IXION Should (and Could) Be Better | Abbreviated Reviews

It's hard to be excited about a game and not have that game meet your expectations. I've either learned from experience or just been lucky enough to avoid this for quite a while now... at least since Rage 2. And even that wasn't that bad. Maybe this review is a little too reactionary, but I get to make all the decisions here so I'm gonna let it fly.
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Game Review, Abbreviated Review, #IXION

[@AbbreviatedReviews]

By the time I hit 50 distinct saves, I realized this wasn't the game I wanted to play. I think I'm also pronouncing the title wrong, but it's too late now and no one can stop me. Get it on Steam if you're a masochistic space lover, I won't kink shame: store.steampowered.com/app/1113120/IXION/ Or just listen to the soundtrack - the best part of the game by far: kzbin.info/www/bejne/iJm3iayLereonbM

[@riekopo7638]

update after all the patches?

[@caitscheverst]

@@riekopo7638 There's a difficulty option now, and most of the outright game-ending bugs have been squashed, but nothing's fundamentally changed. Extra Hours still instantly blows things up, there's a 'simplified' version of the Logistics screen that basically just obfuscates the wonky AI further and makes it even harder to know why your residential district is starving, and I think they made the missile countermeasure tech very slightly easier to get. Aaaand, that's it.

[@kcw1879]

I've played 40+ hours. Amazing music; good graphics; a lot of potential, as a BETA THAT IS. I am playing Against the Storm, and that's rouge-like, but it's still fun. This one, currently, a mistake means a cascade of unstoppable dominoes. And the replayability each time you fail is zilch, as it's 100% scripted. :/ The crew walking around is like something from the 80s. Basically, you'll be paying them to beta test.

[@AbbreviatedReviews]

I think they have the potential to clean up a lot of the issues. The static nature of the events probably isn't going anywhere. Hopefully they build scenarios like Frostpunk - and the various other living/dead entities out there provide a window for that.

[@Greenmachine305]

I can't tell you how much I enjoyed this vid. Well written, humorous, concise. I give it an abbreviated review score of FANTASTIC.

[@skyvenrazgriz8226]

See all other ppl i saw playing ixion, said it was sooo good, but they never made it further in than 1 hr. This review was realy helpful.

[@AbbreviatedReviews]

The first hour is basically the demo which obviously was enough to get me excited. I don't even think you can get a good feel for what the game does well and how frustrating it gets until Chapter 3 at least.

[@trazyntheinfinite9895]

Our ship is failing, we need to fix our shit! 'Proceeds to riot'

[@themrfj]

What would you change to "fix it"? :)

[@AbbreviatedReviews]

Well, the biggest problems are the initial difficulty for new players and the bloat of the rest of the game. So first off it needs a more comprehensive tutorial - or at least better signposting throughout the game. For instance, in the dev's discord discussion, I actually informed several people that recently started out that you could additional research inside of the rearch icons. I went through a chunk of the game assuming the missing parts of research were hidden in further rings when they were already available. If I could have clicked my research ship and seen a button that directed me to the research for "exoskeletons" beside the one that instructed me that I needed them, I would have known from that simple addition. The accident system is one that a lot of people address, but it's obviously way too aggressive. Sectors that are happy with enough workers shouldn't have random accidents at all. And when they are even slightly understaffed, it shouldn't be a stream of accidents that make recovery painful or sometimes impossible. They have said they addressed it in a post-launch update, but I played it and it didn't seem to be all that signifcant of a change. The "bloat" issue makes the game much longer than it should be for something that so frequently requires backtracking and restarting. You're actively encouraged to sit and wait as you progress through the game and I think that is disengaging gameplay. The only encouragement to move forward is an ethereal timer that occasionally punishes you by saying your crew is now less happy because they've been in one place too long. They need to lessen the requirement of hoarding resources and building up a buffer so you don't spent 80% of your time in a chapter just collecting. I saw one player scolding negative reviews because it was "easy" to just sit in the first chapter for dozens of hours researching the majority of the tech tree with the trickle of research points generated over time - which I believe maxes out at 5 per 5 in-game days. Basically they were gaming the system to fix what is broken at the cost of their own time and pretending that was a solution. Also, Frostpunk's relatively short scenarios (by comparison) made it much less punishing to restart. Ixion allows you to restart specific chapters, but if you've messed up further back than a single chapter you may have dozens of hours to throw away. It's also less fun since just about every event is static with quests also having static options and outcomes. If I were to suggest more of a complete overhaul, the game should abandon the constant bleed and rely on actions lowering the ship's hull. They already have actions that do that, but they just stack on top of the existing annoyance. But they would need to rebalance the amount of iron on the map, or use a different resource for the repairs, but it could also be used to make the game more dynamic with actions that need to be taken to mitigate or prevent that damage. The one place they did diverge from Frostpunk is the sheer number of available resources and they had to do that because they made mechanics with numerous resource sinks. I also don't think that the ship's sector system, in general, adds much to the game. It's fine to have unlockable sectors, but they should be more integrated with one another and not require a literal balancing act to have resources and workers where they need to be. It just adds this kind of cheap Factorio feel to it and makes you spend more time clicking checkboxes, plus/minus buttons, anad moving sliders. Ok I think I've put enough here. I probably have more ideas, but I don't think I'm going to have much of an effect from here. :)

