AETHUS

[quote]A review copy was provided by the developer.[/quote] [quote]Follow my Curator page, [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/41363546-Fruit-N-Doggie-Reviews/]Fruit N Doggie Reviews,[/url] so you can be updated whenever I post a new review.[/quote] [h1]Overall Rating - Mediocre ★★★☆☆[/h1] [h1]First Impressions[/h1] As someone who enjoys most game genres, when I haven't played a certain type for a while, it starts feeling overdue. Needing to scavenge supplies in an isolated environment, building a home base, and gathering valuable resources sounded fun, so I was happy when I saw a review key for AETHUS (AT). The title appeared to have a lot of promise for only having one person working on it, but there's only one way to find out for sure. [h1]Gameplay[/h1] Starting off with meager supplies, establishing a baseline of essentials is mandatory. These open up slowly through the game's tutorial system, as you build a shelter, a means to cook, gather water, and keep yourself alive. If you're thorough, it won't take long to have a decent stockpile of building materials and resources, as there's several items that can be blasted and broken down into basic goods. An interesting mechanic is scanning, as you send out a radar-like wave to search for areas worth investigating. Something that comes up quickly is that exploring caves will diminish your air supplies, which will require you to be especially aware of your location in relation to where you can catch your breath again. As you can probably predict, discovering blueprints and other abandoned valuables will keep opening new routes and tools to craft, allowing you to thoroughly check out your surroundings. Even though the game may not have the longest path to follow, this seems to be well set-up as bread crumbs to hold players' attention. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3792358814 [h1]Controls[/h1] Initially, AT couldn't be played with a controller, and for someone not used to a mouse and keyboard, trying to move my character around and interact with the environment felt awkward. When controller functionality was added, I restarted the game to see how much of a difference it would make, but still found it hard to navigate. In most games, when you bring up a menu, most of the inputs become non-responsive, as they aren't used to navigate the choices. However, as you access numerous menus with the controller, buttons that shouldn't do anything will still affect the game in the background. Even if it didn't still feel awkward, it's clear that this isn't as functional as it should be. [h1]Story[/h1] Space mines are run by corporations that don't mind risking the safety of the people who have to go in person and dig up ore, compensating them poorly for the hazardous work they take on. Although it's a large risk, and will take all of her resources, the protagonist is following a family member's lead, staking a claim on a seemingly uninteresting hunk of rock. There she hopes to unearth something worthwhile, able to make a living as an independent operation, instead of being crushed beneath the boot of a soulless company. By her side is an intelligent robot, who has enough wit to banter with her as various items of importance arise. The two make for a good combination. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3792359324 [h1]Visuals[/h1] You don't have to check very hard in order to determine if a game was built with an indie budget, as it's readily apparent in how it looks. There's just a certain aspect that makes it clear, such as how the human models are designed, or seeing the strange expressions made by the protagonist in AT's opening cutscene. For me a clear sign of the lower budget is how expansive yet bland the environment is. To be fair, the setting is an abandoned mine in an uninhabited area, but life theoretically could still thrive in a location devoid of human interference. However, there's almost nothing to look or interact with, aside from a small amount of plants, and mining materials. [h1]Sound Design[/h1] At different points or locations, the background noise will switch between faint music and ambient noise, but I'm not really sure what the triggers would be. It may be staying within the same area for long enough that music starts playing instead of only ambient sounds. However, calling it music seems a bit generous, because most of the time, it'd mostly just be a few notes ambling along. With default settings in place, it also wasn't that noticeable or distinct, as it's quite faint. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3792359056 [h1]Pros[/h1] 🌟 What you want to achieve in the game fits the lore and world-building. It makes sense and supports one another. 🌟 The developer has been trying to make improvements upon the game based on player feedback. 🌟 Having a radar system makes the map more useful, as it displays noteworthy items. [h1]Cons[/h1] ❌ As you break objects down for materials, you'll need several chests to store junk you don't need at the moment. Your basic capacity is fairly low. ❌ With how much time you'll spend building items, navigating those menus doesn't feel intuitive. ❌ The default sensitivity makes trying to use a controller even harder. [h1]Tips[/h1] 🔍 Maybe this had something to do with the controls, but my instinct was to hold down the laser in order to mine supplies. However, rapidly mashing it seemed to work much better. 🔍 In the early part, you can only get food from cacti. They will provide you with seeds so you can plant more though. [h1]Final Thoughts[/h1] It's been a long time since the controls have made this much of a difference in a game, but it feels too cumbersome for me to force myself to go through the whole experience like this. For those who have no qualms about using a mouse and keyboard, I imagine they'd have an entirely different result than someone like me. However, with text boxes intruding on other menus and pop-ups that I need to read or access, trying to play this with a controller is a struggle. Considering some of the inputs that were selected, it's clear this was not an eloquent design choice, but most likely a contrived solution forced by the system. People might complain this is too harsh, but controls are a crucial element to any game, and impacts every moment you're playing. If this gets a major overhaul in the future, it could remove all the hurdles I'm facing now. Until then though, I wouldn't suggest AT to those who play games with a controller. [quote][url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/32732116-IndieGems/]Follow our curator page: [b]IndieGems[/b] if you like and want to see more reviews like this one.[/url][/quote] [table] [tr] [th]PC Specs[/th] [th]Performance[/th] [/tr] [tr] [td]Ryzen 2700 RTX 2070 16GB RAM ADATA SSD 1920x1080 [/td] [td]The game ran without incident on default settings. 💖 - AT is healthy [/td] [/tr] [/table]

