Starfield | A Painful Critique 

BEFORE YOU COMMENT! *SMALL CORRECTIONS* : I was WRONG about when you are free to do what you want - OPENING SPEAKING TO SARAH: to test when I was free to do what I want I used fast travel as a tester and the game would decline my request as I needed to complete the opening. You cannot leave the lodge after you give constellation the first artefact and you cannot fast travel. Leading me to the conclusion that I needed to continue the main quest line. HOWEVER. If you speak to Sarah and say you wish to process everything, THEN the game opens up to you. Even out side of that, that leaves the opening sitting at over an hour. Thank you to those pointing this out to me

"Constellation, more like Constipation, because they won't let me do the shit I actually want to do." That was... actually incredibly clever. I love it.

One thing I don't like about Starfield is that people should play Baldur's Gate 3 instead.

I just realized.... Starborn..... Dragonborn..... they’re truly geniuses of creativity aren’t they?

Sarah: "we are individuals with our own moral compass, no judgy" Also Sarah: "how could you!!?"

I'm so impressed at the amount of vowels an Australian can inject into a word as simple as "No"

My guy, this production level/quality for a channel of 7k subs in absurd, you'll be far beyond this soon. Great vid brother. Additionally I agree with most of your points here, ES6 no longer makes me hopeful, but instead the idea of what we'll get makes me fearful.

I find it interesting how much you enjoyed neon. It is what showed me that starfield wasn't much of a roleplaying game. As soon as I showed up I wanted to root out the corruption. But every chance you have to investigate it goes nowhere and the few times you see the NPCs that are the cause, they are immortal and you cannot kill them. Very dissapointing

Came for the critique, stayed for the absolute aesthetic! Well done Zenny

I was scared of listening to the story spoilers but it went from cool and mindblowing to disappointing. Going back to BG3

This game was creepily pro-Corpo. An entire questline about running up a chain of the Ryujin Corpo, being unable to take any action WHATSOEVER against the Paradiso Corp when confronted with the issue of the colony ship, and Neon presents this corrupt, nasty corporate fuckery under Bayu, and gives you NOTHING to do about it. You're just forced to abide by everything the nasty Corpos want and do, really bizarre.

What the hell is this production quality? No wonder TV basically died with us younger people when stuff like this exists for free.

Massive props to you for all of this handmade animation, you got insane production value man. Im gonna have to share this video with people, bc you deserve way more views.

They lock you to have the companions because if they don't you will not care to the level of not even knowing them, since the AI is so atrocious and in this game specialy they are very unintresting.

Starfield actually is the worst RPG i have PERSONALLY ever played, but then again… the rpg’s i played this year were Pathfinder, baldurs gate, disco elysium

