(I ACCIDENTALLY PUT THIS REVIEW ON SUBNAUTICA 2 INSTEAD OF BELOW ZERO LOL)
Loving Subnautica as much as I did playing throughout the game's beta, I decided to put off playing Below Zero until the game was finished so I could go into the full story blind (I regret this actually because I love beta phases.. oops). A good friend of mine bought the game for me as a gift, and when I got a pc that could run the game I finally gave it a shot once I had the motivation to. Over the few years since Below Zero's release, I've only ever really seen negative reviews of it (not on the reviews page, but generally, from people discussing the game to youtube videos etc etc.) so I was expecting at some point through the game to figure out just what was so bad about it that made people hate it so much, and I never did.
The entire atmosphere is different from the first Subnautica, it's a lot fuller and more lively, the story is still somber like Sub1 was, but it's not as desolate. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I think the tonal difference between the game irks people. This does not bother me.
A small gripe with Subnautica Below Zero is there being two stories- Sam's story, and AL-AN's story. Because you can encounter and have AL-AN throughout any point in the game (you will likely encounter him early on, but you don't have to), a lot of AL-AN's dialogue with Robin is very impersonal, it doesn't feel like you have much of an arc with him in terms of your relationship and how he trusts you, since progressing that quest is so non-linear. Sam's story is much better, but it feels like she gets sidelined in favor of AL-AN in some capacity. It's not egregious, but more care in the storytelling to balance the two plotlines would've been nice.
My Largest gripe would be the dialogue, it's not very organic. If at some point it was established that Robin had always wanted to meet an alien to teach the alien about human values or something like in the story it would make more sense for every interaction to be as they are. I know Robin is an intelligent character, she can be poetic when talking to AL-AN, but when a lot of the quotes are very spur of the moment bits of dialogue given the situation they're both in, the formula of AL-AN questioning why humans do something, Robin asking what it's like for Architects, and then explaining to AL-AN poetically what it's like for humans and how life is meaningful gets pretty old. If the game allowed for longer interactions between characters that would enable you to actually have a heart-to-heart when something meaningful was happening it would feel less out of place.
The world and exploration are GREAT though. Apparently a lot of people hated the Seatruck- I think it's fantastic. The entire world of Subnautica 1 had to be built to support the vehicles it had, to some capacity, needing to support the Cyclops as a vehicle limited what they could do with their biomes. The Seatruck I feel was a great compromise between the Seamoth and Cyclops.
The Snowfox I was a little frustrated with at first since it felt like it had such a slow turn, but after just a minute of using it I really loved it, land exploration became a lot more fun with it.
The basebuilding was a lot of fun, collecting rare resources wasn't too grindy (magnetite I had a hard time finding just because it blended in with the terrain too much). I did not enjoy needing to constantly get more quartz and titanium but that's every Subnautica game for you. Getting lead also sucked and I based in the lead biome.
Every biome is so beautiful and the soundtrack is incredible, Ben Prunty managed to give Below Zero (and now Subnautica 2) both their own distinct sounds, unlike Sub1, but still Subnautica. I've been listening to the OST for all Subnautica games a LOT over the past few months and I adore it.
The creature designs are fantastic too I like themmmmm. Celicerate... <3
Overall I think BZ is a bit overhated for just not being the First Subnautica, it's different in a lot of ways but absolutely worth experiencing.
