Core Keeper Review (apod)
TL;DR: kind of like Terraria. It's a fun game and I recommend it if you like digging/exploration kind of games with rudimentary combat.
This game satisfies most of the same itches Terraria scratches, but with several differences. Lots and lots of digging to find ore to gradually beef up your character, fighting bosses that gate content, building farms for mob drops and food, fishing, etc. That's pretty much where the similarities end. Equipment takes durability damage and needs to be repaired pretty frequently. Farming crops is more reminiscent of Stardew Valley requiring you to till the dirt to plant seeds and maintain a water level in your watering can. There is a very basic talent tree and makes you want to experiment with different things, or look up build guides on youtube.
Regarding areas for improvement:
- Some boss battles. One in particular, somewhat early on is more challenging than the others. There used to be a way for the player to effectively remove one of the mechanics from the battle, but it has been patched out of the game, requiring the player to find another way around some of the annoying mechanics. It's just a very dull encounter that feels like something you have to do just to progress. No real fun in it.
- Playing on hard mode seemingly has one benefit only: more drops from bosses. Doesn't seem worth it seeing as how everything in that mode gets more HP and hits way harder. If there were more benefits to even out the hard mode difficulty slightly, or various exclusive mob drops, it would be fun to take on the challenge.
- There is no way to transport the various liquids in the game to fish in apart from digging extensive trenches back to your main base. The way around this is to have multiple bases in the different biomes.
This review is based on the early access version, so I'll try to update when ver 1.0 releases. Overall it's a lot of fun and I see myself spending many more hours playing Core Keeper.