Check out Evan’s Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@evprince
First Impressions Matter.
Bethesda’s massive success in this millennium can be attributed to a larger, more casual audience being enveloped into a genre that once excluded them.
Traditionally, Role Playing Games were too complicated or confusing, so when they were streamlined and offered on a fantastical and post-apocalyptic platter, RPGs were in the perfect position to place a once niche game studio among the headline grabbing, record breaking triple-A crowd.
But what happens when that general audience start to see the cracks? What happens when the issues once only criticized by the “hardcore” crowd become so ingrained into the game that the audience at large now notice them too?
Starfield was inevitable. It had been forecast since Oblivion. It was only a matter of time until ‘Keep It Simple, Stupid’ became ‘It’s Too Simple Now, Stupid’.
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Essay: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HPbYzQ_liYCBHmv-2qjToQ72KshCnP36bsJVnubeVA4/edit?usp=sharing
Introduction 0:00
Character Creation 2:15
The Mines 14:52
Combat 42:28
Keys to the Ship 54:01
Kreet 59:23
Persuasion & Dialogue 1:26:34
First Impressions Matter 1:38:59
Conclusion 1:43:52
#jwlar #starfield #critique
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Thanks to Evan Prince for all his fantastic work!
Remember to check out his channel! (Link in description)
Part 2 coming early next year 😉
You cant adjust your height or limb length, if the character isn't muscular they look strange and the legs are stumpy.
Imagine at the beginning you could join the pirates depending on your background.
It's sad but you know from the first moon the exploration and the placed all time absolutely same 10 poi are cool but only for the first time. And even on the second planet or moon you get the same poi and know where every book lies or wehre the mobsters are. Absolutely boredom, so you do the quests, well those are quite entertaining but then you have seen all of the game and your bloody char is still a noob, cause the leveling ist slow as hell. And it is like that just to push you in a new game+ grind to do all things 10 times in a row… No that is not the BGS game we love and play over again for ten years…
What's there to critique? the game is TRASH. Bethesda's worst game ever.
The dice roll persuasion system was mentioned near the end of this video. It was mentioned that it's annoying to think about how much time was wasted making the dice roll system rather than making more choices that lead somewhere. Stated as being "wasted resources".
As someone who is in school for coding for multiple languages, I can confidently say that: making a complex system that does a skill check then those choices all lead to something different would have taken way longer than the dice roll system thats in Starfield right now. Yeah, the dice roll system isn't that good, but I don't consider doing something that you can do in less than 30 minutes a waste of time. Lol
The worst part about dialogue being poorly and inconsistently written is exemplified to me through Andreja's quest line. if you are a follower of the great serpent there are a couple of lines that bring it up with her, but in the same dialogue she'll say something like "you can't know how I grew up" or "nonbelievers don't understand". It killed any ability I had to care about the story or characters.
clearly the game was made in 6 months, same as TES 6
i disagree on the Dev trying to be stay Realistic Take. I mean they drop a fcking Multiversum in there and a Drag… Starborn. Starfield is one of the most boring SciFi-Settings ive ever seen. Hell "The Invincible" SciFi setting is like 100x more Interesting. To point some additional nitpick´s out there is barely any Gore and you cant strip outfits from NPC´s (unlike the predecessor´s). There is an afford to be Political Correct as possible and i hate it
Man I remember watching your first impressions live. I think they have definitely held up over 4 months. Thanks for the video. Always appreciate your perspective and Evan's contributions as well!
16:15 You were caught crossing the border, but the game doesn't specify you were trying to escape skyrim. For all you know, you could've been trying to illegally enter the nation instead.
TES VI it's already dead on arrival. Sad, just sad.
So… youll still do a retrospective on this in 10 yesrs right? Pleasd
Bethesda was never good at meaningful choice, dialogue and faction interaction, but its almost seems like theyve developed an inferiority complex because of that and try to shove illusion of that into their games, not really understanding why they're criticized and why games that have it work.
Also the entire intro feels like it was done in first draft months before release with cringy unnatural dialogue, stilted forced premise, and self contradictions.(Like for example option to pick a criminal background choice that states your character hates wage labour. Great. How does that background fits in with an intro of you benind a miner?)
