Info about Subterrain: Mines of Titan:

Official game description:
  
After a massive meteor strikes the icy surface of Titan, nothing is left but a vast deposit of rare minerals. The TECC mining company rushes to establish a colony on Titan and successfully tap the riches, until the colony goes dark. It takes years to mount a salvage expedition to the far flung moon of Saturn, so make it count. Restart the flow of resources and figure out what happened to the first wave of colonists.  
Stand between the sole survivors of Camp Huygens and total obliteration by Saturn's darkest mysteries. Every turn counts in the desperate struggle for survival, as Titan will not wait around - and neither should you.  
*   Titan is an unrelenting dynamic, persistent world. Every action and step advances time and brings Camp Huygens closer to collapse, unless someone intervenes.  
*   Help surviving colonists with their tasks, assign key jobs, harvest materials, and organize crafting stations to keep the doom at bay.  
*   Manage food and water intake, keep tabs on oxygen and energy levels, and treat any sustained injuries, all while penetrating the abandoned mining tunnels beneath the surface.  
*   Track the passage of time efficiently or it might turn out that the greatest threat to Camp Huygens isn't Titan or its monsters... but you!
*   Unearth the mysteries of Saturn's most famous moon and go deep beneath its surface to face off against its many horrors.  
*   Fight the monstrosities using intuitive, brisk turn-based combat. Do you make the fight close and personal, risking death as you go toe to toe? Or plink from afar, hoping that ammo won't run out at the wrong time?  
*   Harness the power of nanomachines to unleash devastating abilities against foes, but also sacrifice the ability to physically pummel monsters into submission?  
*   Gain experience and power alongside the celestial creatures underground. Evolve and adapt tactics, or perish in the darkness of Titan's mines!
*   Craft an endless array of items thanks to a small handful of allies like weapons and elbow grease.  
*   Salvage what you can, break it down into materials, and produce tools like melee weapons, firearms, protective gear, explosives, and countless survival upgrades.  
*   Enhance yourself with medical supplies and continue research to develop even better versions.  
*   Survive long enough to unearth the terrible truth of what happened to the first wave of colonists or find a way to get off the doomed moon, no one said you get both...

Release date: 12 Mar, 2024

Categories: Survival, Resource Management, Turn-based Combat, Dungeon Crawler, Character Progression, Base Building, Single-player Story, Research and Discovery


- Hardware Profile: No data
Feature extractions:
- Community Price: No data
- Playtime Metrics: No data
- Time-to-fun: No data
- Player Archetypes: No data


Below are summaries of things people say about the game per category.
Each point is assigned a weight that represents how often it is mentioned across all reviews.
What players like:
- Engaging, rewarding core gameplay loop (weight 0.96): The game offers engaging and rewarding gameplay through its well-designed systems. This includes satisfying combat, strategic resource management, meaningful exploration, and a compelling progression system that encourages experimentation and skillful play. The game also features excellent difficulty options.
- Compelling narrative, immersive story (weight 0.59): The game features a well-crafted narrative with interesting characters and a compelling story. The plot, world-building, and character interactions contribute to an immersive experience, making the game engaging and memorable.
- Responsive developer, frequent updates (weight 0.5): The development team is highly responsive and actively addresses player feedback. They frequently release patches and updates to fix bugs, improve the game, and add new features based on community suggestions, demonstrating a commitment to ongoing support.
- Deep crafting and resource management (weight 0.47): The game provides a wide array of items, crafting options, and resources to manage. This allows for strategic preparation and customization, enhancing the player's ability to tackle challenges and progress through the game.
- Variety of character builds (weight 0.43): The game offers a variety of starting options and character builds, encouraging experimentation and replayability. Players can explore different playstyles and strategies, adding depth and customization to their experience.
- Appealing graphics and atmosphere (weight 0.35): The game features appealing graphics, a fitting atmosphere, and good sound design. The visual and auditory elements contribute to the overall immersive experience, enhancing the game's aesthetic appeal.
- Nostalgic, reminiscent of classics (weight 0.13): The game evokes a sense of nostalgia by drawing inspiration from classic RPGs and other well-known titles. This creates a familiar yet refreshing experience for players who appreciate retro-style gameplay and design.
- Improvement over previous installment (weight 0.05): The game is considered a significant improvement over its predecessor. It addresses previous issues and enhances the overall gameplay experience, making it more enjoyable for both new and returning players.

