The Alters

Good core of a game and interesting presmise for a story, bogged down by way too much frustration and annoyance artificially injected as well as a social aspect that tries to have good characters but then overrides it all with constant repetitive annoyance and character-breaking interactions that just serve to complicate and lengthen the game. I didn't get through act 2 because the social aspect just became too ♥♥♥♥♥♥ to deal with. You go exploring? Act 1 was fun, but act 2 became a maze and every single corridor is full of things you need to stop for to deal with, over and over in exactly the same way. Then your battery is empty, better turn back, walk back and forth... instead of exploring being fun, it's just tedium and wasting a lot of time. Inventory management is very barebones and annoying. Everything takes (a lot of) space, but you need things built to deploy or as consumables. You'll often need more of a thing but oh you can't pick it up. Have to travel back to your base, delete some things you don't need. This is not a factory game, it shouldn't be so damn tight on storage space that you have to min/max it constantly. The "social aspect" however, completely breaks any and all enjoyment in the game. The alters are fundamentally "trying to be people" while also being mechanically manic depressive individuals that don't have any capability for logic and only exist to force the player to nanny them. They'll talk amongst themselves - and every single interaction will be negative, mood drops and you have to manage that. I had the scientist come to me at one point stating he wants to starts crunch hours (new quest) because "it would be so much more efficient". I did that. Unsurprisingly, everyone hated it. Cue rebellion. Same person tells me "we're tired of your mistakes, it's like you don't understand us. re-evaluate or the evaluation will be done for you.". I stop the crunch, do some things to improve mood. Then the same guy, again, gives me ♥♥♥♥ that he's disappointed i wouldn't keep up the crunch for two days straight. Regardles of actions, YOU LOSE, the characters will completely switch personality to ensure that. Fundamentally, they're 10-20% actual interesting character and 80-90% there just to make things difficult for you even if it doesn't make sense. (spoiler for act 2) Even the moral choices implied are all absurd because of the social personality switcheroo; people will eagerly state "oh no we can't create a mindless clone for a cure" and take the moral high ground over a cure for their impending death. But they'll then be super depressed about their impending death five seconds later as if there is nothing anyone can do. People don't behave like that; if people were desperate they would get over morally grey actions to save 4 (or more) people, they may be unhappy but they'll live with it. But they're not people, and they're not deseprate, they just are made to exist like bars do in many survival crafting games; to pad out the length of the game and introduce a hell of a lot of tedium. Regardless of your actions, this game makes sure you "fail" and then gives you ♥♥♥♥ for it, making it objective unenjoyable.