Nightingale captivates with its charming aesthetics, yet fails to conceal its lack of depth. Players acquainted with survival games might deem it overly familiar, albeit generally unobjectionable, apart from occasional technical and server glitches.
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00:00So Joel has been playing Nightingale, it's currently in early access so we've got an
00:07early access review, there's no score of it but hopefully we'll give you a good idea about
00:11this game and if it's something you're interested in playing.
00:13Now the game itself from what we've talked about Joel, it really does want you to lose
00:17yourself in this world but there is one aspect which I found very funny and you found very
00:22funny as well which is actually kind of annoying.
00:24Can you give me a little bit of a taste of what is frustrating about Nightingale?
00:27Ah Nightingale, is it thus which thou be ranging in the mottled undergrowth with such
00:33lupine countenance for want of bearing witness to mine merited judgement?
00:37Forsooth I entreat thee, prithee spy upon yonder amble dappled horizons, tis a survival
00:43crafting game, touched by the fae yet thou shall stop.
00:47I think we've lost about half of the people that are currently watching and listening
00:50already.
00:51There's so much more of that that I wrote.
00:53So Joel's written preview version which you can read on the website starts with that because
00:58the game talks to you like that.
01:00Yeah, I mean not the whole game.
01:02Your primary support character Puck who's your Na'vi equivalent who walks you through
01:09it.
01:10I mean there are other characters who are a bit less verbose.
01:13But more importantly he gives you quests and he says you need to go and do this but he
01:17doesn't say you need to go and do this, he does it in that language so you're like what?
01:21Well that language is very atmospheric of what the game is which for those who don't
01:25know it's a survival crafting game set in a series of worlds that are meant to have
01:31a fairy tale midsummer night's dream kind of vibe.
01:34Victorian-esque.
01:35The fae realms.
01:36Oh right, yeah.
01:37So it's an alternate history where humanity had contact with this mythical realm and then
01:45something bad spilled over into humanity, it's not especially clear, and you are a refugee
01:51from our world who enters the fae realms and you're a kind of Victorian-esque explorer
01:58with pith hat and musket sort of vibes.
02:02So it's in keeping of the tone of the game which is fine.
02:07It makes sense but when it says, you know, prithee, crafter so and so and then a big
02:13tutorial box comes up and says make a pickaxe, I feel more is lost than gained by that.
02:19I wish the objectives were as interesting as the language was.
02:23There could have been a middle ground for both.
02:26The atmosphere is great, the world is actually gorgeous.
02:29It looks so good.
02:31It's good screenshot fodder.
02:32It all looks really nice which is why it sort of kills me that the game that you're playing
02:41isn't that fun.
02:42The mechanics are not as creative as the world and the environment and the creatures are,
02:49hence prithee sir turns to make a pickaxe, which I've done.
02:55I think I've done it several times this year.
02:57There was a lot of survival games and I think part of the problem with a lot of those games
03:00is the look.
03:01Say for example with Nightingale and Power World are perfect examples.
03:03They show you these amazing characters and beasts and you have these amazing miniguns
03:08and shotguns and all this kind of stuff, but then actually the majority of the game is
03:11you don't get the minigun or the shotgun or the blunderbuss for quite a while.
03:15It isn't for a while.
03:16The large majority of the game is you crafting and making pickaxes and doing more Minecrafty
03:21things which they don't really show you as the main selling point of the trailer.
03:25So it's kind of a bit of a miss sell, at least in the early game.
03:28Yeah, I mean I think that it's not that there is survival crafting in this survival crafting
03:33game that is the problem.
03:35It's the fact that it doesn't have that extra ingredient that makes the good ones interesting.
03:41Subnautica has the whole ocean exploration and sea monsters which does twist the core
03:48mechanics enough that it makes it fresh.
03:51Or Power World has Pokemon abuse.
03:53It's strange but God knows it keeps it interesting.
03:57And Nightingale, my big issue with it was that I was looking for that hook to go right
04:03this is more than just the survival crafting game template with a nice background and I
04:11never really found it.
04:12The closest you get is a system where you can go through portals to different biomes
04:18effectively and you can control what those biomes are like by putting special tarot cards
04:25in machines attached to the portal which is a neat idea but you're not doing it that often.
04:34You use it to create the biome and then once you're there it has those rules and then every
04:39biome has one machine in it that you can do minor modifications to it on like turn
04:45the difficulty up or the gravity down you know that kind of thing which is a cool idea.
04:51I kind of wish the game made more of it.
04:54I kind of wish I could just pull a tarot card at any point like a huckster in Deadlands
04:58and just go BAM effect.
05:00That never happened and it was a fairly blunt and bland combat engine of the swing the hammer
05:07till your stamina runs out variety and then later on you get muskets.
