Written by Patrick Orquia
Title: Crashlands
Developer: Butterscotch Shenanigans
Publisher: Butterscotch Shenanigans
Genre: action RPG
Number of Players: up to 2 players
Release Date: 08 November 2018
Price: $14.99
Also Available On: Android, iOS, Steam
Before I started playing Crashlands, I watched a trailer of it and saw that this is an action RPG with crafting involved, similar to the likes of Stardew Valley and Minecraft, but with lots combat involved. I did enjoy Stardew Valley and got really hooked with it, but I thought to myself that I didn’t want to play another game similar to that because it just takes too long to finish (I actually I haven’t finished Stardew Valley, and I have clocked about 60 hours of play time on it). But much to my surprise, Crashlands is one hell of a game.
In the game you play as Flux Dabes, a cosmic trucker who got stuck in a planet called Woanope after encountering the menacing alien Hewgodooko that looks like a giant floating head. With her trusted robotic friend Juicebox by his side, Flux Dabes will have to use her wits and survival instincts to build a new home in the planet that is full of hostile monsters and this not too thrilled seeing Flux poking around and exploring their world. It’s up to you to help Flux get off the planet and be back to his mission.
You start the game in the area where your spaceship crashes. You follow the instructions provided to you by Juicebox to craft your first workstation, and from there, you continue to explore more areas of the map, gather more resources, create new stuff, create new weapons, battle monsters, get loots, combine loots and other materials to make new stuff, and so on. Rinse and repeat. It gets very, very repetitive very easily, to be honest. But fortunately, the game packs enough punch and style to make it stand out from your usual crafting/farming/life simulation games.
First and foremost is the presentation: right on the get go, the game makes it known to you that it doesn’t want to be too serious. The dialogue is humorous and the character design is goofy and the animation is sort of reminiscent of the Flash animations from the early 2000s. You will immediately feel at home with the game, and thus, even if the gameplay becomes very repetitive, you get that urge to explore more and discover new things.
And exploration is the main attraction of the game. This game has a very huge map. Almost unbelievably huge, kind of overwhelming at first glance, but again, the exploration aspect of the game will not make you mind it. I personally got really surprised how big this map is when I was trying to find an area related to a sub-quest. I thought I was already close to fully exploring the map. And then I zoomed out, and I saw that I have only explored less than 10% of the map. I was quite impressed, and thought to myself “this game will take a LONG time to finish” but in a good way, because I was have having so much fun. Also, there are numerous warp stations peppered across the map, so going from one part of the map to another is made easier. You can set any of these warp stations as your main spawn point at which you can re-spawn back to life after dying. And you may die a lot if you are not too careful, so you better make sure to find these warp points as you explore the map.
By the way, aside from all stuff gathering and stuff building, you can also tame monsters, all Pokemon-like. At some point in in the game, you’ll be able to build a nest where you can put a monster egg for it to be hatched on. And yes, that hatched monsters will become your ally. It can assist you in battling against other monsters, which is very welcome help since some of the monsters in this game hurt a lot, some can even one-hit kill you. As you encounter new, more powerful monsters, they, too, can drop eggs upon defeat, and you can then hatch them. You can only take one monster at a time, so it’s up to you on which one to take, depending on your play style. Also, these monsters can evolve if you equip it with certain accessories, and when they do evolve, you’ll see a short cutscene that shows the monster evolving that is very reminiscent of how it is shown in Pokemon games, but to the tune a loud dubstep music. If you’re a fan of Pokemon games, you’ll surely appreciate it. Of course, evolved monsters are more powerful, so you better make your allied monsters evolve for them to give you more assistance in battles.
Overall, Crashlands aim to hook you in and never let you go, but again, the game is very enjoyable to play. And since on the Switch, you can opt to just play in small bursts anywhere, anytime, or play for hours and hours. It’s up to you how to play it, but however you do it, you will have fun. So crash into this game, lose many hours in exploration and gear-crafting, and survive a harsh planet and rule over it.
REPLAY VALUE: Very High
PROS
- Very good character design, animation, and soundtrack
- Funny dialogue between characters
- Very HUGE map to explore
- Deep customization to your character, and each weapon or piece of armor that you equip is shown on the game
- The way the game give out its content in few doses at a time make you explore some more
- The crafting system is easy to follow and do
- Places of interests are shown in the map, even if they are on the unexplored portion of it
- Good use of HD Rumble
- Very ideal on the Nintendo Switch for you to play it anytime, anywhere
CONS
- When you die, you don’t respawn on the last warp station that you discovered. Sure, you can just warp back to that point, but that is an extra step that you have to do
- Very repetitive gameplay
- The very huge map can also dissuade impatient players because there is no clear endgame goal presented to the player
RATING: 4.5/5 gears and monsters
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