Thoughts on Necese

Quick little review of an indie game I've enjoyed this year that finally hit 1.0.

I’m not sure why I feel the need to give Necese its own shoutout, since it isn’t like I’ve been a particularly prolific blogger this year. On the other hand, I’ve meant to be. I have a bunch of these that I want to write now that the year is winding down, because there’s a lot of stuff I’ve enjoyed this year that I want to give a bit more of a blurb than I feel like I should put into just my end of the year wrap-up posts.

So let’s get into it!

Necese is a top-down, pixel graphics, base-builder / open-world / colony-simulation thing with a series of bosses and challenges on top of the rest of the formula. It feels a bit like a crossover between Minecraft, Terraria, and Rimworld. The Rimworld influence comes from the city management aspects – citizens of your settlements need to eat, can join you in combat, be sent on quests, and can do odd jobs for you. The Terraria aspects are the boss progression and how those same citizens also make up unique shops, along with the Minecraft influences of generated biomes and sprawling worlds and so on.

Combat has a few fun varieties – some melee weapons that have interesting movement tech, ranged weapons that require ammunition, magic that means squishier armor and more need for potions, and summon magic that turns you into a bit more of an RTS player. I wouldn’t say that any of them feel dramatically weaker than the others in my experience, though I’m sure from a pure min-maxing standpoint there is a “correct” answer to how to beat each individual boss. The ones I’ve fought have been fun, with specific biomes and fighting styles that teamwork certainly helps for.

I think the thing that I’ve liked the most about it is that it doesn’t feel as empty as some games in the genre thanks to the base building aspects. I’m not saying that any of it is as deep as Rimworld’s is, or that the farming is as deep as something like a Stardew Valley, but there’s enough there along with the cosmetic decoration aspects to have some fun just twiddling your thumbs to play. This is contrasted with Minecraft, where my problem is that there’s just… not a lot of progression to go around, and building a large “base” doesn’t really do a lot for you overall, or Terraria, where once you’ve got the villagers and entered hard mode, well, the main thing you ever have to do is fend off a blood moon style raid.

I’ve not spent quite as much time with the new 1.0 release as I’d liked to have yet, but so far it’s pretty good! The game launched with revamped world generation, more weapons/armors/cosmetics, biome specific quests, and a lot more. I don’t know if anything is as meaningful as the graphics overhaul that happened a few months ago, where they did a bit of a generational jump in sprite quality, though it’s more that everything just fits into the really solid framework they had leading up to launch.

The change I’m the most conflicted on from the betas is that the game now has an infinitely generated seamless world as part of that world generation revamp, closer to its inspirations, instead of being a series of islands that you can sail off of and traverse between quickly. If there’s one change I’d make, I think that they should allow a bit of a hybrid system here – define a max tile size, and let new tiles get generated in the old world system.

Anyway! That’s pretty much all I have to say about it, the game is fun if you have even a small group to play with. As a completely solo experience, I think there’s enough to be a fun run through for the progression.