While a credible game, it's not particularly groundbreaking in the genre. The mining mechanics are interesting, but once the tunnels are built they aren't particularly navigable--which is a shame. Doubling back through the tunnels to reach another closer relic is incredibly satisfying. Jet packing into the ceiling for 30 seconds is not. The fishing mini-game is likewise decently engaging. Plenty of different characters to meet--though I am absolutely going to complain about the seven identical twins. If you aren't familiar with mandarin, let me enlighten you: their names are Eldest wu, 2nd wu, 3rd wu, etcetera all the way to 7th wu. I'm also not sold on the queer coded character being obsessively vain, we can do better than that. Or the over the top valley girl accent on another. It does appear that there are some more thoughtful family dynamics amongst some of the NPCs, but I'm generally stuck wondering if this host of flawed characters were scripted beyond those flaws. Kudos for the full voice cast.
This would probably all be fine except the game play loop just isn't quite right. The beginning is building machines to process materials for more machines to process more materials. Which can work for a zen experience, but not at this speed. Moreover, I've already run out of room for said machines. It feels like someone shoved a pay-to-win mobile city builder in the middle of a farming sim. And it's a bit light on the farming. I believe I needed three machines and several hours before I could create a planter box in which to plant seeds. Maybe it gets better as you sink more time into it and get a sufficient stockpile of mined materials, but as of the first 8 hours you are just building machines to make machines. Final gripe, the task board is way to hard for early game. Tasks ask for six of something you just managed to get one of after an in-game week. Low-level tasks should be asking for raw materials instead of competing for resources with mainline quests.
