Goodeye8

I would add that calling it hard core Minecraft might set the wrong expectation. It’s derived from Minecraft (I think it originally started as a Minecraft mod with a different name before spinning off) but since then it’s gone in a completely different direction to Minecraft. If you go into Vintage Story expecting it to be like Minecraft you’re probably going to have a bad time because your Minecraft knowledge doesn’t really transfer over. Minecraft is a lot more adventure focused while Vintage Story has gone the other route, it’s taken survival as the central focus and the adventure is largely built around survival.

And it does survival very well because it actually turns it into a motivation to go and explore. If you just sit around you are going to die. If you don’t set up a farm and cellar and collect food for the winter, you are going to die in the winter. If you don’t find different types of crops your farm will run out of whatever nutrient you’re using and you have to start refreshing the soil. If you don’t find warm clothes you’re going to freeze in the winter. Your survival also depends on the variety of food, if you eat only one type of food you’ll have less health (more variety in food means more overall health). You get so many external motivators to go out and explore simply because if you don’t do it you won’t survive. And in that sense I actually find exploration in Vintage Story a lot more rewarding that in Minecraft.

I would also add that Vintage Story has a modding scene and some of the mods IMO are kind of a must-have QoL updates. I haven’t tried the most recent update so I don’t know if some of those things have been improved or not. The mods I recommend are Auto Map Markers (because you want to mark down whatever resource you find because you’re probably going to need it. This mod automates that), better prospecting (I would recommend first trying out vanilla prospecting before using this mod. This mod makes prospecting less annoying) and Carry on (at the start you don’t have a lot of storage space so being able to pick up chests and move them around is very useful).

I’m also liking it, it’s been the only game I’ve played for the whole week. The start was kind of rough and the controls still have some issues (it’s just weird. Sometimes they feel responsive, other times it feels like I’m having some kind of an input lag despite doing the same action), but overall I’m really enjoying the slow burn of the game. I’m about 40 hours in and I’m still in Hernand (which itself isn’t really that surprising considering how big Hernand is) which is the first area of the 5 big areas of the game. Much like Breath of the Wild I’m so enamored by the exploration I keep getting sidetracked and if the rest of the world keeps sidetracking me as much as Hernand does I don’t know when I’ll finish the main quest (which kind of like in BotW isn’t the main focus of the game).

The puzzles are also a breath of fresh air because they are actual puzzles. I’ve literally had to open a notepad to take notes so I could solve a puzzle. And then there are puzzles where you have a map and you need to find the locations in the world that are on the map but you first have to figure out what location on the world the map is referencing because it’s not entirely 1 to 1 so sometimes I have the puzzle map open on my second screen in case I run into some area that looks like the map.

The combat is my god. I might just thrown my sword down and go full WWE because that shit is funny as fuck. I’m not joking. You can grab enemies and throw them at other enemies. You can clothesline, lariat, suplex, belly flop I don’t even know what else. You can literally fight like a wrestler and it’s just as flashy as you imagine it. The only problem with the combat IMO are the bosses. The bosses are bad. I’ve had I think 4 boss fights and 3 of them were literally just me tanking the hits because for the love of god I couldn’t figure what I was supposed to do. Soulsborne games are close to my heart, I’m not swayed by getting my ass beat as long as I can figure out what I’m supposed to do to not get beat. But when I try literally everything that comes to my mind and nothing works I’m just going to evade what I can and tank the rest and beat through attrition. And that’s not fun. The evasions on boss attacks are also kinda weird. I don’t think I have that poor pacing but sometimes I press dodge at the same time I would always press it and sometimes I don’t get hit, other times I get hit. Hopefully combat gets an extra pass by the developers because they’ve been pretty open to feedback and some obvious grievances have already been fixed.

Overall I’m so ready to play it for the rest of the year, which is probably how long it will take me to be done with the game.