Was there any way to improve Starfield's main campaign? Yes. 1. Instead of being given the keys off of Vectera by Barrett at the beginning of the game, you're instead escorting the artifact you just found in the mine after you touched it, causing you to wake up on the ship's infirmary to create your character. You get some dialog about how a group called "Constellation" are interested in your artifact, and they're sending a man to meet you at your destination. As this happens, you are attacked by an unkown ship. You get weird dialog and hints at this being the Hunter, who you don't know yet, but you are handed the artifact and ordered to get to the escape pod. However, upon finding the pods damaged, you instead have to find a small mining ship thats currently docked to the freighter, and escape from the Hunter by using a grav jump. Before you leave however, you can hear the ship behind you explode with debris flying in front of you. From here, you have a few options. Your ship is damaged, and you can try to land on a nearby planet to get it fixed. You could try to find Barrett at the meeting point as the last survivor, or you can be completely independant from here and carry the artifact with you untill you decide to pick up the base campaign. 2. The Unity has chosen you. You don't discover the Unity is a multiversal force of being untill later in the game, however, its heavily implied that it is attatched to you in some way. This allows you to be the only one who has access to Starborn abilities. This is the universe, the ONLY universe, that has decided you will become the next Starborn. This revelation is made clear by the end of the game. 3. Make the Hunter and the Emissary relevant to the story. I don't know why Aquilas turned out to be the hunter. A decision that might have solved this would have been if one of your constellation members was essential to the plot while being able to have optional companions. Let's say it's Barrett because he's also experienced a glimpse at the artifact. If Barrett was your story companion, as you two have both seen visions, a real connection could have been possible where you become really good friends. But for some reason, Barrett doesn't get any powers. You and Barrett might be forced into a difficult decision like the one in the normal campaign that either way leaves a tear in your relationship, or manages to get Barrett killed. From this point, it is revelaed to you that the Hunter is an alternate version of Barrett who was the chosen one in his universe, and unfortunately had to betray you when that Barrett started becoming unstable, dangerous and power hungry. That way, the final battle is all the more emotionally weighted. The Emissary probably would have worked better as an elected representative of a small Starborn faction who have been trying to form peace in the universe (but conclude it must be through retaining the power amongst their own as a kind of elitism, and interfere with who can become Starborn and placing themselves above the Unity.) This could also be a known character, but probably someone who is built up in our universe as someone who fits that character and not just whoever dies. 4. New game plus. What I like about new game plus is that it feels like its giving you the world to jump into and explore right off of the bat. However, New game plus should have the intention of giving you a goal outside of all of your playthroughs. You need the artifacts, and this could be as simple as finding them in their locations again and choosing how you wantnto do things. Maybe small changes are made to who has the artifacts and where, giving you some shock factor and maybe a bonus additional quests throughout each iteration. But most primarily, you are here to stop the Starborn faction, or better yet, you have been chosen to make a decision. You can choose to allow people to become Starborn, as is anyone's right and deal with the consequences of fighting the Starborn faction as a rebellious leader. Or you can choose to destroy the Unity forever and either live out your existence on the universe you are currently in or try to return to OG universe number 1 to wrap up your whole playthrough back full circle. 5. Where are your Starborn companions? Doesn't it feel like a cop out that all of your companions have been reset and forces you to build relations with them all over again with no hope of finding your originals? Yeah, me too. Even if this is DLC, it would be nice to have a questline where you find your starborn counterparts, to see who they've become and ultimately recruit them in your game. This definitely should have already been in the base game, since many have already done everything there is to do now in each universe, without an original companion with them to make commentary about it. It would have made the idea that they're still out there somewhere, i stead of it just being told to us that thats what happened.

As a 3D artist, I hope you know I appreciate all the effort put into this video :)

"Constelation? More like constipation, BECAUSE THEY WON'T LET ME DO THE SH*T THAT I WANNA DO!" I LOST EVERYTHING IN THIS PART!😂😂 dude, the animation and writing is the best I have seen in a LONG time on all of youtube Zenny you deserve A LOT more than you already have

The new motion tracking is incredible, and it’s so impressive how quickly you made this. Excellent job, man!

The twist being ruined by characters you don't care about reminds me of Dragon's Dogma. In that game there comes a point where the Dragon captures your supposed romantic interest, but really it's just the character with the highest affection for you. You gain affection by completing quests for people so often it's just a character whose quest chain you've done. The other problem is that just talking to people increases their affection and that includes _all the merchants_ you have to talk to dozens or hundreds of times to just to sell and buy basic items. The primary blacksmith merchant is somewhat infamous for being kidnapped by the dragon as is a very young girl (as in obviously a child) whose quest chain results in her getting massive affection bonuses if you complete it a certain way. The result is the very dramatic cut scene where the dragon offers you a supposedly painful choice (sacrifice the kidnap victim for power or fight this massive godlike dragon to save them) is ruined by the victim being some random merchant or the court jester or just some random person whose quest chain you did then promptly forgot about. It's often more funny then dramatic.

This is the most impressive, engaging video essay I have seen. Your animations and commentary style are wonderful and reminds me of Good Game.