Common complaints:
- Tedious micromanagement and repetition (weight 0.63): The game suffers from tedious micromanagement, repetitive tasks, and a lack of clear direction.  Players spend excessive time managing inventory, crafting, and resources, leading to frustration and boredom. The gameplay loop becomes repetitive, and the game feels like a chore, artificially extending playtime without adding meaningful content.
- Restrictive and unbalanced economy (weight 0.48): The game's economy and progression feel restrictive and unbalanced.  Credits are required for almost every action, including crafting, research, and basic needs, but earning them is difficult. This creates a frustrating cycle of grinding and limits player agency.
- Punishing durability and repair system (weight 0.47): The game's durability system is frustrating, as equipment breaks quickly and repairs reduce maximum durability. This forces players to constantly manage equipment and resources, leading to save-scumming and a feeling of constant degradation. The cost and mechanics of repairs make them feel ineffective and punishing.
- Unbalanced difficulty and frustrating encounters (weight 0.3): The game suffers from difficulty spikes, balance issues, and frustrating enemy encounters. Players can easily become overwhelmed by numerous enemies and debilitating status effects, leading to save-scumming and a sense of unfairness. Some enemies and bosses are particularly frustrating due to their abilities or unbalanced damage output.
- Uninspired quests and NPCs (weight 0.21): The game's quests and NPCs feel disconnected and uninspired. Side quests are often repetitive fetch quests with little guidance, and the colony management aspect feels inconsequential. The NPCs and their storylines are not well-executed, and the world feels empty and unrewarding.
- Poor map design and navigation (weight 0.18): The game's map design and navigation are poor, making it easy to get lost and requiring excessive backtracking. Movement speed is slow and restrictive, and the lack of clear guidance and fast travel options adds to the frustration. This makes exploration feel tedious and time-consuming.
- Underwhelming weapons and skills (weight 0.17): Certain weapons, skills, and accessories are underwhelming or ineffective, especially in the late game. Melee combat is particularly weak, and some unique items lack upgrade options or become useless. This limits player choice and build diversity.
- Annoying and trivial wave defense (weight 0.13): Invasions and wave defense events are frequent and annoying, disrupting exploration and requiring constant base management. Turrets are often too effective, trivializing the defense aspect and making player intervention unnecessary. This feels more like a chore than a genuine threat.
- Disappointing final boss and endgame (weight 0.1): The final sections of the game suffer from unbalanced difficulty, frustrating enemy patterns, and a lack of meaningful rewards. The final boss fight is poorly designed and relies on repetitive mechanics, leading to a disappointing conclusion. Some players also encountered bugs during the final boss fight.
- Simplistic and inconsequential survival (weight 0.07): Survival mechanics are too simplistic, with resources readily available and money becoming trivial. This removes any sense of tension or challenge, making the survival aspect feel inconsequential. The game imposes restrictions that reduce player freedom.
- Unoriginal story and repetitive gameplay (weight 0.06): The story is unoriginal and similar to the first game, lacking originality and leaving some plot points unanswered. The game design is inferior to the previous installment, and the gameplay becomes monotonous and boring due to repetitive environments.
- Unreliable guns with jamming issues (weight 0.06): Rifles and other guns suffer from frequent jamming issues and rapid durability loss, making them unreliable and requiring frequent repairs. This affects accuracy and wastes turns, leading to frustration in combat.
- Poor localization and language support (weight 0.05): The game lacks proper localization and language support, making it difficult for non-English speakers to understand the story and data. Some parts of the interface have awkward translations, and the game's difficulty is inconsistent.

Gameplay feedback:
- Deep resource management focus (weight 0.39): The game heavily emphasizes resource management, requiring players to carefully balance supplies, equipment, and base resources like food, water, and power. Oxygen and light sources are consumed over time while underground, adding tension to mine runs. Players must also manage their character's needs, such as rest, food, and gear repairs, making expeditions a calculated risk.
- Strategic turn-based gameplay (weight 0.34): The game features turn-based gameplay affecting combat, movement, and base management. This system allows for strategic planning and eliminates frantic clicking, but some reviewers find the combat static with limited maneuverability.
- Pollution/Nano-contamination mechanic (weight 0.24): The game features a pollution/nano contamination mechanic that increases over time, affecting the game's difficulty and potentially transforming the player into a monster. Players can use nanotechnology to farm mutants for resources, adding a unique twist to resource gathering.
- Character customization and progression (weight 0.17): Players can level up stats, unlock perks, and customize their character's strengths and tactics. Character upgrades primarily grant skill points, with attribute increases tied to specific actions. The game offers diverse combat styles, including melee, ranged, and special abilities.
- Linear exploration with choices (weight 0.05): The game features a journal system, multiple branching paths, and the ability to run from combat. The game is corridor-based, preventing players from wandering off.
- Automated base defense (weight 0.04): Base defense is a tower defense minigame where players place turrets and barricades to defend against waves of enemies attacking the reactor. Reactor defense can be easily managed by placing three turrets and barricading the paths, requiring minimal attention.
- Limited skill point allocation (weight 0.04): The credit system requires doing side quests and smart resource management to avoid struggling with credits. Level cap is currently 35, so you can't just randomly pick skills, and you have to think carefully about the choices in the very late game to get skill points.
- Weak roguelike elements (weight 0.03): The game attempts to be a roguelike with an ID tag unlock system for characters, but provides no real incentive to start over and play as them. The map is fixed, lacking roguelike replayability.
- Varied weapon options (weight 0.03): The game offers a variety of weapon types, including melee, ranged, one-handed, and two-handed options. Some reviewers recommend using ranged weapons or one-handed melee weapons with a shield for combat.