[@themrfj]

@@AbbreviatedReviews Thanks for the comprehensive answer; but yeah now I wish I was secretly a dev. on the project :P

[@johnyrambo3]

Hello. Somebody know if the game is better now gameplaywise? I'm looking to play this.

[@lgmarq]

this vid is piece of shit.... the game is super cool now.

[@ahmedsachwani2868]

Dunno man I think the concept of how everything was so bleak and failing kinda felt like how despite everything we had hope and prevailed. The game can suddenly take a sudden turn that’s why it’s very very important to notice everything that goes on. I really loved the game. I do however agree with the ship. I hope they find a way to make the ships take a better path rather than go through the storm and how you cannot move stockpiles from one cargo bay to storage in another section without making storage in the same section first.

[@Rinocapz]

Nice thanks for the info!

[@maklenard899]

dark souls of builders. love it

[@dertron486_xre4]

I think the story writers and music composers did a nice job and yeah maybe they did fumble with the games potential. Kinda hate how the progression is very linear and how the game has to end after the epilogue. I mean maybe it has to be that way idk but I would've preferred to continue playing after the ending, perhaps there is more to see yet

[@the_steamtrain1642]

playing it now is pretty alright (bought the game recently), only thing I'd say is how unintuitive the systems are, and I think the chapter with the storm you showed displays that, you can make ships avoid certain destinations, but you need to click avoid on them 1 by 1, and that chapter forces you through the storm which basically means, get all your ships inside and move but there's no real way to get your ships inside except turn all their resources they can gather off screwing up your entire setup. As for the difficulty I had to reload an autosave in my game twice but for the rest I like the difficulty, the fact your ship is hanging on for dear life is... pretty nice, I think the game suffers from a lack of a good UI and introduction to systems, also the ending is really weak but still cool game

[@sharkking9679]

Ixion is supposed to be hard to play. But it could be more balanced

[@AbbreviatedReviews]

The thing is, it's not really that hard to play once you figure out the basics and learn to prepare in advance for the inevitable blindsiding at the start of every chapter. It just doesn't present that in an entertaining way, or at least not a way that lasts as long as the game does.

[@GAMMA47]

Look man I know the copium is an addictive drug but this is such a stretch. They tacked on bad mechanics for the sake of adding artificial challenges and to top it off its in a linear game....which is quite embarrassing because linear games are so much easier to balance and design...it is a wonder how they fucked it up so bad. I play Eve Online which is the hardest game in the world so my skills arent an issue. Its just a waste of potential and kills any reason to play this. Like why the fuck are people going on strike when that strike could literally end humans. I wouldnt. Or if you stay in a system too long then people bitch about it despite how benificial it is to the collective or how if you keep cryo pods around too much they bitch as well. This game doesnt make me feel bad for the humans in the game. It makes me hate them as much as real humans because very fucking sadly they would act like children like in this game which SUPER destroys my immersion....like I wanted to fail just to take them out kicking and screaming so that the rest og the cosmos wouldnt deal with them. Pathetic game and pathetic attempt at defending the status quo

[@GAMMA47]

@@AbbreviatedReviews It is and even if you do figure things out it's not fun.

