izigame.me

I really want to love this game. I tried so hard. But there are just so many aspects of it that don't work. And that's ignoring the massive memory leak known as "The Pixel Printer".
The game lacks a proper feeling of progression. Aside a handful of unique weapons, the vast majority are randomly rolled. I've honestly grown sick of this style of loot since it is never done well. It doesn't feel rewarding when you get a new weapon and it's basically identical to what you had before, if not outright worse.
You would think that you can rely on crafting to pick up the slack, but without mods you can't even craft certain weapons unless you're a specific race.
I would say that in a game about exploration, you wouldn't have to worry all that much about progression. Unfortunately, Starbound isn't really a game about exploration. It pretends to be, but the game actually revolves around progression. You can't get to certain planets until you progress, and you're nudged toward completing the story. It isn't really much of a sandbox until you're already at the end game and can finally do whatever you want.
Unfortunately, the journey to reaching the end game and unlocking the ability to do whatever you want isn't enjoyable whatsoever. While there are a lot of mods that try to address these issues, there is just so much you can do with a poor foundation.
Starbound suffered from mismanagement, scandals, scope creep, and ultimately abandonment. It is one of the few purchases I regret, and I got it years ago during a sale.