izigame.me

The first 15 hours of the game for me has been super fun. Some casual exploring and finding all kinds of new stuff. That was really fun and I got the slime hybrids I wanted and their favorite foods next to them. Money is plenty and I had a fun time exploring and collecting. There are a lot of nice plot upgrades and unique slime types to collect outside of the standard hybridization. At first, it was a very nice and relaxed slow-paced game. However, as you get more into it you start to realize just how slow paced it is.
The game has some major issues I would like to criticize. Until they address it, for me I only recommend the game if it was on sale for like 30% off. I would have given up on this game if my friend didn't encourage me to play it with them each night (*by the way the game is singleplayer, we just play on call).
The grind is EXCESSIVE. Despite having collected all the slimes I want so far, I'm still using first to second tier gear. Why? Well upgrades consist of two things. Resources and a vital part. The vital part is found in treasure pods that is placed by the developers which is fine if all of them were intuitive and part of exploration. Instead, to find most of them you will probably have to watch an hour long tutorial on YouTube to figure out where they are. All the easily findable pods are just base decorations. This was a major limiting factor until I caved and pulled out the hour long YouTube video which isn't even really playing the game.
Additionally, the resources use a random spawn mechanic. They randomly spawn at potential spawn locations at the start of each day. Most of the resources are a little grindy but possible. However, there are two in particular that have limited my progress. Jellystone: you need like a thousand of and the total spawns for it is much smaller than others. Strange Diamond is absurdly rare it has been 2 hours of walking through cave since I found one and yet the main most important quality of life upgrades (Extra tank and two-way teleporters) are locked behind SEVERAL strange diamonds. I haven't even needed sunsap or the severe weather-dependent ones yet but I heard that was a huge issue as well with sunsap was just as rare as strange diamond and the weather-dependent ones can be even rarer depending on your look to actually get that weather event to occur. I didn't play the first game but I get that too many people called it easy. However, locking quality of life behind a mountain of an RNG grind is not the solution. Maybe consider adding a section to the store that randomly sells some resources each day for a high price since money is plentiful in the game.
Many times when exploring I just have to stand there and wait for my jetpack to recharge. I think I've had waited at least an hour throughout the course of the game of just waiting for the jetpack to recharge because the game discourages travel without the jetpack instead of making it acessible by jumping but then hardly gives you any energy and makes the thing consume so much power. Don't get me wrong, locking progression behind a jetpack is a good idea because it's relatively easy to get. However, once you already gotten to the new areas locked behind jetpack there really doesn't need to be so many times where the only way to move vertically or through a giant gap is by jetpack so you just go up... wait for recharge... go up... wait for recharge... go up... wait for recharge. At that point it's not progression anymore and just making the player wait. The fact that jetpack shares the same energy as sprinting makes the game even slower. Sorry you sprinted to this vertical only section, now you have to wait even more. That or, you accidentally sprinted all your energy away and fell into the ocean because that disabled the jetpack, now restart your progress for the day! I understand making specific optional areas of exploration locked off behind jetpack usage as that is a fun and creative way to encourage OPTIONAL exploration that you wouldn't otherwise find, but ESSENTIAL exploration should not have to be such a tedious game of waiting if you've already progressed past the main block that requires jetpack. Once again the game has put me into a situation that does not include playing the game. Either I look up a YouTube video on the vital upgrade parts and where to grind its excessive resources or I just sit there and stare at the screen for a bit waiting for my jetpack to recharge each time. If only there was a way to teleport to my location, but those require strange diamonds.
Many people have complained about needing 1000 shadow plorts for the new area is insane but ironically for me that's been the least painful grind because I can at least somewhat consistently get shadow plorts unlike strange diamonds. How is shooting 1000 slimes that actively dodge and jump off cliffs with an inventory full of chickens you raised and a max inventory space for 50 shadow plorts a more preferable alternative then making a "resource route" and walking through it/resetting it each day? Because at least you're doing something as opposed to just running through the same optimal route over and over hoping your resource is there.
Go out hunting for these quality of life improvements for too long and you come home a slime revolt form hungry slimes. Regardless of leaving 100 food and setting the feeder to slow, by the time you get back from getting one strange diamond they'll be hungry and ready to revolt. Took care of it? Now you gotta take care of them and scoop their 200 plorts per plot which takes another 30 minutes unless you're just chill with it piling up all over the place. There should be some way to automate this or and upgrade to lower the responsibility time/revolt consequences so I don't have to worry about my rare dervish slime and yolk slimes being devoured by an escaped slime turn tarr.
Hopefully in the future, since this game is still in early access, they consider a way of consistently getting it instead of hoping the RNG system favors you this day. Despite all my complaining the first portion was still a magical experience. I haven't played the first game but I see a lot of people talking about drills and drones from the first game and they would help out a lot so that's why I'm holding onto hope and still giving it a positive review. I heard Slime Rancher 1 had a lot of solution for these problems, but I didn't play it so I don't know. Regardless, if there was solutions, why did you wait to the very end of early-access as we near version 1.0.0 to add it to the game? That is if they even end up actually do adding it again.