05:12I thought that the doorways and the cards were going to be much more of a like that's
05:16the main mechanic.
05:17It's not rare but it is also just you know at the end of the day it's what biome do you
05:23want to go to with a few twists on it.
05:26I mean early access maybe they make more out of it later before you can actually start
05:30getting many of those cards and going through many portals.
05:34They were rough.
05:36It was really just make a campfire make a pickaxe make a bed kill a deer cook some berries
05:42I'm like I've done this I've did this recently multiple times.
05:45So let's say once you've put a certain amount of hours into it and you've got a house or
05:49a base you know from the survival point of view you're kind of like you've hit that threshold
05:53of you're comfortable.
05:55What's the game mechanic then after that what is then pushing you to play more.
05:58So there is a story that threads you through it it's which is good.
06:03I think more survival crafting games need stories as a framework.
06:08It works.
06:09It takes you through it.
06:10It explains the main mechanics.
06:11I didn't feel hugely emotionally invested right.
06:15I'm still working through it at time of writing about 20 30 hours in.
06:19But at 20 30 hours well a long story isn't the problem.
06:23No I'm just trying to find whatever whatever is this next hook like is it building up a
06:27team of pals like in power I'm still looking for it as well so I mean I'm just kind of
06:31the problem.
06:32Yeah.
06:33The every biome you enter has challenges and temples that can be notionally interesting
06:40some of the boss fights some of them have puzzles that might be fun for someone.
06:46I thought they were kind of testing a lot of the time.
06:49There is some really good I don't I certainly don't dislike this game.
06:53I'm more mixed about it.
06:56There is some real skill here.
06:59Again it looks gorgeous.
07:00It's got the tone and atmosphere nailed and every now and then it does come together.
07:05The bit that kind of threw me was that at one point I was in my base and this 15 foot
07:13tall like elk spirits like something out of Princess Mononoke just walked through it didn't
07:19even notice me and I and it was a genuinely enchanting moment and my brain went oh it's
07:26the Fey Realms this is such a cool this feels authentic and some of the monster designs
07:30like that as well like a flock of hovering brass lanterns just wander past yeah just
07:36a storybook feel I go I have no idea what to make of that and that's great like do I
07:40attack it do I capture it do I run away yeah friend or foe and that that is something that
07:45the game needs to lean into more that sense of anything could happen and the variety that
07:51they can introduce with the Fey Realms like you can do anything you can like people should
07:54be able to expect anything.
07:55It is entirely possible that is all coming because this is another one again early access
07:59yeah that means a lot it means bugs it means server issues it also means this is not those
08:04were part and parcel but again you're basically paying 27 bucks I think it is you are investing
08:11in an early access game I would argue differently I would say you're a QA tester like it's this
08:17thing where people forget like early access means a lot of things so this could all of
08:22this is caveated with a lot could change when the game is quote fully released I certainly
08:27don't get the sense that anyone working on Nightingale is doing anything but incredibly
08:32hard work yeah and my only issue with it right now is that I want to see that hard work put
08:40into filling out that system into something more unique to it and making that sense I
08:48had of when ghost moose went walking through my camp of oh the wonder and whimsy that needs
08:54to be omnipresent not something that I just sort of remember now and again yeah as opposed
08:59to a lot of the time just going right time to feed twine into a spinning wheel to make
09:05refined twine oh which is I get yeah it's it's a survival game it's a survival game
09:12yeah but it wasn't thrilling even pal world gives you the option to make your pals do
09:17the crafting for you yeah I did miss that yeah it's fun it is like I could do this
09:23or yeah you could slave labor see a nightingale it shows a lot of promise it shows a lot of
09:30talent especially and give those environment artists a raise yeah okay so it shows promise
09:36they they have a great platform to start putting interesting things in like I don't mean that
09:42to sound as snarky as I do that's just my voice I do have resting bitch voice as it's
09:50been called I would not be thrilled if the next update came out and it's like it's the
09:55house building up yeah or we've you know more axes yeah exactly like that's not what this
10:02game needs to mark it out from the pack yeah it needs whimsy it needs a spell casting system
10:10is what I keep thinking yeah bring in some more unique enemies yeah I love when I do
10:16find a unique one but it wasn't a common experience or a lot of the times you can kind of tell
10:21when it's like a palette swap like his here's a deer okay you go to the next room along
10:27here's a deer with it with a flower growing out the side of its head which is does help
10:32sell the the visuals but is functionally mechanically you know akin to what you were doing before
10:40well for sooth sir I pretty the I can't do it no so hopefully for the hopefully it improves
10:49again early access is actually relatively cheap considering yeah you get it's priced
10:53quite well it's fantastic so fingers crossed nightingale add something different