12:08 dude your content is literally some of the best and most unique stuff on this platform, specifically *because* of how charming the animation is and how well it works in tandem with your commentary. I’m sure you already know that, but even if you never get the recognition and views you definitely deserve, you’re still a massive inspiration. Seriously.

Loading screen simulator where every loading screen leads to the exact same small area full of pipes and guys in space suits with guns. Even with mods, it will take 5 years before this game is even halfway decent.

Brother, the production quality and even content quality in this video is incredible and I seriously hope you stick with it because quality like this is hard to come by. You earned a sub and I look forward to seeing you hit 10k soon.

Dude this production value is out of this world. Really impressive, earned a subscriber mate

There are a lot of things that I really don't like in Starfield, it biggest one is that tdhe world as a whole isn't immersive, there are individual stories that are good but when you put the whole thing together it is completely unbelievable, for example you are supposed to be a great explorer going where no one has gone before but even on the farthest planets you will find abandoned research stations or mines occupied by the same boring enemies, pirates, spacers, ecliptic or House Varunn. Constellation is so incompetent that even the Capital Worlds aren't surveyed and every group of space trash has been every where before you, another thing that really kills the immersion is the inconsistencies and convenient moments, for example during the UC Quest you discover how a great threat was happening and you come to the conclusion that someone must have been behind it but instead of having to do an investigation to discover who it is you find a recording 5 minutes later that flat out tells you and things like this are everywhere in the game. And it really doesn't help that the NASA punk theme is the most generic bland sci-fi theme available that ironically were already used in No man's sky and Outer Worlds. And don't get me started on the retarded Multiverse bs, that is a trend that really needs to die.

You hit the nail on the head with the leveling and crafting systems: Bethesda hasn't let you pick a master-level lock without getting to a prerequisite level or perk-point threshold since Skyrim.

Only correction: i was able to explore after dropping off the artifact. I started out telling Sarah I wasn’t ready and became a pirate, and did a couple other factions and quite a few side quests before even starting the main quest line, was able to explore right away. Everything else was pretty accurate lol love the animations and your humor, great take 👏

Finally RU-vid recommendations are working,its been years since a under 5k channel made me sub with one video,and as viewer number 401, I really enjoyed this. The production quality,animated sections are punching well above their weight for a game review and I cant wait for more people to watch this. I am so excited to go through the backlog.I wont be playing starfield for probably 5 years as thats typically how long it takes for bethesdas game to actually become interesting after bug fixes,dlc and modding becomes plentiful (price drop as well) . I was not turned of by spoilers and I agree thematically it works,but to have to redo an entire game to get powers that are not even designed with them in mind is bad gameplay synergy. Anyways just wanted to say your work is not going unnoticed and hope to see more vids in the future.

Huh, thought you were a big youtuber. Real quality stuff here.

Idk why I've been finding it cathardic to watch vids of people shitting on starfield lately but here I am stumbling on another vid.

Your storytelling is incredible. When you were reading the pilgrims writing gave me chills. What a gorgeous piece of writing from this game and your voice matched perfectly.

smol channel, BIG production value. Seriously blows my mind the amount of work you put into this video. Pretty good. 🐱

Severely underrated channel, dude. It’s obvious there’s real effort into these videos and it’s honestly impressive how high the quality it is.

This is the first video of yours I’ve ever watched, and the amount of effort you put into the animations despite them being such a minor element of your review is amazing, to me. Well done!

This is the first video I've seen of you, and I gotta say the critique was excellent, it was funny, and the 3d segments were unnecessarily badass but I am HERE FOR IT. So I'll def be coming back!

Your videos are genuinely great, keep at it; I'm sure the algorithm will start recommending more of your videos to others.

you're doin great dude u gotta be so proud with the sheer quality of ur vids. keep it up & no doubt you'll get the recognition you deserve

Bro when I looked down and saw you only has 7k subscribers I was shocked. The production value, quality of writing, animations and care put into this, I could have sworn you'd at least be in the 100k club. You're amazing! I hope you get the subs you deserve soon because this was really awesome. Keep it up!

