Nightingale

I was trudging through the swamp in nice clothes gathering plants when it started to hail. I pulled out my umbrella and continued wading through the water. Suddenly a pair of hippos ambushed me and charged. I pulled out my sword and proceeded to duel two hippos in a swamp while wearing nice clothes in a hail storm with my umbrella. A few trees were toppled in the fight that ensued. Not your typical AAA trope or clone. The pros: 1. Fun game mechanics 2. Very unique and creative 3. Deeper crafting system then most survival games 4. Estate system is pretty cool The Cons 1. There seems to only be multiple variations of three worlds. Forest, desert, and swamp. They need to add more worlds. 2. It is a story based survival game. So you need to progress the story to unlock the survival recipes. I am not a fan especially when the story is often mediocre. So far no consequence, no story branches, lots of clever word play, but at the end of the day you can just skip through most the story and still understand what is going on. 3. Tiered system of progression. Since you need to do the story to unlock the tiers, it has some unintended consequences: for example some recipes become obsolete before you need them because the focus is to complete the story. Other ones you use once just to be able to progress to the next tier. For example the first gun I unlocked I shot something like 20 rounds, and then got the next level gun. I honestly could have just skipped it entirely. Will never use it again because of the tier system (no point getting lower tier equipment when you've already unlocked higher tier gear). 4. Estate system although cool, is very under developed. Hopefully they add more to this before the game leaves early access. 5. Gear score. Can't mine a resource? Just slap a stamina enchantment on your tool and suddenly the pickaxe can break that resource because that sort of stuff is determined by your gear score. You have this intricate crafting system, just to do something simple like increase your gear score. Makes no sense to me. In spite of the cons, I am recommending this game solely because the experience (although not perfect) is very unique. It has potential especially if a sandbox mode (no story) with custom game settings is made available in the future.

AMAZING game after this last update. It is definitely one of my favorite games and I am so glad I re-visited it after buying it in 2024. I wanna say its very comparable to Valheim, so if you want a grind heavy game I would recommend trying it out. The graphics are absolutely gorgeous and the sky box just keeps surprising me every in game day. Not to mention the cards you can insert to change the realms season/surprising and buffs/de-buffs. All around a great concept and a very smooth play through!

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A truly charming game with tons of potential, and quite interesting story to boot! Will update the review once I play through all its content currently available.

If I’m being completely honest, Nightingale doesn’t just disappoint — it feels painfully outdated, like something that got lost on a hard drive in 2009 and was accidentally released in 2024. Visually, the game looks shockingly behind the times. Gameplay doesn’t save it either. On top of that, performance problems and jank make everything worse.

I love that this game uses the Voynich Manuscript script as the essence orb writing!! Btw, the Voynich Manuscript has been deciphered as of 2024! Read about it at "The Voynich Manuscript: The Cipher and The Compendium"!! The author also has a webpage: thevoynichmanuscriptcompendium.com. Her book is about to in the library of the NSA's National Cryptologic Museum! How cool is that?!

Nightingale had a rough start with bulky gameplay and a slower beginning for new players to tap into the realm walker experience. Honestly I played for about 2 months when it first came out as Beta release (Literally day 1) but shelved it for about a year after that. I have recently revisited this beautiful game and have thoroughly enjoyed the updates and optimization the company has made to this game. What once was a bulky and slow start has turned into a beautiful seamless and fun beginning for players. The game itself runs great, the graphics are some of the most beautiful I have seen and the lore and story are just enough to keep you wanting more. With the recent work done by the programmers I can now highly suggest this game to new players. It has one would want with any survival game, but adds a touch of magic and lore to create something new. I used to play Ark Survival until I realized the trap of never being able to have a life apart from the game because if you leave too long your dino's die. Nightingale takes those elements I fell in love with in Ark without the negatives (minus taming and riding dino's of course). This game will take you into realm after realm of pure adventure and exploration while at the same time you are diving into a new world of magic and lore. If Ark and Elder Scrolls had a baby, this is it. I give this game a solid 9/10 and I hope the developers will continue to build upon what they have already created.

Pretty good game, just needs some polish and QoL