Starbound Review (shrimp did not fry this rice.)
Space has no bounds, and neither is your world.
"That's it??"
I personally disliked the game's complexity when I first downloaded and launched the game.
But as I play through the campaign, pushing back hoards of mobs and enemies, grinding hours acquiring minerals and ores, upgrading my locomotive spaceship(Yes, my 1st character was Novakid, space yeehaw gang wya), fighting my way through The Ruin and eventually defeating it, I felt something.
It wasn't happiness or pleasure. Nor was it accomplishment or sadness.
I was... appalled. The whole campaign gave me "Thank you for playing" style outro after less than 30 hours of main story gameplay.
"Well, here we go again, I guess."
I joined in Starbound quite late, and was lucky to find out there were more than just exploring and mining things.
The Bounty Hunter content was pretty neat, and the final boss fight experience was something I would've never expected to be in this game ever.
After the final boss fight, the overall gameplay is just about the same with the original Starbound endgame content(if you can call it that haha). Searching for clues that may lead to the apprehended, fighting off the sidemen, capturing the boss and send them to space jail, repeat.
But something was still missing.
"What else can I do?"
I was very young when I first got this game. You could say I was a juvenile who didn't know any better.
After I was done with the campaign, I found out there were nothing else to do unless you get mods for extra contents.
Apparently the developers of Chucklefish had a scandal that eventually lead to the end of future for Starbound.
I instantly turned the game off and decided to uninstall it. But as soon as my mouse cursor hovered over the button, I froze.
I thought to myself, 'let's give it one more chance.'
I logged into my Novakid world and digged out like 100 blocks under my wooden mansion.
Then I put countless mannequins in there and started dressing them up with leftover clothes sets I had.
I found out you could do archeological activities, digging out bones from fossils and jigsaw-puzzling them into a whole decorative block. I also found out that there are different weapon archetypes that may fuel my interest for collecting rare items. There were so many things to do beside just mining.
Tenant housing, farming, trading, electrical wiring, catching wild mobs in a p*keball(hi Nintendo), etc.
"I can, and I will do it."
Some of you might not relate to this, but I have not played Terraria. MInecraft? Never gotten a chance to kill an Ender Dragon in my single-player world. My PC is too crappy for any Souls game., so there's that.
But Starbound has a special place in my heart. How I felt looking at a working contraption I made after staying awake till 4 am on a summer vacation Tuesday when I was in high school could never be replaced.
Some of you might say, "Oh, they are nostalgia-maxxing."
Yes I am. Starbound is an old game. And everyone who played this game for at least a hundred hours have been playing for the past 4 years. I know that.
But at the same time, Starbound was a game that let me feel that 'Gen Z kid experiencing Notch-era-Minecraft for the first time' again. It wasn't just nostalgia. It reminded me of who I was and what I can be again.
When I was a kid, I used to think about what I should become in future. What I could do to bring people happiness and joy.
That kid was lost for a very long time. And Starbound was the first game to help that kid to guide his way back to me.
The kid hasn't arrived yet, but I'm sure we'll meet each other soon enough.
"That was it. What's next?"
Sometimes we get lost in our own mind and world. Not everyone's North Star would be Starbound and neither I think it should be, but each of every one of you has enough luck in your life to find the North Star of your own.
Starbound was my first ever North Star, I wonder what yours would be?
But many people are struggling to find how to achieve true success, going "This is not my way".
Hey, As the saying goes;
To see the world, things dangerous to come to, to see behind walls, draw closer, to find each other, and to feel. That is the purpose of life.
Not everything in life have to have meanings. When I boot the game, I often just travel to a random system and see what planets they have. Sitting on a bench I just pulled out of my backpack, enjoying the tunes.
Sit down, catch breath, get a cup of tea and look around you for a second.
Learning to appreciate small things in life is the very first step to become a happy person.
I wish your Stars in your heart has no Bounds of where they can be.
-Xevet