"However, Skyrim also succeeds in not making the player do what they don't want to d-" "A NEW HAND TOUCHES THE BEACON"

I'm glad I stumbled across this channel; you put an amazing amount of effort into the animated sections, and it shows! The commentary is witty but its clear that it comes from a place of passion, and I thoroughly enjoyed the video. Great work!

the animations and dedication just for a review video is amazing. Honestly keep it up. Your 3d art is awesome.

Just found your channel and I’m shocked I didn’t find you sooner. Top notch content and a very good, well stated and explained review. I loved the animations you have between chapters, those had me glued to my screen. That aesthetic is wonderful and I could watch entire videos of just that. Honestly, keep up the amazing work.

6:15 i love that the game *ACTS* like you can skip the tutorial. Before making you do it anyways

Dude what the heck. This was so good. Your review, your super cool animations! First video I've seen of yours. Lets get this guy some subs!

Your animations look great, keep it up! Great vid 😉

I'd argue that the starting premise is absolutely falso for Fallout 4. You are not whatever you want to be, you are a very specific character in very specific circumstances. The narrative is twisted beyond redemption. Other than that, the game is... well, ok. I mean, it was released the same year as the witcher 3. It feels so much older...

This iw an amazingly structured video, well edited, fairly critiqued, and entertaining to boot! Youve earned a new subscriber!

Entertaining, creative, funny, intriguing, and with great points as always!

33:16 I am surprised at how much this entire animatic of Zenny fighting the red mech robot is so much more fascinating and cool to witness, than the player searching the entirety of Starfield's random bases and outposts scattered across the planets just to see the same generic alien and pirate gang enemies you fight all the time in these desolate, abandoned places. No legit surprises with enemy variety, no unique mini/optional bosses, nothing in these random locations. You get a 👍🏻 from me for this cool 3D animatic. Must have been time consuming to animate (especially if it was done by just one guy [either you or some other person]).

Starfield also has an infinite amount of content in its loading screens between getting out of a chair, leaving the ship, entering a single room shop, leaving a single room shop, using the tram, using a lift, taking off in the ship, travelling via grav-jump, travelling to a new planet in a system, landing on the planet, and many, many others. So much exciting content. It just works (barely).

This man is about to soar in popularity. So much work and care went into this, it’s just incredible.

The animations were amazing! Especially for the chapter 2 one, you gave a wish to explore that none of the trailers fot this game ever were able to do. Again, amazing!

As one of those 400, I am certainly enjoying myself with this video. Thankyou❤

i’m still astounded with the amount of animation and editing work you put in you’re still not at 1ion yet dude, keep up the amazing work, you’ve got this.

Dude your content is so high quality it’s baffling 🙏amazing job!!

To clarify, The Emissary is whomever you let die. In Zenny's case, it was Sam. In mine, it was Barret.

not gonna like, i misread your subcount at first and thought you had 641k, then i was pretty shocked when i saw again and noticed it was actually just 6.41k sweet mother of god the quality on this video is amazing and i already adore the way you animate everything!

this is my first time coming across this channel but loll bro the persona thing is so cool man. legitimately smiled seeing that. big youtuber in the making.

The worst mistake Bethesda made was to try to make procedural generation baked into the game engine instead of using it as a tool to help them create backdrops to add interesting elements.

I was naive to think Starfield would allow me to collect the best crew, best star ships, kill all the major governments, and conquer the whole settled system. Yeah I was too naive to think I could role play a conquerer. I was too naive to think I should be able to start my own space gang and took over Neon as an evil mastermind. I was that naive too. Now I just want to be a normie doing a normal job at Terrabrew and start a family with a wife. Wait the only wives in the whole space are only available when you join Constellation? Okay there goes my naive plan again. When I learn that I can't role play in this game, I lose all motivation to play. I must walk on a story not written by me and those quests I must take? Not interested at all. I mean they all try to sound dramatic and epic, but none of them even TRY to explain why I must be involved. Yeah I must be hugely interested in some stranger's story that I never care about. What's in it for me? That above sums up my Starfield experience :/

It's actually criminal you only have 5k subs. This video is absolutely QUALITY.

