#but treasured trophies only appearing once you've beaten the ruin

[lilietsblog]

I beat Starbound yesterday night

like, okay, this is not a game you just 'win' and that's it. The main quest is just one thing you get to do alongside tech tree progression, and there is a thousand things to do that open up alongside this progression, and with the latest update there is a whole new tech tree for the mechs to pursue

I did not expect much from finishing the 'main quest' it was just kinda the next thing to do and then get on with all the other goals I had in mind (upgrading my mech, the bunch of stuff for my colony, making a cool interior for my ship)

like seriously, I thought, what is this quest even building up to? There's no way it won't be silly and underwhelming

I'm not spoiling I'm just saying I was wrong it wasn't

okay maybe if the mc was allowed to have personality + relationships beyond like, the way they stand and the pre-programmed people deciding fully on their own to join the mission regardless of what you actually do, it could have been even more poignant and fantastic

but like wow I almost don't feel like going back to the rest of my stuff to do now cause I've... won. I'm done, that's it, there is nothing I can do in this game that will top what just happened

it feels like gameplay should change more after what happened. Not just a 'special reward' with a lot of money and other sweet stuff (bitch I have this much money saved up already and the only reason it's not more is because I keep spending it). There should be a fundamental change somewhere, the world opening up in some way, getting to do something you didn't get to do before

there should be specifically 'postgame' content and not just 'lategame' content you could enjoy in the same way forever without actually ever finishing the main quest

this HOLY SHIT WHAT JUST HAPPENED thing must have some effect on the rest of the universe

like, I knew it wouldn't and I didn't expect it to... and now I feel like it should have coz. holy fuck. that was EPIC

okay i want to not spoil coz EXPERIENCE IT FOR YOURSELVES GUYS but i just want to gush about it so much so im just? going to put this under the cut?

WARNING: SPOILERS FOR STARBOUND MAIN QUEST. IF YOU THINK IT'S NOT SPOILER WORTHY YOU ARE WRONG GO BEAT IT YOURSELF AND THEN COME BACK ONCE YOU HAVE

okay so first of all why don't Novakid have a key? this feels like it should be more of a big deal, like what if my protagonist were a Novakid? they should have at least mentioned that oh yeah there's also Novakid but they weren't around back then or something

second of all holy shit from the beginning of the quest I was wondering, like okay we're going to unlock the gate and??? what then??? you go in to fistfight the fucking Ruin??? the tentacle monster that even the god creator could only lock away and that started out with destroying Earth???

like, okay, we get the keys. yeah. AND THEN WHAT

I thought the game would underplay the size of the Ruin, make it kinda underwhelming and make me question how this thing managed to destroy Earth and be so epic if one person can actually fight it

like okay I've also fought an avatar of Kluex but 1) it MIGHT have just been an automaton and 2) it's an AVATAR. avatars are beatable. its a different class of thing altogether

boy was I wrong. boy did I fucking UNDERESTIMATE the size of the Ruin (and also the developers of the game. holy shit. all the kudos)

it'S A FUCKING PLANET

like you just go through the gate and find yourself on this??? planet??? with instructions to 'destroy the Ruin' and your matter manipulator working unexpectedly unlike all the other missions

just. fistfight the planet. somehow. good luck

it was actually pretty intuitive what to do next? like. it just felt obvious that I would get nothing done on the surface and that the most likely thing to do is dig in. I've got the matter manipulator, it's my magic tool that the Protector left to humanity, LET'S GO FUCK UP A BITCH

and it kind of makes sense that one person can succeed where a deity couldn't. precisely because you're so fucking tiny you're basically beneath notice and you can fuck this thing up from the inside without it being able to do shit about it

also, it's not awake yet. it destroyed Earth by just kinda jerking in its sleep

when something's on that scale, it's pretty understandable that a human-sized person with an environment backpack that lets them survive ANYWHERE short of actual fucking lava would actually be a pretty appropriate opponent

and let's be honest, this was a suicide mission from the beginning. like I don't know what Esther expected to happen when you successfully beat the Ruin but it was kinda obvious that the microbe that caused it would be the first casualty

I also expected it to not be a big deal cause you die and you respawn? the one escort mission I managed to fail (protip: never agree to an escort mission across volcanic lava-filled terrain. or if you do, fill in the lava with earth. dont trust the NPC's ability to not fall in it and burn to death) right the one escort mission I managed to fail told me to not worry cause they probably respawned somewhere safe

and the ship crew gives comments like 'what was I doing before I died?' and 'I feel like I didn't respawn properly' and you just get the impression that respawning after death is a Thing in this unvierse and the only cause to worry is if the mechanism that was supposed to respawn you was destroyed (which is exactly what happened on Earth. like it was supposed to be a... safe place. that's the horror of it)

seriously you beat the Ruin and Esther is like... oh nO... WHAT IS HAPPENING.. iT Is.. unSTABLE??? I dunno bitch what did you think we were trying to do

