1d ago

Will I like No Man's Sky? It's on sale right now and considering it and one other game.

Is No Man's Sky a good game after all the updates and fixing and adding all the stuff they promised?

I love space stuff but am not the biggest fan of Minecraft style crafting/mining. I don't mind it in Stardew and factory games are a favorite genre of mine, for reference. Basically I like the mechanics but it matters how they are implemented.

I've been trying to find a game that I can just turn my brain off and chill after a long day and right now Stardew is starting to get a bit stale(or I'm just dreading winter since there isn't much to do).

The game looks beautiful and I did spend maybe 100 hours on Starbound, which is like 2D NMS I think, but even on sale, it's at the upper limit I'd like to spend.

The other game is Hyperlight Drifter and it's $6 right now so I'm probably gonna get that one regardless.

Edit: I went ahead and grabbed it. I think my kid will also enjoy watching me play it.

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I managed to get 70 Plus hours in the game and I didn't do a single mission well I did a little bit of the tutorial but I mainly just want planet to planet to explore then I finally got bored.
There's plenty to do in the game now so if you like exploring you'll probably like the game just remember it's an exploration game first.
- 70 hours and not playing the storyline is actually not bad! And yeah I'm digging the exploration so far for sure.

My very particular dislike of the game is that it lacks variety of planets. But I think the final update of the game is supposed to add more then just "variations of the same terrestrial garden planet". Like volcanic dead worlds, gas giants, etc.
Otherwise it's a perfectly relaxing chill grind game.
- As a DSP player I'm used to "just enough variety" and after 5 hours and 4-5 planets in so far the variety is ok. I just found a nice planet with floating islands and water and set up a base but got hit with a heat storm halfway through halfway through building it lol. But yeah it's been chill so far.

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- I went ahead and bought it. But this might be useful for others.

NMS is probably my most played game of all time. It has changed so much since release and the devs seem to genuinely like working on the game (every update has been free). The modding scene is pretty good too and you can freely edit your local save file as well.
Another commenter pointed out it's basically just a sandbox, but there are a few long quest lines and they have temporary events with a checklist of goals for rewards and such. It's still basically just a sandbox with some extra steps, though. They've also diversified the planets and creatures a lot over the years.
Anyway, I'd say it's a game for anyone who likes survival/sandbox/crafting/building. The difficulty options are great as well, you can make it an incredibly difficult game if you want, but you can also make it as easy as you want.
- I was hoping on an easier side regarding difficulty so having options is a plus. I'm not that big on survival but I think if it can be easier and immersive that's another plus.
  
  Oh yeah you can basically do everything from god mode to impossible without a group of people. I haven't played in a while, but it probably still works...if you melee while sprinting and immediately use your boost it'll propel you forward a lot faster than just running. It's the best way to get around before you get vehicles

NMS is still a buggy jankfest that took years to get a sort inventory button and yet its still one of my favourites. Being able to fly from planet to planet scratches an itch no other game really does
- I ended up grabbing it and started checking it out. I just got to the point where I got my ship fixed and went to a nearby planet. The seamless transition was something that always intrigued me about the game. Dyson Sphere Program does that too but it's a different type of game. NMS planet scale is also way larger from what I can tell.

The resource mining is faster than Minecraft I think. And once you get going with credits you can just buy a lot of stuff.
I like the game but it's not terribly deep or directed. Like a sandbox, you have to bring some of your own initiative into it.
You can build a big base. The part placing stuff is very good (much better than fallout4). But you don't really need to. It's fun if you enjoy it.
Same with running a freighter. You can customize the layout as you want. But there's not much of an extrinsic reward. Doing it is its own fun, if you like it.
You can fly around and scout new planets, but most of them don't change much. Different visuals, but basically the same. If you enjoy that, and scanning all the creatures and minerals and plants, it's fun.
You can fight sentinels, and that's probably the most traditional game like part. Third person shooter, maybe ten different enemy types, they drop upgrade components. That's a very standard game loop, but it's also only like a couple hours of content.
You can collect different space ships, but even the most basic C-grade can do all the content. It's fun if you want to have a cool ship, but that's it.
You can pretty quickly amass millions of credits and nanites, but there's not that much to do with them.
Do you see the trend? It's all fun if you get intrinsic joy, but it's not like, say, dark souls where there's a big challenge to overcome.
- So basically a pure sandbox then? That's sort of what I was gathering when reading up on it.
  
  There some "main quest" stuff too, but you can mostly ignore it.
  I have 200 hours in the game. I just started a new save this week where I'm trying to stay on topic. It's been pretty okay so far!
  Oh I forgot: there are also Expeditions. Those are much more guided modes of play, but time limited.