The thing that grinds my gears is that I unironically feel I've run out of side content at X00 hours. Go look up "Unique locations starfield". There aren't any. Outside of the cities and main/faction quest locations there are like a whole 4 of them. Red mile, space narco mansion, night at the museum planet, and... that's it? If you do the FC and UC quests and constellation you have seen effectively the whole game in under 30 hours. GG exploring the other 990 planets for a handful of non procgen content.

Thanks for the work animating and rendering your video, it looks stunning

I only made it about 20 hours into the game, I will need to come back to it because with the deep immersiveness of BG3, and the high octane combat of Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty, (two games I was playing in tandem with Starfield) it was hard to feel any kind of satisfaction with Starfield. Great video, was glad to listen to it while I drive around making deliveries.

Starfield is Trash, Daddy Todd says my PC Sucks and I need to upgrade it.

There could have been a really strong message about caring when things seem infinite. Like with the pilgrim giving up immortality for spending time being human where maybe we get that same choice at the end. If we chose to become a star born then the game resets (there would be a backup save because that’s stupid otherwise, thanks Bethesda) and if you choose not to you still play in the same world and maybe get a cool ending cinematic of your character spending time and living with your choices and your friends. Again with the caring bit, it can be seen with the earth situation where earth was a place of massive importance, our home as a species, but was given up for the infinite expanse of space. It would’ve been cool to see that theme followed throughout and was shown a lot more

Dude the quality of this video is insane. Keep up the good work!

barely 20 minutes in and i can already tell this will probably be one of the most nuanced takes on the game i’ve seen. Glad to see you’re willing to point out its genuine achievements just as much as it’s shortcomings. thank you!

new sub. the level of work that you are doing in these videos is stupid. i love it. keep up the good work. the personality is also very funny. look forward to more vids

Once again, I love seeing you praise the small bits of games that are done well even when they fumble on the rest! Love the overarching animated story across your videos too, really creative!

i was during this video often like "you actually LIKE that part ?" like with slaiton. why would he kill this random guy you just met and be like "you get to choose if he lives or dies and like... why ? i have NO relations to this guy. also slaiton just waits for you there even if you achived the stealth section. why not just tell the secretary "yo there is this rich dude and this random person let them come up to me" also there are no morally evil characters. i'm a pirate and they all hate it when i play a pirate live style. like when i killed the courier ship

Well thought out take, witty, lovely stylish animations, thats a 10! Easy subscription 😁

I actually subscribed BECAUSE you put animation in the video....I came to hear others take on a game I enjoy. But I'm staying for the animation and added narrative to it. It's awesome bro 💯🔥

Keep it up man. Love seeing smaller RU-vidrs with great content. I subbed and look forward to more of your work. Hope you continue to do well. Great video. You have a lot of potential to turn this into something.

My dude, I love this presentation. The 3d animation looks amazing! I love that simple style. It’s a crime that you have 7k subs for the quality you are giving.

This game is wide as an ocean, deep as a puddle, yes 100%. But the room this ocean has gives future modders so much room to work, Starfield may become the greatest Bethesda game *ever*. So many open ended story lines, so many things unexplored that modders and DLC may open this game up from limitless potential into reality. This game as it is now is very foundationally sound, which is a lot better than the past few Bethesda games (Fallout 4 and Fallout 76) and from release has a lot less bugs than Skyrim. I'm very encouraged from what I see, I just hope the potential is realized by Bethesda and the modding community. But all critiques levied against this game is 100% valid.

