Slime Rancher 2 Review (Nae)
Big caveat to everything I'm about to say: this game is still very much in early access, so this review may not hold true as the months go on.
BOTTOM LINE: If you liked the first game and want more of that experience, Slime Rancher 2 was made for you. If you wanted more than that, it's not really here yet, if it's coming at all.
SR2 at present feels, to me, less like a sequel and more like an expansion. There's a new map to explore, a new ranch to build up, and a few new slimes to befriend. Otherwise, things are mostly as they were.
And that may mean this game is absolutely perfect for you! Everything that was done well in the previous game exists as it was, if not slightly better.
Personally, I loved Slime Rancher 1. It fits a niche very similar to your Stardew Valleys and your Animal Crossings where the focus is more on taking things at your own pace and getting lost in the performance of specific activities than it is on completing a story or fulfilling a specific goal. In the same way that the point of curling up under a tree with a good book is the actual experience, itself, Slime Rancher, as a franchise, feels more concerned with deriving enjoyment from the experiences of world exploration and slime collection than, say, overcoming obstacles or defeating a villain. This is true to such an extent that you can even turn hostile encounters off entirely, leaving the possibilities of falling off a cliff or into a vat of lava the only threats to you and your slime friends.
All of that said, my main critique of Slime Rancher 1 was that it feels a little superficial. Whereas Animal Crossing has a plethora of game mechanics and fun little activities for you to focus on, Slime Rancher really only has a few individual elements to its core loop: find slimes, bring them home, feed them in order to entice them to produce plorts, sell the plorts, and reinvest the earnings into the ranch or your equipment so you can start the loop over but with a little more efficiency this time.
This isn't a bad way to spend your time, but the experience is finite. Once you've explored everywhere and collected each type of slime, there's not much left to do but decorate, I suppose. And therein lies the biggest difference between this game and one like Animal Crossing. Animal Crossing doesn't end, really. You can pay off your mortgage and collect all of the golden tools and fill out your museum, but at the end of the day, there's always something else you can do to occupy yourself.
What I was personally hoping for in Slime Rancher 2 was an added layer of depth to give me a reason to rack up the same hundreds of hours that I've spent catching coelacanths in Animal Crossing or breeding perfect IV ponytas in Pokemon. I wanted more reasons to stay on Rainbow Island. But, at present, I've spent about 30 hours on the first game and 16 hours on this one (remember: it's still early access, so I can't fault it too much), and I've run out of things to do, so I've moved on to other games while I wait for updates.
At the end of the day, this is a pretty good problem to have. Monomi Park has created a world that is both inviting and engaging, and if anything, I'm really just saying that I'm sad I don't have more. Both games were well worth the money I spent, and I'm still excited to see what the future holds for the franchise.