[@CjqNslXUcM]

if you use a guide it's really easy. there's more than enough resources and basically infinite time. It should be hard due to difficult mechanics, time pressure, not things like random storms you didn't know you had to prepare for.

[@TomWhittaker]

You nailed it, I wanted to love this game so much but its not actually what I want it to be.

[@TomWhittaker]

This review was cathartic for me, I'm glad its not just me with this exact same mix of hype, hope and then crushing disappointment. I'm not just rubbish, the game is at fault too. I recently finally managed to finish this game at 70 hours in total and I found the whole thing shockly punishing, it throws so much at you that the (spoilers) final boss attack of 'turning the lights out in mess halls' is actually a real threat because the complexity of the game is so vast you lose track of everything all the time. So much of this game is the illusion of control. You have all these systems and buildings but just getting a dude to deliver a single unit of electronics to a specific square can be a terrible challenge if you have set things up wrong. You can apply every imaginable upgrade to ships except 'dont fly into certain death'. I love optimising in games but the cost of experimenting and getting it wrong, or even getting it right but then not scaling with your population is huge. if you try to take your time and do things right the game punishes that too with permanent penalties. The only logical way to progress with this game is when they introduce a new crushing mechanic is to simply go into the settings and turn it off. The fact that there is usually the option to do this is telling imo.

[@213fenix]

I get the metal hull upkeep is to match coal of frostpunk but..its a build material too, a new player in frostpunk knows gather and keep coal going, but in ixion a new player is clueless how important it is to upkeep or how to keep with demand for building AND staying alive. That alone is a giant frustration point. And sure now is a difficulty option to turn off repair cost but..I want the repair cost just not bleeding out of build materials. Low on metal suddenly cant build cant stay alive cant nothing but load a save from hours ago

[@georgebethanis3188]

The game's main problem is that it throws you devastating curveballs quite often, which are very hard to recover from. Unless you've restarted multiple times (a game chapter) so can you take a proactive course of action by learning whats going to come (which is kind of cheating), you dont have any chance of winning the game. So after you've restarted 5-6 times, the game becomes a tedious grind, devoid of excitement. I went as far as chapter 3 before I said enough was enough, I dont have time for this. Hope someone else picks this space survival genre and makes a proper game out of it.

[@Sorain1]

You know, any time I see a game structured like this (IE with this gigantic flaw) I wish once again a game would be made like that... intentionally to pull a reveal that all of those save/load things are a plot element. That the reason you the player's avatar was put in charge was because only someone who could essentially cheat time/chance like that could possibly pull the plot off. But you'd have to structure the plot to support that and even then it'd be a valid point to say "Just because the blindsiding BS is intentional doesn't make it good!" in response.

[@brotheralaric7177]

i'm playing in normal difficulty and i have the feeling of being in hardcore mode, i don't know what the devs where thinking, but this game is really too hard

[@Lorespade]

i just beat it tonight. and..... the last chapter was a breaze..... and the ending seriously just pissed me off.

[@angelmatiastorres]

It is called trial and error

[@Hangman1]

Frost punk was very annoying to with this temperature instant fall mechanics, like ticking bomb that will freeze everything if you do not play like Devs want to.

[@MrChipcho]

It's a nice idea of a game, but its not reaching the feel that frost punk gave us. I hoped it would be as atmospheric as frost punk but even better- in space with a nice story. Sadly its a hand held game with little varied outcomes of the events. As someone said, its an OK Beta but that is about it at the moment.

[@matthewduka7710]

the trailers make it look like frost punk but with better worldmap, guess not.

