▼ Not recommended
0 hrs
August 11th, 2024 Update: Fixed some glaring issues and other typos in here and added an addendum at the bottom. Comments are also now-allowed, in case some of the new updates have invalidated most of this, but will be revoked if the civility of them is on the lower-end of the spectrum.
In spite of its shortcomings, I quite enjoyed Haste-Miner 2, to the point I willingly left it on for 70 hours past when I'd done literally everything to get the remaining 2 achievements (Me not realising it didn't count towards the steam Game Count, and that was only for myself/satisfaction of seeing it done), so when I wanted something befitting of the October/Autumn season that could be played with only the right side of my headphones being functional (AKA did not rely on directional stereo-audio for the player's success,) this seemed like the perfect choice.
Unfortunately, after just 53 minutes, even my easily-occupied autistic brain completely lost interest.
This did not feel, as the name may suggest, like a Haste-Miner 3, rather a visually-improved-and-slightly-altered repackaging of the predecessor that feels more in-line with a Haste-Miner 2 DLC expansion than an actual, full sequel whose aim is to improve upon the formula, expand it, and remedy the shortcoming of the previous entry. This is a bold claim, I know, however, in my time playing, I saw absolutely nothing by the way new content outside of backgrounds, and the dungeons of the previous game now being an isometric mining lobby with enemies and "Combat".
The quotes around that previous word are very purpose-placed, and I am now reasonably suspicious the trailer cutting down the combat showcasing to just the beginning and end for the most part was intentional to avoid showcasing how huge a tedious slog many may find it. Literally every encounter I had boiled down to "walk in circles around them and give yourself Carpal Tunnel Syndrome by rapidly clicking until they're dead.". If this was a short jaunt that didn't overstay its welcome, then it would be innocuous, however every last enemy in the massive bubble I had wrangled was every bit as hit spongey as a Valdis Story boss, and all their AI essentially boiled down to "walk towards the player" with one having projectile capabilities.
To make matters worse, absolutely nothing by way of feedback - visually, or audibly - exists for when you received damage, with the only way to know being to take your eyes off the action, alongside any bullets that may have been shot, and see how much you have left. I literally got reduced to a single tick-and-a-half of health before I even knew I had taken damage in my second "Dark" mine excursion.
If this was the only downside of the title, I could easily say "just avoid the deep mines" however, from loading screen tips, it seems re-birthing is now done via "Artifacts" rather than using money. Artifacts only spawn in Deep Mines, so these are not just tedious bores, but also required to progress. Though, one positive of this is that in just that less-than-an-hour, I saw absolutely no need to rebirth with things coming exceedingly quickly for what's supposed to be an incremental game.
Another slight I had was just how horrifically unpolished it is in comparison with the other game available on Steam. That one tells you everything you need to know, however this game keeps mostly everything a secret, and is also only half-finished in other areas. Keys are not rebind-able, and while you can drag menus to scroll them, manually scrolling cycles hotbar items. I saw no mention of needing to right click to use said items, either.
As well, money is not shown in menus that require it, while the token count is clumsily overlayed atop the text for Pickaxe power in the skills...kiosk. Yes, as with the previous, you need to manually walk over to now-NPCs in the lobby, however, outside of a cryptic image of varying effectiveness, one cannot know what something does until going up, and pressing E. To make matters worse, the lobby's been vastly expanded to seemingly purpose-waste the player's time. This makes me wonder if the rocket to other planets was either curiously absent from this, curiosity being had over how one progresses beyond the base area, or if the hub was too large for its own good, and I just missed it.
Finally, to close out the disappointments, the game was also a bit buggy, with particles you can get as a customisation option floating off the bounds of the menu when scrolling it, and elsewhere ore blocks being transparent, showing all of the block breaking squares seemingly on the wrong plane, appearing behind things, rather than to the sides, or in front.
All of this would have been a bit dodgy, but from the moment I launched the game and started moving, I not only saw screen-tearing on several different planes at the same time, to the point that it was almost unplayable at times, but also learned first that pressing ESC brings up a menu the game not only never tells you about, but also has absolutely nothing by way of Vertical Synchronisation options. Pushing F11 did not fix this, either, and strange letterboxing appears after pressing said key.
Addendum: Looking at the changelogs has shown the Particle issue to apparently have been fixed, and many other QoL Issues have been added alongside numerous not-found-in-Haste-Miner-2 features in the time since I posted this review, however, it looks as though the combat is still the same as it was when I played it. Whether or not these additions and fixes have made this a recommendation now still remains to be seen, as I'm hesitant to dive back in until something hugely-substantial piques my interest enough to justify re-buying it.