Legate Lanius's speech options were often used to critique new vegas, not compliment it. It was nonsensical that you could just get him to back off like magic.
if you think about Daggerfall, has the largest explorabale landmass (technically speaking). Yet Starfield has technically the smallest explorable landmass (crafted). Where did they go wrong?
Wow that thumbnail picture looks like Bolo Way, Chong Lee
Yeah I don't think Todd Howard's going to be there for much longer
Before watching: while I have my issues with starfield the biggest killer of it for me is the New Game+ it makes everything feel hollow.
Edit 1: 28:06 I don’t see why you can’t consider the opening of Skyrim as kind of a mining tutorial, it’s the same motion for both actions.
Worst thing about it is a lot of people want Bethesda to improve, me included, but you have console superiority warriors making the game seem better than it is and I know for sure that Bethesda caters more to console players than the PC market these days. My point is that mindlessly defending a game because your ego is too large and not wanting to lose out to PlayStation is ultimately hurting Starfield. Let Bethesda hear the criticisms; we want to inspire them to change SF for the better.
For me, big problem was that from a role-playing perspective, how some of those backgrounds ends up as miner. While some of them I can explain, others are just unbelievable and hard to accept, for example: diplomat, cyber runner, chef or professor throws their carrer or life path to become a miner.
Another problem was being forced by Bennet to visit Constellation, like I'm being kidnapped and not have a will of my own.
Also our character knows how to pilot a starship, but doesn’t know how to use a jetpack. (Bounty hunter does)
Like in cheap comedy our character lands spaceship, NPC approaches.
NPC: Could you help me with this, you can use jetpack to get there.
Character: Sure, but use „jetwhat”?
NPC: Jetpack, that thing on your back.
C: This, I though it was fancy looking backpack.
NPC: It has 1 button just press it.
C: I don’t know how.
NPC: Just press it, you piloted a spaceship with thousands of buttons.
C: Yeah, so what, it doesn’t mean I know how to press this one button.
Corporate out of touch . Emil is absolutely a terrible writer . I wkuldnt trust him to write a childrens book .
I have said this many times, gamers are the dumbest people on this planet. This game was so over hyped by EVERYONE. I warned people to temper it, but no, add Starfield to the list of games gamers overhyped. Cyberpunk, No Mans Sky, Haze, The order 1886, Sonic 06, Dead Island, Mass Effect Andromeda, Battlefront 1/2 EA edition, Daikatana, Alien Colonial Marines.
Just a few games gamers overhyped. Remember folks, hype is not your friend.
The modding community being a crutch for Bethesda made them lazy. What’s insane is the way they talked passionately about the game you would think they did create something that wasn’t so devoid of its own identity picking bits and pieces from other titles they’ve made.
The incredible modding community became the cake instead of the cherry on top on a great game.
I say all this but I’m still intrigued by starfield because of the background and perk system of the game it’s the only thing that really peaked my interest.
Sorry but if after all this time you still think Bethesda is going to lock content out of players for "deep" rpg aspect, that's on you, they NEVER do that, they want every player to be able to experience almost all of the content in one single playthrough, and that's a perfectly understandable design, because the very vast majority of people never replay games, and even a lot of times don't even finish them the first time. They have made some serious improvement to the RPG elements compared to Fallout 4 when it comes to dialogue, quests design, skill checks and all, that's more than enough for me, and i really don't expect TES 6 to be different, even with the success of BG3, because Bethesda games ARE for the casuals, especially now that they are owned by Microsoft, so there is really no point in expecting more than that on this front.
I find many of the longer, more thoughtful critiques (like this one) are hitting the exact same points and I'm glad to see it. Like you said in the intro, the problems are becoming too obvious to ignore. I'm glad that Bethesda is finally getting more substantial pushback after making such a bland, empty, soulless, corporate-aggrandizing product. However, as I've said before, I don't see Bethesda actually learning from this feedback. The fact that they responded to criticism with "have you considered that the game is good?" shows a disconnect between them and their audience too broad to ever be closed.
Looking forward to the rest of the critique!
There was a Justice League cartoon movie years ago where it opens with the first astronauts on Mars discovering an alien structure. They open it and upon returning to Earth are heralded as pioneers of discovery. But unbeknownst to humanity, the astronauts had been killed by aliens who took on their likeness, and thus prepared the way for an alien invasion of Earth from within. Imagine the breadth of narrative and gameplay opportunities there could've been if they had just added some hint of interesting alien life. But as it stands this is one of the most bland sci-fi universes I've ever experienced. Not to mention the ABSURD decision of giving the Ecliptic faction the voice filter when their helmets don't even completely hide their face. Like what? I can't be the only one who's mildly annoyed by this random detail.
