Vortex Gaming

· 'Necesse' is a fresh pixel sandbox game often compared to Terraria and RimWorld.
· Since its release in October 2023, it has already received one update.
· It supports single-player or co-op, and includes core elements like building houses, interacting with NPCs, exploring the world, gathering resources, crafting items, and fighting bosses, similar to Terraria.
· However, there are many differences from Terraria.

· The game has no clear plot or background story, which is similar to Terraria.
· Necesse's world is an infinite, procedurally generated space, divided into various biomes.
· Each biome contains unique plants, animals, and items, and you can discover settlements, houses, mysterious structures, and hostile creatures.
· Dungeons are also divided by biome, but they are not simply dug downwards like in Terraria.
· There are two main dungeon levels, each requiring a dedicated ladder that can be placed anywhere on the surface, and you must dig sideways.
· In dungeons, you can find minerals, resources, more hostile creatures, and many boss battles take place underground.
· There are also special dungeon levels with puzzles and traps.
· You can share maps with other players via the Cartographer's Table, but for the reviewer, it didn't work due to a bug.
· Compared to Terraria, Necesse's overworld is boring and monotonous, with small and similar biomes. The reviewer wishes for richer and larger biomes to give a true sense of exploration.

· There are complaints about Necesse's movement system.
· Terraria, with its side-scrolling perspective, primarily involves left-right movement, with various means of transportation like running, flying, and minecarts progressively developing.
· Necesse, with its top-down perspective, requires movement in all directions, making minecarts less useful.
· Flying mounts appear early but frequently crash into trees or walls.
· The 'mat' that appears later can fly higher but only for a short time and still has collision issues.
· Consequently, walking is the most convenient option for most of the game.
· In Terraria and Stardew Valley, transportation methods progressively improve with game progression, allowing easy travel anywhere on the map in the late game.
· Necesse's biomes are small and monotonous, reducing the need for long-distance travel, and most necessary activities occur within the settlement.

· The game has a hunger system, and food can spoil without a refrigerator.
· Initially, it was a concern, but the process of gathering ingredients and making new dishes was enjoyable.
· However, the hunger system itself is simply 'checking for food and pressing a button,' which lacks fun and can be annoying.
· Food buffs are minimal, so the main purpose of eating is to avoid hunger penalties.
· Comparison with other games' hunger systems:

Game	Hunger System Features
Project Zomboid	Survival is key, so hunger/thirst management is a core mechanic. Complex and varied food consumption is important.
Kenshi	Characters automatically consume food if available. No manual operation required.
Valheim	Food consumption is not mandatory, but provides powerful buffs, encouraging cooking for combat.

· Necesse features friendly NPCs, and you must also provide them with food.
· Unlike Terraria or Stardew Valley, Necesse's NPCs are randomly generated characters without pre-set personalities, and their functions are divided by profession.
· There's a lack of interaction such as unique dialogue, gift-giving, or relationship improvement.
· You can invite NPCs to live in your settlement.
· Key Feature: You can assign various tasks to NPCs, such as farming, cooking, logging, mining, trading, and accompanying you in boss battles.
· Having many NPCs makes your settlement lively and self-sufficient.
· NPCs have low intelligence, leading to issues like getting lost, having full inventories, or settling in a room already occupied by another NPC and complaining.
· For players who enjoy automation systems, delegating tasks to NPCs will be a great pleasure.
· In particular, the feature where NPCs automatically sort items into chests, unlike Terraria, is very convenient.
· Downside of Automation: Activities like fishing or mining lose value. If NPCs do everything for you, the player has less to do.
· Suggested improvements: Gradually introduce automation delegation features in the late game, add an NPC training system, or increase NPC demands to make the automation process more complex.

· You can play various classes, including melee, ranged, magic, and summoner.
· Weapons are diverse and interesting, but not as varied as in Terraria.
· Enemies are interesting, and some bosses are very unique, making combat enjoyable.
· Invasion or settlement attack events provide motivation to build defensive structures.
· The building system was not as satisfying compared to other games.
· It's not as diverse as Terraria, and you cannot build upwards.
· It's a flat system where you define the boundaries of a building and divide rooms.
· There are fewer materials and blocks are larger.
· Compared to Stardew Valley (which focuses on decoration), Necesse is visually far behind.
· There are many types of furniture, but most wooden furniture only differs in brown tones, with almost identical designs.
· Terraria's diverse wooden furniture varies greatly in style, form, and color.
· Necesse has almost no furniture made from materials other than wood.
· Suggested improvements: Add furniture made from other materials, diversify the design of wooden furniture, or consider simplifying by consolidating various types of wood into a single 'wooden furniture' category.

· Various mechanisms exist for automation systems, such as wires, pressure plates, and traps.
· There are also complex logic gate blocks, but the reviewer did not delve deeply into them.
· The music record system was a favorite. Finding music records throughout the game and playing them on a phonograph is more interesting than Terraria's music boxes or Stardew Valley's jukebox.
· However, a downside is that many records take up a lot of inventory space and it's hard to keep track of duplicates.
· Technical Issues: In addition to the Cartographer's Table bug, game optimization was poor, leading to frequent crashes, glitches, and restarts after exiting the game.
· While these issues are fixable, it's disappointing that serious bugs still exist in a officially released game.

· The reviewer played Necesse for about 60 hours and achieved all achievements.
· After achieving all achievements, they felt there wasn't much left to do and are unlikely to play again without a major update or a long break.
· The achievement system was tedious. In particular, the achievement requiring touching all approximately 2,000 items (even useless underground wall pieces) was very cumbersome.
· The rating for Necesse is 6.5 out of 10.
· While not completely satisfied with the game, the reviewer does not regret purchasing and playing it.
· It was an interesting adventure, and overall, it's a game recommendable to fans of the pixel sandbox genre.