Performance notes:
- Long loading/saving times (weight 0.05): The game suffers from long loading and saving times, especially in the sequel. This is a regression from the original game, and the issue is exacerbated on devices like the Steam Deck. Frequent saving and loading are necessary due to occasional bugs.
- Game-breaking bugs and crashes (weight 0.03): Multiple reviewers encountered game-breaking bugs, including crashes to a black screen and freezes. These issues force players to restart the game, disrupting the gameplay experience.
- Stiff, jerky character movement (weight 0.02): Character movement is described as stiff and jerky, with noticeable pauses between actions. This impacts the player's sense of control and responsiveness, making the game feel less fluid.
- Bugs affect crafting/recycling (weight 0.01): There are bugs related to upkeep, maintenance, crafting, and recycling. The reviewer notes that changing upkeep and maintenance should affect the end results of crafting and recycling, but it does not.
- Disable VSync for responsiveness (weight 0.01): Turning off vertical synchronization (vsync) can improve movement responsiveness. This suggests that vsync may be adding input lag, which negatively affects the player experience.

Recommendations:
- Generally recommended for genre fans (weight 0.67): Many reviewers recommend the game, especially to fans of turn-based RPGs, survival horror, and dungeon crawlers. Some suggest it's a great entry point to the genre, while others compare it favorably to similar titles like Underrail and Stoneshard. However, some reviewers suggest caution due to flaws.
- Purchase on sale recommended (weight 0.54): A common suggestion is to wait for a sale or significant discount before purchasing. Some reviewers feel the game isn't worth the full price due to flaws or that the content doesn't justify the cost, while others suggest it's worth it on sale.
- Game has notable flaws (weight 0.5): Some reviewers mention flaws such as conflicting systems, balance issues, bugs, poor translation, tedious quests, and repetitive environments. These issues detract from the experience and may require overlooking them to enjoy the game.
- Not for casual players (weight 0.46): Some reviewers do not recommend the game to casual players or those with limited time due to its complexity and slow pace. The game may require a significant time investment to learn its systems and progress.
- Turn-based system is divisive (weight 0.37): The move to a turn-based system is a positive change for some, offering methodical decision-making. However, players looking for a turn-based game should consider other options as well.
- Consider playing first game (weight 0.36): Some reviewers suggest playing the first Subterrain game instead of this one for the full experience. Others recommend this game for an easier time with the same general story.
- Wait for further patches (weight 0.09): Several reviewers suggest waiting for further patches and optimization before playing. They note that the developers are actively working on the game and addressing issues, but it may be best to wait until it's more stable and complete.
- Improve tutorial and guidance (weight 0.06): Several reviewers point out a lack of in-game guidance and suggest improvements to the tutorial. They recommend consulting online guides or providing more in-game hints for quests, map navigation, and resource acquisition. Bringing specific items for late-game choices and continuous research are also recommended.
- Story-driven, not open-world (weight 0.04): The game is a story-driven experience focused on survival and achieving specific goals, not an open-world crafting sim with RPG elements. It is recommended for those who enjoy exploring dungeons, crafting items in a sci-fi setting, completing quests, and reading the story.

Other player notes:
- Strategic preparation is essential. (weight 0.06): The game requires strategic preparation, including farming locations, barricade construction, and carrying essential supplies. Mines and plants respawn within 2-3 in-game days. Players must adapt to resource availability and enemy encounters to survive.
- Resource research unlocks key items. (weight 0.05): Certain key items and crafting recipes are unlocked by researching specific resources found in mines. This encourages exploration and resource management, as fire fruits are needed for grenades and bombs to breach secret walls, while navigation module requires passage through fire.
- Development updates have ceased. (weight 0.04): The game received frequent updates, but the updates have stopped. This indicates that the game is no longer being actively developed, which may impact long-term player engagement.
- Inconsistent translations/word usage. (weight 0.03): Inconsistent translations and word usage suggest potential issues with the game's localization. This can lead to confusion and hinder player understanding of game mechanics and story elements.
- Specific crafting tips matter. (weight 0.03): Specific crafting tips, such as saving bone marrow extract and understanding skill limitations, can significantly impact gameplay. Players need to be aware of these nuances to optimize their character builds and resource management.
- Manage credits via resource sales. (weight 0.03): The game features a credit system that can be managed by selling resources, completing side quests, and using repair kits. Efficient credit management is crucial for progression and acquiring necessary equipment.
- Random ID cards hinder completion. (weight 0.03): ID cards provide bonuses, but their random distribution makes 100% completion difficult. This may frustrate completionist players who aim to achieve full game completion.
- Lacks voice acting; requires reading. (weight 0.02): The game lacks voice acting, requiring players to engage in a significant amount of reading. This may impact player immersion and accessibility for those who prefer audio-based storytelling.
- Multiple endings based on choices. (weight 0.02): The game features multiple endings and quest outcomes based on player choices, creating a butterfly effect. This enhances replayability and allows for personalized narrative experiences.
- Late-game choice limits options. (weight 0.02): A late-game choice locks players out of previous areas and crafting opportunities. This decision should be made carefully, as it affects the player's ability to explore and prepare for the final chapter.
- Incomplete monster compendium. (weight 0.01): The monster compendium requires researching materials dropped by specific monsters, but some monsters are excluded. This may disappoint players interested in fully documenting the game's creatures.

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