[@doggo2836]

Lmao you sound my voice and struggle in the game in just 5 minutes

[@axelhopfinger533]

Completely agree with this assessment. The game is just a prime example of neat looking, great sounding wasted potential. It's too short, too micro-managey and frustrating. Still needs some polish and QOL improvements to be enjoyable to play. My verdict: mediocre with an award worthy soundtrack

[@SynoPTL]

IXION could be better, but you know what can't? Country Crock's wonderful margarine! #SpreadTheCrock

[@CheapoPremio]

I really wonder why so many have problems with IXION. I don't think it's that people are dumb or IXION too hard, but rather that there has to be something that's easily missable that sabotages a run. I had to do one very early restart because I misinterpreted a mechanic and save scummed two times because I felt the quest outcome was unfair. But aside from that I finished the game in that second go. I'd even go out on a limb and say that Frostpunk was way harder for me. I really wished that the devs could have found that fatal design flaw that made it too hard for many and fix it because the game is so well put together. The story, the music, the sound, the presentation, the graphics are all very good and so fitting.

[@AbbreviatedReviews]

I think the core issue with the presentation. They're obviously courting fans of Frostpunk, but it doesn't present the same feeling that game delivers. Frostpunk is all about defending against a losing battle for the best possible outcome. Ixion makes you got on the offensive just to avoid a game over screen. You have to get ahead of your station hull, you have to be ahead of research, and you have to have extra resources for unforeseen scenarios. It's like they wanted to make "Space Frostpunk" and misinterpreted the nature of what made Frostpunk compelling. I know they've addressed some issues, but I don't think they would or even could address the real problems because they're core of the game's design. The fact that they have solid visual components and that wonderful soundtrack only make it more disappointing because it feels like it would have been a major hit if it was more fun and less frustrating.

[@MEGAthemicro]

heh... yeah so maybe DON'T watch my review 😅 But really, you raise a number of solid points. Maybe this is wishful thinking, but it sounds like IXION was just a few balance tweaks away from you really enjoying the experience, which is a shame-hopefully it gets there, one day. For what it's worth, the devs have already significantly tweaked the accident occurrence rate, and I imagine more adjustments are forthcoming. Well, one can dream, at least...

[@AbbreviatedReviews]

It's certainly some balance tweaks from being ok, but I think there are some fundamental designs that move it away from the experience I expected and what I would have truly enjoyed. That being said, I think it's going to improve and probably to the point that I'll finish up the final bits of the game.

[@JupitersWindySkies]

but guillaume 😭

[@AbbreviatedReviews]

I was going to say his name all Frenchy but I didn't want to offend his greatness.

[@blackjew6827]

The music is good. And... the music is good...

[@AbbreviatedReviews]

It really is. I still listen to it pretty regularly.

[@blackjew6827]

@@AbbreviatedReviews it's good programming music

[@JewTube001]

It's bad but I want it to be good

[@praetorian3902]

That station was made in Russia.

[@caubert]

rare rating, BAD... thanks for the review though!

[@AbbreviatedReviews]

Sometimes it must be done, even in the heat of the moment.

[@russelljazzbeck]

All you had to say was "forever draining your stockpile, the same you need for every building in the game" that's almost exactly the same mechanic as Against the Storm. It actually just turns the whole game into a mindless repetitive idle clicker. I uninstalled it after I figured that out. Too bad it took me 15 hours.

[@christopherschroeder4096]

I think the biggest disappointment I'm seeing so far is how this is a static campaign. This is the type of title that could absolutely benefit from procedural generation and maybe a career-type mode. The alloy for building and maintaining is far too brutal. The cargo and mining ship lack of direct mission assignment is absolutely inexcusable, though. On the positive, I actually appreciate the game for forcing you to balance against hoarding too many of a particular resource in addition to too little.

[@CjqNslXUcM]

I completed it but i'm not playing it again. Everything is at a third of its potential. too much pointless randomness especially science ship missions. automatic overwork is worse than frostpunks shifts. policies are almost pointless. shifting resources between sectors is a pain. there is too little pressure until something dumb kills you that you didn't know about. IXION 2 could be great.