I keep wanting to get back into it. I would say yes it's really good now.
- I might grab it and put Hyperlight Drifter on hold even though it's super cheap right now. Is it combat heavy or is that not really the point?
  
  not the person you asked but ive played a lot of nms so i figured id chime in.
  it's not combat heavy unless you want it to be. Just dont mine resources in front of or shoot at the space cops and theyll leave you alone (and avoid planets that are labeled "aggressive sentinels", theyll shoot you on sight on those planets. Also dont pick up gravitino balls.)
  The only time combat is required on foot is if you follow the main storyline (and tbh its mostly just to get you used to how combat works) or if you do an expedition that requires combat. And even for those scenarios, you can usually get around it by just getting the required materials elsewhere.
  as far as space combat goes, you have to do a little bit of combat to get a free freighter, but space combat is way easier than on foot imo, since you can use an auto aim feature. Pirates will occasionally chase you, but you can literally just run away from them and warp to another system, or land in a space station to get them to back off.
  I dislike combat in nms, not because its bad or anything (it's actually really fun once you get a decently upgraded multitool/ship) i just prefer to be sneaky rather than go in guns blazing for roleplay reasons, so i try to avoid it as much as possible.

If you're looking for a game to just relax and chill it's pretty alright at that.
I got bored after sinking a fair bit of time because once you get over the initial hump of just trying to survive (which doesn't last very long, compared to other Minecraft style survival games) the game kinda becomes a "thing accumulation simulator". Nowadays I usually just fire up the game after a couple of updates to see all the new stuff and then put the game away.
It's very wide with a lot of things to do, but each thing isn't particularly deep or rewarding e.g. keeping pets or running a trading fleet.
Imo the best way to play is to just go on a nice long search for a nice planet and then build a nice base on it to fulfill the power fantasy of owning a house, and that should probably occupy a good number of hours, but past that idk if the game will hold your attention because NMS lacks stardew's life-sim gameplay.
- e.g. keeping pets or running a trading fleet.
  Can you expand on the trading? That's what sucks me into games like the X series. If I can sink a ton of time into setting up mining and trading logistic, then sandbox/explore occasionally, that might just sell me lol.
  
  You can run trade routes for money, although what that amounts to is finding a route through a bunch of systems and then running through them buying low and selling high at each stop. The trade system is pretty barebones tho, nothing as deep as old Privateer or X games- economies are static and your actions don't really affect the local markets.
  Later on in the game you can get a capital ship and hire fleets of freighters to send out on expeditions, but mechanically it's just a passive way to farm resources rather than a management sim mini-game.
  
  Oh then this is a game for you lol. They added a whole factory building mechanic where you can build mining stations and automate some things, power grids, the trading is fairly simple but it has a nice supply and demand mechanic and the whole fleet mechanic is super cool, though I wish more than one person could have their fleet in the same system, though maybe that has changed.

It is fun, and a well built game now. But, it’s also boring af. I jump in every once in a while, and it just takes so long for everything. I’ve never made it past like… four systems away from my starting one. Idk though, some people have like hundreds of hours, so you might be one of those.

I love space stuff but am not the biggest fan of Minecraft style crafting/mining. I don't mind it in Stardew and factory games are a favorite genre of mine, for reference.
Have you played Cosmoteer? It's a bit like Dwarf Fortress/Dungeon Keeper, but you're building space ships, not digging tunnels. The mining part is simple and easy, you just click on wreckage to have your crew automatically mine and salvage asteroids or ships. You eventually will need factory ships for processing materials and crelating supply chains.
The main focus is on combat. It's an open sandbox (story missions are in the pipeline, there's just a lot of features the dev wants to implement first). You mostly go from system to system, fighting pirates and whatnot. Multi-player is great and there's an active competitive scene if that's your thing.
I haven't played it in a few months. Got bummed when I lost my flagship in an attack on a pirate space station. Still have four capital ships and all my civilian ships to make up my fleet, it just isn't the same though without my first baby. Might have to start a new campaign whenever there's a new update.

Yeah, completely overhauled game from the original release, actually pretty fun to play. It's still a procedurally generated playground, not a handcrafted gaming experience, but it is fun.
I haven't played in years, but I put in 50 hours back then and when I switched to whatever other game all I thought was "this will be a fun one to regularly come back to and just burn some time in". But, I haven't done that.
- I've been interested in the procgen part since I first heard about the game, tbh. I'm a mid-school era roguelike player(angband, broque, nethack) and though I never spent a whole lot of time in those games, the procedural generation stuff always interested me. Seeing that on a game with this kind of scale seems really neat.

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