system.
- Finding chicken is way easier !
Bad points:
- Out of 15 slimes, only 5 are new and out of 20 Food (counting the baby chicks), only 5 are new, and one isn't even farmable and is the primary food of one of the new slimes, which means I'm forced to combine it with another slime to have it on my farm. This is very frustrating. The lack of novelty in slimes is my biggest disappointment,
- Some of the largos combinations are... really lacking something .
- A LOT of reused assets.
- Some colors and effects are TOO bright.
- There is a real Tarr problem (a Tarr is an amalgamation of too much slimes). In an Area, you can have up to a spawn of 5 natural slime tied to the area. This brings up to having Tarrs everywhere, and you don't have the water tank very fast, so you're stuck with them for a while. When I've got the water tank, I've found myself shooting at Tarrs more than actually soaking slimes in my Vac or exploring around.
- While running, you can slide to your death and lose a lot of what you were saving up. ( The Tank Guard upgrade is a life-saver just for that fact alone)
Bugs
- When you play the game for too long, your Vac just stop sucking things in for some reason.
Now I know it's an early access, but I can't help being really disappointed, just for the lack of new slimes. I really hope new updates will put more novelty into the game. For someone who played so much of the first game, I felt like I wasn't playing a new game, but a DLC.