[@hushpuppygames6170]

game is hard

[@AbbreviatedReviews]

I'm not sure if I'd call it hard. It has it's challenges, sure, but with the ability to pause and the straightforward mechanics, the toughest part about it is coping with the randomness and sustaining through the tedium.

[@RT-wt7gu]

Played about 20h, restarted many times. Visually looks nice, but gameplay gets really frustrating . Make one little mistake and shit hits the fan. The amount of accidents makes me wonder did they choose the most idiotic people to do the work? One building shuts down and guess what, lets RIOT and all die. Hull integrity - why is it falling apart? Isn't this ship like state of the art? If you open another sector, why does is fall apart even faster then? Resource management is so basic. Stockpiles can only store 1 type of items. So if you want to upgrade a building you must first tear it down but you cant because there no more room in stockpile. And stuff stored in shuttle bay cant be used before they put it in stockpile. Why? Who knows. Sector management is terrible. People die, well lets thaw some pods. OH you forgot to select to thaw workers? TOO BAD. you get non workers for no reason. Can they learn to become workers? Naah. They just take housing and food. I just don't understand why did they sabotaged the game like that. They had good idea, frostpunk in space, good graphics and music, but for some reason just added shit to make this game bad.

[@AbbreviatedReviews]

It is weird how many times the game asks you to suspend your disbelief. Your ship is about to explode and people are rioting because they're overworked and you have like a thousand people just sitting around being "non-workers" casually eating food and taking up space in already cramped quarters. Then the one policy that would make sense in that regard - only waking workers from cryo - has a negative effect on trust.

[@DannyboyO1]

I feel like Choo-Choo Charles had a bigger impact, and it's a game you can 100% in one day.

[@AbbreviatedReviews]

That game looks really interesting and triggers my love of trains, but I'm never good with horror games so I haven't looked further into it.

[@The_Bird_Bird_Harder]

@@AbbreviatedReviews Best I've garnered and can put it. It's really, really silly, more so than scary. In addition: The voice acting is a real highlight. Worth watching a playthrough of if not playing.

[@_zurr]

This game is the most beautiful, evocative, and detailed car wreck I've ever seen. The music is awe-inspiring and thematic, the visuals stunning, the mystery... mysterious, and yet all of it is supporting a game that is unoptimized, unhelpful, and unfinished. I could forgive the mechanical faults if the story felt like it gave you understanding and closure, but unfortunately while there are hints at the greater plot at work you end the game left feeling like someone on the writing team accidentally deleted all the notes and they had to piece together some husk of a finished game with barely-readable scribblings and texts between each other.

[@Chase_The_Calm_Gaming]

Game is amazing and is meant to be difficult. I've basically lost twice till I realized something... You are not a Captain but an administrator. My 3rd attempt I was focused. Tip... Upgrade tech center as priority, on the 3rd chapter you will be laughing as your generating research while focus on food then industry, then food. Mine everything you can. So start section 1 being your receiving sector /first housing and food , 2 sector industry 2 steel mills, 2 electronic factory, 1 polymer. Then stop, research inner circle and get Fe like your life depends on it, get stable, section 3 farm(algae farm is your main goal it's Op. Don't touch mushroom. Once 3 is making all food delete all section 1 and make it your delivery location.... Wait till you need to defrost 2000 to even think about recycling.

[@AbbreviatedReviews]

This is all valid information, but I didn't really have an issue with the difficulty. Rather, its the tedious nature of the game and the game you end up with once you get past the initial challenges.

[@Jamez3145]

[spoiler alert]

[@AbbreviatedReviews]

There are few story specifics talked about beyond the initial parts of the game and those were primarily available in the demo. I also don't use anything cutscenes that aren't in the demo. I made an effort to show gameplay that wouldn't spoil anything unless you were already familiar with what you were looking at. Sadly I haven't yet figured out how to create a game review video without any clips from the game.

