izigame.me

Here's the thing: It's a fine game, it runs smoothly. It's pretty much a by-the-numbers RPG with a combination retro-futuristic corporate dystopia tone, like, "What if Fallout except the nukes never happened and everything looks kind of old-tymey?" Do you like long conversations to break up your headshootin'? Do you want a game with the trappings of an open world, but really more of a linear RPG? THIS IS FOR YOU. Seriously, it's great, you probably should get it.
It is, however, not for me.
I just... somehow failed to feel engaged by it. I kind of know why, and I'll dig into that later on. It does most everything right and it should have been something I played through in one monster siting. Yet, I did not. I am human, I am not a machine (my Aztec robot jaguar avatar notwithstanding), and sometimes illogical behaviour is part of who I am.
I realy do think it's a fine game, and if you want an RPG with a lot of conversations and writing and some attempt at carrying a message, here you go. In fact, I saw shrill screaming in the game's forums about communist this and anti-corporate that, which means it's doing something right. As a rule, the more weird shrill screaming there is in Steam forums about the plot, the more excellent the game is (Diablo IV being a notable exception to this rule, but I don't want to get carried away by tangents).
You'll go about, shooting people and monsters in the face, happening into towns and getting into long conversations with people who want you to go out, shoot certain people or monsters in the face, or maybe find some space-mcguffin on the ground to bring back like a good fetchin' dog. The usual!
Well, except combats are more reflex driven than the usual RPG fare. Kind of like the original Mass Effect, where stats certain affected your gunslingin', but you still had to click the mouse on the bad guy's face to make the numbers fly out. The combats have enough meat on them that if you want a bit of FPS action, this can satisfy.
There's some speech abilities and other things so you don't have to rely strictly on brawn to get through, and you can have a couple of companions who will round out your party, helping you shoot the faces, pick the locks and swipe the loot, if you feel the need for it.
When I first got it, I played about nine hours worth. I recall bumbling about the first town, getting a bit exasperated, but finished the whole thing off. The next zone was aboard a giant spaceship with tonnes of poeple to talk through, and at some point I just got tired of all the talking and quit playing.
Just a few days ago, I went back to it. I got to the first town, took pause and realized there'd be a lot of talking. And, somehow, I didn't want to go through all the talking. I don't know why. I just didn't. So I stopped and now I'm here, writing.
So I can really only speak to the first planet. There's this whole "corporate dystopia driven to the logical extreme," where people in a town may only eat their horrid, bad-for-you fish product, diluted with other nasty products, which makes everybody sick. Nobody knows about nutrition except for the colony of space hippies who have this all figured out, but are perfectly willing to let the town die out because the leader is a hyper-idealistic wiccaboo sort.
The mayor of the town is responsible for doing horrible things. However, he's genuinely doing the best he can with the shitty hand he's been played, in the end, and can be reasoned with. The leader of the granola bandits, who is nominally trying to do good, refuses to and is hidebound by her own regulations. So you know, the ostensible good guys are assholes, the ostensible badguys aren't always bad.
I'm not opposed to that sort of messaging. But, reader (assuming you got this far) I listened to a lot of hardcore punk when I was a lot younger. I've done a lot of this thinking ages ago. After awhile, I realized that while I liked the music, I was getting really tired of having the same four things preached to me. I get it. I'm with you. You have reached me. Now stop preaching, let's go smash the system!*
So I didn't need my face rubbed in strong-idealism-can-be-bad, though the game had a lot more nuance to this topic than virtually anything else I've played before or since. Faces absolutely DO need rubbing in it, we need to encourage people to think critically and with nuance. But my face, I can assure you, is very well-rubbed.
And I guess I'd had enough of it.
Well, okay, there was one more thing: I was expecting this to be a truly open world game, because this company has done this sort of thing before. I wanted to go out there, roam the world, see the sights, occasionally shoot bandits, and definitely take everybody's stuff. This has the trappings of an open world game, but it isn't. There's a few forks, but a pretty linear experience. And that's fine too, it makes levelling (etc.) much more curated and a more uniform experience.
So in the end, well, it's an RPG, and if it has an agenda, it's at least there to challenge some of your preconceived notions and polish your think-nut a little. A+. But my think-nut is good and shiny already.

* I never did smash the system, by the way. The system is very resilient to smashing when people are comfortable. But this, my friend, is a conversation for elsewhere.