the odds of it not exploding after being killed from the inside (or imploding, or flooding everything with deadly poison, or burning up, or getting flushed into Death Dismension, or any of the other number of thing that might happen wnen you're in the middle of the body of an eldritch abomination and have just killed it) were like... 1 in a 1 000 000

what did you EXPECT

when you're going down it's so fucking... eerie. there are those things living INSIDE the Ruin. they are freaky and are they alive? do they count as part of its organism or as independent beings? is there even a meaningful distinction on this scale or is it like the white cells in your blood

and then there is the pit, and the AI helpfully warns you to not fall into it and just. oh my fuck. thanks dude I would never have thought of this on my own. the Unhelpful AI is the best thing about this game honestly

and you keep going down and down and its genuinely creepy like whats down there? what are you going down towards? FUCK KNOWS

and then the environment changes and there is this brain matter stuff? and you can't break it like you just can't break it, the matter manipulator doesn't work like that it's not the matter manipulator block from everywhere that has a visual clue of small squares, it starts breaking the brain and it just. can't. whatever it is you're going to try to do with this thing's brain, destroying it with the matter manipulator is not it. it's just not strong enough

and then you get a path inside it and there are standard gate-and-radar mechanisms of boss fight and it's just so silly that those would be inside there but on the other hand reality doesn't really hold up in the face of this thing anyway so might as well

and then you face the Cultists Boss and its honestly so. anticlimactic after all the buildup she had. maybe its just extensive preparation with many buffs i had going (bitch i just fought your entire army and a dragon) but i beat her in like. three cycles. the mechanics and weaknesses were the same as in the first fight in the library and it didnt even feel like i had to try hard

and it was kinda appropriate? like bitch what do you think you're doing. get out of the way i'm trying to save the universe there. THIS THING'S FIRST ACTION WAS DESTROYING EARTH HOW IN THE WORLD DID YOU GET THE IDEA IT FAVORED HUMANS

(true to life. racial supremacists aren't known for their firm grip on reality)

and then it's this thing's... heart? inside its brain? well it's just a convenient term anyway. either way it's the spark of un-life that drives the entire thing and GOOD LUCK YOU'RE ON YOUR OWN

and I just... look. I had freaked out about the army and the dragon because the first time I fought them I quickly ran out of my 13 nanobandages and died

so for the second time I crafted 160 of them

(also I had a Damage III augment on my EPP and really, really cool weapons newly bought in Glitch settlements, so I mowed down mooks by just pistol-machine-gunning-them for a couple of seconds, it was actually kinda freaky how effective I was at damage dealing)

I also died against the Ruin once because augghhhh having the nanobandages on the left click and the medicine kits that heal you slowly over time AND BLOCK NANOBANDAGES FROM WORKING IMMEDIATELY on the right click WAS A BAD IDEA

after respawning i just straight up removed the medicine kits from the quick access. not gonna trip myself up like that the second time

and it was? really freaky but not that hard once I figured it out? like okay actually pretty fucking hard but not like. COMPLICATED. just counterintuitive

like, if the boss always hits the same area with an EYE LASER attack, the logical thing to do is stay out of there, right?

but no. out of there are the tentacles, and they sometimes move without warning and hurt you. while the eye laser attack comes with pretty obvious buildup

and more importantly: the eye laser attack takes like half of your HP. but it KILLS DEAD all the smaller creatures that were harassing you

like oh god this is so appropriate? this un-creature summons living things both from its own body and from across the universe to attack you, but then when it goes on the offensive itself it just destroys them all

it's self-destructive. you can goad it into solving your problems for you because it's NOT SENTIENT. it's a thing more than it is a creature. its goal is to destroy life but its semi-living so it destroys itself

so you just. stay in the eye laser zone, jump, hit it with your swords, ignore the swarm of minions attacking you (well more like hit them with the swords along the way. thats why I prefer weapons with lower damage but quicker attack), and keep an eye on your HP. once its around half, 6 + left click several times until it works + 1 to go back to the swords

also during the eye laser attack it's also a good idea to do the same thing. then you can come out of it with full HP... and no creatures attacking you like bitch thanks for solving my problems

you just have to... keep doing it. its scary. your life is going down really fast and there is no way to kill all the creatures attacking you because it keeps spawning them and there's no safe zone because tentacles

but you just keep going, keep healing yourself, keep tanking the eye laser attack and using it as just another opportunity to jump up and deal damage

and it'll... break. it's not going to regenerate itself the way Big Ape does. it'll just die and that will be it. you'll have won. well okay you're going to die too but THE VICTORY WILL BE YOURS

(and then there's that scene. that scene. that one. it's so good you guys. even my bewilderment at sudden story gameplay separation didn't make it any less freaking epic)

really, the only letdown is that there should have been SOMETHING changing at the Outpost. Maybe this would be a better moment for the Treasured Trophies to appear. Maybe some other shop opening. Maybe a portal to a new peaceful/trading zone entirely.

there should be SOMETHING there