[@henryhamilton4087]

So you thought the hull decaying is a bug? You think the generator requiring coal to run in Frostpunk is also a bug? That being said the accident in this game does feel extremely contrived with how they calculate it, accidents are basically 'backlogged' and once you exceed the threshold either by having work conditions deteiorate, even for just a second, everything explodes. Other than that the management of resources between sectors is also kinda ridiculous and unnecesary and is there just as a frustration as a feature, until you get the drone silo that takes care of it. The static events are fine, considering Frostpunk also has (mostly) static events with only a few ones having a random 50:50 outcome, or outcomes that depend on things you have unlocked in the tech tree (which also exists in Ixion). Game also needs some HUD tweaking especially with the tech tree and upgrades for each building.

[@AbbreviatedReviews]

Yes, I assumed at first that the damage to the hull was resolvable like the damage to things logically would be. The mechanic didn't exist in the demo.

[@Saika_Sakitora]

also the resource in each chapter is limited. also if you stay for too long the crew start complaining (which should never happen when you know that you are now an endangered species) also when you have more than 100 cryo pod lying around the crew start complaining. also when you try to have them eat mushroom made from recycle the crew start complaining. even so the game look like it use new 3rd law but the game seem to lack of orbital mechanic. and like if every 1 rotation of the station equal to like 1 day(even tho they dont have daynight cycle and cuz the crew celebrate every 365th rotation) so 1 year pass in game but every planet stays at the same location wtf lol. and spoiler alert in the final chapter the hope of humanity new home is to adapt into new race of human to be able to live in that planet which i think it's the same as you are forced to be extinct and live on as a new species and their is a ticking bomb come after you. so you don't even have TIME to enjoy all the building in the game its just that the game force you to end the game in a limited time( less than an hour )

[@AbbreviatedReviews]

The punishment for taking too long in a chapter is stupid, especially when the game also punishes you for moving too quickly into new chapters by having the front-loaded challenges draining your resources if you didn't sit around and stock up.

[@PeaneutzTV]

There is another ending in which you find Romulus (You know, Romulus and Remus...) in the same Illia System, and you can have the better (in my mind) ending which I just did. The game is tedious but its a lots of fun.

[@JakubHohn]

I dont think IXION is hard, i think it is actually very easy, you just need to know relatively well what you are doing from the first moment of the game, and at the end of the first chapter you have pretty much won the game.

[@Dumb-Comment]

i agree, it's underwhalming and the writing look like someone is trying to insert their political ideas

[@kordimon121]

Dude. Some games are hard to play, it doesn't mean they bad I got my game with only 1 load save, don't know where you got 50

[@AbbreviatedReviews]

I'm guessing you didn't actually watch the video since I didn't say it was hard or difficult at any point. It's not. It's just poorly designed and tedious to a fault.

[@badejong]

I played the game for about 10 hours filled with accidents, angry colonists and deaths. At that point I had learned enough of the mechanics and science of the game to restart from zero. I am now in run two and research is going well and my people are happy. This is absolutely not a bad game! 👈👈👈

[@trazyntheinfinite9895]

This game was horrible.

[@zpudly666]

I love the game and think your review is a snarky POS. I recommend everyone click the "do not recommend" button on your channel and then move on to other pursuits that don't involve listening to you.

[@AbbreviatedReviews]

LOL... I've seen people that disagree with me before and even create point-by-point counters in comments, but this is the first time I've seen anyone try to start a campaign against my content because they didn't agree with my opinion on a game they liked. I guess I've finally made it in the world of entertainment!

[@JupitersWindySkies]

@@AbbreviatedReviews im going to double-subscribe now just to counterbalance that crybaby

[@VenomGamingCenter]

How old are you? Ten? Does your mum and dad know you're using the internet?

[@DavidMoore_Golden]

@@JupitersWindySkies 😆🤣😂🤣

[@stephenc107]

Excellent review, this game is trash, money wasted that I can't get a refund for by design. The devs intentionally make the game so you sail way past the refund timer on Steam before you discover what crap this game really is.