1:32:00 I'm pretty sure the persuasion dialogue is AI-created.
Small but important request: please EQ your voice more neutrally. In this video the bass of your voice is boosted and boomy, making it hard to listen to, especially on bigger speakers. It especially makes a big difference with long videos where I'll be listening to you for hours.
Aye… Ultimately Starfield feels like a game made by devs with nothing to say. It's like an oatmeal porridge of a gaming experience…
You mention how Fallout 3 does not have roleplaying options in its introduction and then later around 30:40 you start listing some of them…
Starfield is three month old , yet feel already so old
The same guy who was lead writer on fallout 4 also was lead on this slopfest. This is why I knew this "roleplaying" game was gonna be totally shit from day one. If the dude is also lead for Elder scrolls 6 you can rest assured it's going to be a total garbage shallow story yet again.
When you talk about "the writers" … were there any? I sat through the end credits looking for them, and the only mention I saw of "writing" was credited solely to Emil Pagliarulo (who we all know and love…)
It's entirely possible I missed it, but if not, that would explain why so much of the writing is bad, repetitive, and uninteresting. One dude can't be responsible for a game with this many characters, plots, and personalities. We aren't talking about Tolkien here.
This is the moment that broke Starfield for me:
I had just finished the quest in Neon, that ended with the "Starborn" ship showing up and threatening at the end. I thought "oh wow – we actually have aliens here? We have something unusual here? Finally!!".
Flew back to the city planet, to the explorer base, cutscene with characters speculating if this is aliens, humans, gods or w/e… I thought that the universe was finally getting a little bit interesting and engaging, finally we'd be seeing something other than cartoon animals or just humans with guns.
Then, went off in space, landed at a random planet to do some planet scanning miniquest, and saw the alien ship landing not far off . I thought – "wait, what? really?" and ofc went there to investigate. Walked up to the ship – nobody around. But cool, I'm seeing the alien craft upclose! I jumped on the wing, walked up and… wait, is that a door? a human-sized access hatch? and of course, not interactable. Then I look in the distance and see a small group of humanoid figures walking from the alien ship towards some random direction. Okay.. chased the group down, got into a firefight, and – okay, they were more hp-rich, but they were just humans with guns that despawned when killed.
And then it hit me. The only thing that had peaked my interest, the only glimpse of excitement in this boring milquetoast universe, was a facade for yet more dudes with guns to kill. The "aliens" are just reskins of pirates; the "alien ship landing" is the same kind of RNG event as a pirate ship landing and attacking you. It's just a randomly generated encounter, with no lore, no story, no meaning to it, and it will happen 100 more times. There was nothing for me to actually discover. There was nothing.. meaningful about it.
And thereafter.. why should I be interested in the main plots "are they aliens? are they gods? are they a human faction?" when I had already seen that it was just more dudes with guns and the same behavior as random pirates.
That moment broke the game for me, it broke the only thing in the setting that felt potentially interesting, it broke the desire to keep progressing the story, and it broke my faith in the game having anything that didn't feel RNG-ed from a list of 100 options.
It could be my speakers, but your voice sounds very boomy and hard to listen. Great video otherwise.
"the elders scrolls world has magic and dragons, but that doesn't mean an armoured core mech could drop from the sky and fit right in" – unless they named it pelinal whitestrake I guess
I played Starfield for 20 minutes.
1:28:00 – Hasn't the lack of real options always been a thing in Bethesda games (aside from Fallout) Oblivion/Skyrim never had any real choices matter.
I don't think calling something Bethesda does "amateurish" is ever valid, since they're clearly talented devs. Overall (besides you and Evan Prince repeating each other), this was a great video, but hearing obviously partial opinions like that amid an otherwise pristine critique is disappointing.
I’ve been waiting for this one!
I would normally never mention it, just keep it to myself, but the new thumbnail for this isn't as good as others you've done
The fact they choose not to have any alien races to play as was the first thing that made me turn away from the game, and the list only got longer the more I learned about the game.
hopefully bg3 makes game companies realize the locking gamers out of content due to their starting choices is not exactly a bad thing.