This game was fun for a single playthrough. I played it through once and doubt I'll ever play it again. The problem with this game is that gameplay is too guided by the story. The story has explicit instructions that tell you exactly what to do. Just follow them and you beat the game. All the resources you need for more advanced constructions are only acquired by following the story through. It is also impossible to explore the map without following the story. That said, I think the game is very impressive. I got 46 hours of enjoyment out of it. If the developer added the ability to play on other maps that weren't so strictly tied in to the story, I would get many more hours out of it.

In The Genre it stands out. Very Good Story And decent progression if you can find stuff which takes a good eye to spot the stuff. It doesn't explain as much as I would like and I have to look stuff up alot. The exploration is a little grindy, but am still having fun. Overall fun game that could have used a little primped up.

Very pleasant, cozy, and relaxing game. There's plenty to build, collect, and explore. The crafting system is surprisingly deep, though it becomes quite grindy toward the end when every upgrade requires expensive resources. The voice acting, however, was the real highlight. It hit a nerve I didn't even know I had. I absolutely loved it. Maeve's voice is incredible—she could read an encyclopedia to me, and I'd probably fall in love.

Man what a awesome game this was :D Just finished it and made it to 100% completion as well :) The graphics were pretty solid. Music as well was nicely done. Gameplay was greatly done. The voice acting was blissful to listening to with their accents. The different areas of the game was fun to explore and find out different locations and different materials to gather. I really enjoyed the story from start to finish. :D The mining with your robot friend was a nice touch and upgrades were good and easily enough to obtain after getting enough credits for them. You just have to farm enough ores among many other things to craft things and build your outpost. Which was fun to do. The challenge of game was well done with oxygen not being unlimited in the underground. The only QoL thing that I missed was as you were refining minerals/ores and such. You weren't able to craft things from those refining stations, unless you move it storage/containers. However there was unlimited space in those refiners, So you only pick the ore/plants/jewels that you required to craft from the crafting station. And leave the rest. The Drone idea was great. However it felt like it was bit too late into the story to be that useful. But always nice to have extra materials of things to spare. Make sure to read what you eat in the game incase you want 100% Since there is an achievement that requires you to eat nothing else but a vegetarian diet. So no fish nor meat. There was some nutrient bar or something that wasn't vegetarian, So make sure to read, before you eat it :D Probably the only missable achievement in this game.

Great little indie game. Maybe not as replayable as some. Maybe not as much automation as some. But I thoroughly enjoyed the story, the voice acting, the artwork, music, atmosphere, and world building. I look forward to whatever might come next from Pawsmonaut.

Overall I liked the game, but I found myself getting bored at points. * Too much running back and forth. You are often exploring and realize you need a specific item, and then you need to go back to your base to craft it. Or your inventory is full. Or you need food. The game has some travel shortcuts, but you still run a lot. * Mining is not fun after the beginning of the game, but you need to do it for the whole game. You unlock upgrades that make mining faster, but the higher-tier resources are slower and heavier, so it cancels out. * You can use automated miners, but they are too slow and each one unlocks too late. You usually need resources from the next tier to unlock the miner for the previous tier, but by the time you collect all those supplies, the previous tier is less relevant. Miners produce resources too slowly to progress through the main content, so they are only useful if you occasionally need older resources later in the game. * Inventory and production chain management is tedious. Thankfully, most crafting stations auto-pull from most inventories, but refiners have to be fed and collected from manually. * There is no map. I would have liked one to more easily plan running routes, especially for the Epsilon, Mu, Theta, Kappa area. I wish those bases had more memorable names too, since I struggled to remember which one was which. The environments, exploration, and story are good, but I found the remaining gameplay was needlessly tedious, as if we just needed something time-consuming so that the story didn't complete too quickly.

The issue with most open world crafting games is lack of depth. I can get lost for hours in minecraft or astroneer, but there isnt much of a story. However this game takes the cake in that department. Not only does it scratch my itch of automation and crafting , but the story and banter between the two main characters and the corporate arch nemesis is great. i haven't even finished the campaign yet but still felt compelled to write a review. i took a detour and got too busy decorating my habitat to continue the story but can't wait to finish. dont hesitate to pick this one up. cheers