Staxel (PC) Preview

By Athanasios 23.01.2018

Review for Staxel on PC

The unique and soothing aura of farming simulators ensures that, while their gameplay can feel like a chore from time to time, it all feels strangely pleasant, to the point that even real-life farmers go back from work to spend a couple of hours on titles like Farming Simulator 17. These are "hardcore" farming sims, however. Most people are more familiar with… video game-y things like the Harvest Moon series, or its fantastic, modern homage, Stardew Valley. Now, what if people that have worked on the latter decided to throw in a little bit of Minecraft into the mix? Cubed3 welcomes you to a first look at Plukit's Staxel.

Ready the ground, put those seeds to good use, and water your plants each day. Staxel, being your basic farming simulator, is easy to grasp, especially if you follow the, admittedly, quite boring and, almost unnecessary, tutorial; a tutorial that gets you started, but, sadly, leaves you to discover the rest on your own, something quite annoying when it comes to some very important parts, like crafting, for instance. Of course, this being in an Early Access stage of development, it doesn't matter so much - even more so due to the fact that this already offers an insane time sink.

Screenshot for Staxel on PC

Heavily influenced by Minecraft, this provides more than 100 hours of creative fun, where you can literally shape everything: from your ranch, barn, farmland, and the village near it, to the forests, beaches, and mountains around those… but only as long as you don't mind doing so block, by block, by block… and, yes, by block. The only problem is that, apart from creating a farm, the rest of the world isn't as dynamic as expected. You can create mines, mansions, temples, gardens, and much more, but don't expect anything to happen within those anytime soon.

One part that needs some serious work is the role-playing aspect, as, in all honesty, three hours of SNES' Harvest Moon has more… RPG in it than what one could get from 30 hours playing this. Sure, you can talk to NPCs, but don't get your hopes up for something more than a brief response. At least you can get your daily RPG fix by playing online, something that will definitely be a big part of the final product, although it's hard to make any more predictions from the current state of this simplistic, multiplayer mode.

Screenshot for Staxel on PC

The good news is that Staxel is extremely addictive, even in its current, incomplete state, but many things must change in order for it to remain so after its final release. Crafting and building must get some tweaks; a traditional, user-friendly shopping menu should become an option; and, most importantly, this would surely benefit from some form of "challenge," like, for example, some sort of survival mechanics that force you to feed and shelter your avatar, or some traditional quests. In other words, this should feel more like a "real" videogame, not just an awesome sandbox.

Also, how is it possible to talk about Staxel and not mention its charming voxel look? Unless allergic to cubes (why are you on Cubed3, then?!), this distinctive visual style looks great, giving the necessary incentive to go out there and play god with this small, yet gargantuan island. The only flaw? While visually superior to Minecraft, Markus Persson made sure to craft (no pun intended) a game engine that most systems found pretty easy to handle, while this can get somewhat system hoggish at times - not to mention that objects further away lose a lot more detail than they should.

Screenshot for Staxel on PC

Audio should get some major boost, too, since, besides the OST that aims to be as unobtrusive as possible, this lacks the required ambient sound effects. Generally, apart from the gameplay itself, Plukit must make sure to turn the level of immersion as high as possible, because, to be honest, this isn't The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. It's not about getting lost in an epic adventure, but about role-playing as a humble farmer; not everyone's cup of Tennessee whiskey, but those who "get" it will surely fall in love with what's on offer.

One final thing that must be said about Staxel is that it has (as expected) already gathered a pretty passionate fan-base, and one of the things where the "blame" should be put on is it's highly mod-able nature. While it's impossible to predict what will happen between now and the end of 2018 when this is bound to get officially released, it's highly likely that the modding community will do some wonders with this fascinating piece of software.

Screenshot for Staxel on PC

Final Thoughts

As with most Early Access products, Staxel needs work. It needs work audio-visually-wise; it needs work gameplay-wise; it needs work role-playing-wise. Luckily, this is already a pretty immersive sandbox farming simulator, worthy of the thousands of hours that will be spent upon it.

Developer

Plukit

Publisher

Humble Bundle

Genre

Simulation

Players

1

C3 Score

Rated $score out of 10  n/a

Reader Score

Rated $score out of 10  0 (0 Votes)

European release date None   North America release date None   Japan release date None   Australian release date None   

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