Sable Review:
Sable looks pretty at first glance, like a Moebius painting come to life. But the pleasantries for me, end there. After you leave your initial camp you can set off in any direction to find other small spots of civilization to explore and do quests. Sable is an open world game after all. And I left the starting tutorial after catching some beetles and getting some hovercraft parts and set off to find what this game was all about.
A system of fetch quests
After what seemed like an eternity I found another small camp surrounded by the bones of a giant creature. Not so different than the starting camp. I got two quests from this location: which consisted of activating an ancient device and…geeez…catching some more beetles. Going to the ruins and activating a sort of ancient planetarium was interesting but nothing really mind blowing. Catching beetles was for the most part, boring and nothing more than a mindless affair. So, I go back to camp, complete the quests and wonder what I should do next? Having no choice but to travel to another spot of civilization to get more quests. So off I go, unfortunately.
Lackluster story and writing
Up until this point the writing of the game has been very uninspired and lacking any kind of substance. With characters constantly saying:" Do this quest I know you will have fun!" Or “I know you’re ready for adventure!” Which makes most of the npc’s I talked to seem generic or wooden. There was even a hologram I talked to on a ship that was asking me to make a username to log in to its records. What am I logging into Facebook here?! For a game trying to set up its own lore and technology this felt like extremely laughable writing and took me right out of the games world.
And from the first crashed ship you find it’s pretty clear and obvious that you’re descended from a race of space faring people that crashed on this planet. As most of the ships are literally sticking out of the ground, intact! No real spoilers there as it’s pretty apparent and blatantly obvious. And the game has no other significant mysteries to find after that simple fact. Which makes the world a little less interesting when that dynamic is all it has to offer you, as far as any kind of major twist or turn in its story. Especially when it’s so easy to figure out!
Repetitive puzzles
Continuing on, as I venture off into the wilderness I decide to go into one of the many wrecked ships mentioned above. Once inside these ships you have to solve puzzles. All of the ships I entered had the same type of puzzle: put a power source into one of many slots to activate and move platforms of which you then climb up to get into a main room containing loot. So, from what I played, the puzzles felt extremely boring and repetitive.
An empty wasteland full of elevator music
Next, I began to ride off in many different directions desperately trying to find a city or town to explore but I kept ending up finding nothing. And let me tell you, your hoverbike is extremely slow. At one point I ended up riding in one direction for at least 20 minutes. Only finding more wrecked ships to explore with dull platform puzzles. And on two occasions I even lost all progress because the game locked me out of the save menu! For the most part I felt like the world felt too empty, with camps and settlements being too far apart. And this made me feel like I was roaming a wasteland with no purpose or goal in sight. And the music imo is not very good. It literally sounds like elevator music. Nothing stands out. No sweeping, grand scores just atmospheric music fading into the background.
No battle system: taking something away from Breath of the Wild that made it great
The game has no battle system and relies on pure exploration, similar to The Legend of Zelda Breath of the wild. Which means you have a stamina meter. And the only way to increase your stamina meter is to find these small little creatures that give you something called Chum Eggs. Problem is: after leaving the starting area and having found at least 10 of these things I couldn’t find the main depository for them. In other words: the location or npc that actually takes them off your hands and increases your meter. And in an open world game this large, that’s a problem. The game should introduce you to this immediately before you venture off into the later parts of its world. Seeing how it relies so heavily on your stamina meter and the activity of climbing.
If you need a Moebius fix go replay Panzer Dragoon Saga
In conclusion, I just wasn’t feeling this game. Wandering around what seems like an empty wasteland with little incentive to keep playing. The game just became a chore and a bore for me. Sure the world and art style look nice, with high end Moebius art. But that’s not enough to keep me invested. Especially, when there are: very few gameplay mechanics, repetitive copy and paste puzzles, the writing and story being amateurish at best and the music dulling me to sleep. It’s not a terrible game by any means, but one that you might not want to invest a lot of your time into when there are better games in the genre.
Final Score: 6 or 7 on a good day