Honestly this was the review I was waiting for! You took everything I thought about Starfield, brought it into a new context and made me appreciate the good things about a game I really didn't think I'd appreciate. Also you got a pottymouth. 5/7 - absolutely my favourite Video of yours, and the best discourse on Starfield that I've seen so far! Thanks mate

The production value of this channel is through the roof. Take my sub you glorious bastard, and I am looking forward to watching this channel bloom.

400 people or no this does need more views its so high quality well done!

If you liked the dimension hopping quest you'll probably love TitanFall's II campaign. One of the final missions is that mission, except done so very epically fluidly, and actually using the game's core mechanics.

damn your writing and presentation is so good cant believe you only have like 5k subs

What I find funny is how you're wrong about why Barrett went to the lodge. The highest affinity stays on the Eye, the second highest goes to the lodge. So Barrett was your second highest, not your lowest. On a different note, I disagree with more than a few of your opinions but it is interesting for you to point out a few missions I missed on Neon. I'm glad you were able to enjoy the game much more than I did.

This is incredible, some of the best video essays I've seen since sequilitis. Earned that subscription.

I appreciate the generally fair tonality paired with spikes of bafflement. I definitely would not be able to come with such a balanced approach to a polarizing game like Starfield, so kudos to ya. Theres a plethora of other issues you could have mentioned, and I'm sure you probably considered doing so, but I get how some things don't make the final cut in videos. All in all great video!

When I first did the anomaly mission. When I teleported and fought those bugs and came back to the other reality. I straight up thought it was that Love Death & Robots episode where the spaceship crew died and the captain was captured by some grotesque bug. And I was in an altered reality by a big Queen or something.

Your animated sections are rad. I was just listening to your commentary, but then started watching because of the animated sections.

Bro I just found you today, second video I'm watching and I just noticed only 16k subscribers???? The quality of your videos made me assume you had at least a couple hundred thousand, definitely earned my sub. You're gonna blow up one day soon

A amazing video and fantastic edit

amazing video as always but i'm still gonna be mad for the low views anyways thanks for gracing us with ur art :D

The "Do you know the way to Uranus?" guy sounds more like someone I'd want to adventure with than any of the insufferable dozy twats they saddle you with.

New sub, I really enjoyed the animation in between segments! Such a neat way to structure a video essay/critique of a video game. I also loved the ending which placed an emphasis on the buyer/player going out to form their own opinions on the game rather than be swayed by a review. Anyway, great video!

For having less than 7k subscribers at the time of my viewing, you have a very good presentation. Also, the animated stuff during the critique was pretty fun and entertaining as well. Nice video, liked 👍and subscribed! As far as Starfield is concerned, I am having fun with it at over 200 hours played so far. However, I feel the game has gone backwards in some regards compared to Bethesda's prior games. For every step forward I feel they have taken two steps backwards in other areas. Too many to name here right now, but overall it was a fun game that will only get better with patches and the inevitable mods.

First video of yours I've seen and your style and production value is very impressive and unique. Great work!

Honestly, this is the greatest, most honest review of starfield I have seen. It acknowledges the successes and failures and gives a great representation of the game. Kudos to you!

Damn man just found another banger channel with some amazing animations keep up that style

I honestly really like this review of Starfield! Having played it (and started NG+) I agree with everything said here.

I hate to be this person but Cyberpunk’s 2.0 Update & phantom liberty really made it unplayable to me. This is the first BGS game that I dropped after about a week of playing. Even tho I have my problems with Fallout 4, I still put hundreds of hours into that game cuz at least there’s a unique hand-crafted world. Starfield is such a bland, missed opportunity. Only four cities? Not even one sentient alien life form? In an entire universe? Just a bunch of humans & AI generated plains? Bullshit lol

I love seeing your animation and how you tie it into your pacing. Keep it up 🔥

hmm a cozy nice channel i stumbled upon here, dude other than the video content, your 3D skills are really impressive, i loved those small episodic sort of clips