Among an increasingly crowded quantity of titles devoted to chaos, Lightyear Frontierwhich we are talking about in the review, presents itself as a much calmer game, an adventurous title, but with management.
Developed by FRAME BREAK and Amplifier StudiosLightyear Frontier finally left the early access phase on March 19, and offers a new open-world farming experience on an alien planet. We will take on the role of a agronautleft with his trusted friend agricultural mechlooking for a new world to colonize after the ruin of planet Earth.
Our pioneer's journey comes to a halt on a frontier planet, due to a fault. Having awakened after the crash landing, the agronaut is contacted by “Piper“, the AI of a satellite previously launched near the planet, to support it in finding its trusty agricultural mech and its equipment. Recovered the mech, the agronaut decides to explore the planet and put down roots.
Mechs are the future!
Lightyear Frontier deviates from classic survival and item creation games, focusing its resource production and recovery mechanics on the use of mech. Furthermore, does not respect classic conventions such, removing theand characteristics survival-like, such as the need to drink, eat and sleep, in order to maintain acalm atmosphere And not bound from time. The settings they propose suggestive tones come on bright colors, accompanied by the realism of the mech's movements, a relaxed soundtrack and the calls of fauna. All this manages to unleash the desire for discovery in the player.
Although focused on the use of mechs however, Lightyear Frontier It does not offer any mechanics related to combathowever the high rate of environmental destructibility manages to easily compensate for this shortcoming.
All the actions carried out with the mech, from the simplest to the most complex, are satisfying and fun. For example, plant a seed takes on a completely different tone when it comes fired from a rifle and centers a clod of earth perfectly, or irrigate a field, on the other hand, has more impact if done with a mortar. The use of mechs manages to enrich the management mechanics of the genre, encouraging the player to collect resources to improve their vehicle and unlock new functions such as the plow, an increased fuel reserve for rockets or the possibility of running bareback. 'water with the plows waters.
Life on the space frontier
The management ofexo-farm it does not arise as a preponderant element: its purpose is provide the player with a hangout where to store resources and improve your equipment. Inside the exo-farm we can carry out actions such as cultivate alien seeds of various kinds, from rock pumpkins to electric twigs, or process resources in complex materials, thanks to dedicated machinery such as crushers, millstones and furnaces. The storage of material is managed by a system based on heavyweightwhich we can store in different types of containers, while excess resources can be sold to the merchant to purchase blueprints, seeds and aesthetic modifications of the mech.
Interaction with the faunaat the moment, is limited to Feed the animals and their nests with feed obtained from crops, however according to the game roadmap, later it will also be possible to raise them on the farm. Feeding the individual animal allows you to obtain resources relating to its region, while feeding the nests allows you to have effects of a higher magnitude, such as the accelerated regeneration of resource deposits.
There customization is one of the strengths of Lightyear Frontier: not only can we repaint everything around us, armed with paint sprayers, but the decorative elements placed near the agronaut's home nor do they raise the level of comfortguaranteeing passive benefits such as the critical hit in gathering resources. There trailblazer mode of the mech allows you to create roads and paths within the setting, the use of signs And paints on these roads allows you to establish shortcutsin order to move easily between the regions of the map or report the deposits of rare resources.
L'exploration is the core of the adventure: each region contains new resources to discover and ancient ruinswhich preserve the past of previous civilization upon the agronaut's arrival, and can shed light on the cause of the mysterious pollution of the planet. Before you can obtain the resources held within the regions you need to clean up the environment removing polluting sources, consisting of slimes and harmful weeds. After purifying a region, crops will flourish again, animals will emerge from their nests, and minerals will reform in deposits.
We tested Lightyear Frontier high performance on PC, using an Nvidia RTX 3070 video card and a Ryzen 7 3700x processor. The result was good, as playing with such a build allowed us to play without interruptions.
Unfortunately, the experience currently proposed is short-lived and can be completed alone in the span of 10 hours, while in multiplayer this time is further reduced. Elements such as the interventions of Piper, the narrator of the game, can at some moments ruin the overall experience, overlapping the lines of dialogue relating to the plot, such as during the interaction with the fauna as the mech passes by. Between strengths of the title we find a large one attention to detail within the game environment, which, combined with the realism in the mech's movements, it involves the player in the exploration of suggestive biomes. The possibility of destroying and rebuilding almost every element is another key point capable of giving voice to the creative streak of playing, not only to create your ideal farm, but entire cities, forests, roads and countryside.
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