Welcome to Another Review
"Sons of the Forest" is a survival game developed by End Night Games. You play as a mercenary on a mission to rescue a missing family. The mission leads you to an island where you must gather resources, craft, and build to survive. The game can be played solo or in online co-op.
GAMEPLAY
As a survival game, you must eat, drink, and rest to survive. In the beginning, you scavenge for anything you can find, from soda cans to energy bars or even bottles of vodka. Resource gathering forms a huge part of the game, and once you have gathered enough items, you can start to craft things.
In terms of crafting, it's one of the best and most seamless systems that you will ever find in a game. All your crafting takes place on an in-game mat where you can see all of the things that you've gathered to craft. You simply take an item and place it in the center. Then, when you've added enough suitable items, you can create a combination and craft it. You can craft things like cocktails, wooden arrows, or different types of armor. It's a beautifully streamlined and immersive, very simple process.
Once you have survived the day, made some items, and explored a little, it's time to build a base. You need logs, lots and lots of logs, but thankfully, trees are not in short supply. Even the process of chopping down a tree is really satisfying as you take your ax to the tree bark time and time again, and little chunks of tree fall away. Then, it's time to carry these logs to the base location and start your build. Building is another part of the game that's almost perfectly implemented. There are two types of buildings prefabricated structures and manual builds.
Prefabs let you choose a structure from a guidebook. Then, you place that skeleton structure on the floor, and all you've got to do is populate it with the resources it requires. The second method is a more challenging one, but ultimately, it's much more rewarding. The second building menu shows you how to build one item at a time, and building this way feels more realistic. It also allows for more creative ideas and has to be, for me, my favorite building system that I've ever had in one of these survival games. You can place a log on the floor, then interconnect it to build a floor frame, or you can pile six logs on top of each other to build a wall, or even just use your ax to cut out a doorway or a window in that wall if you change your mind.
After a few days, you've crafted some items and started building a base. Now comes the interesting part: dealing with the locals. All that noise you've been making chopping down trees eventually is going to get somebody's attention, and the locals are a bizarre collection of oddballs, freaks, and extras from "The Hills Have Eyes." It's not like other games where enemies see you, and they run directly toward you to attack.
The combat is okay as you have the option of melee and ranged attacks, and you can craft or find items to aid you. However, the game has an issue with death as Sons of the Forest does not have an auto-save feature. You must manually save the game at a bed, which can become repetitive and time-consuming. If you die, the enemies will capture you and tie you up. Although you can break free if you die again with low health, the game will be over, and it's permadeath. Therefore, manual saving is crucial. Crafting armor is disappointing as most of it wears out quickly. The endless stream of cannibal attacks can be demoralizing, but the AI companions can help. Kelvin is one of your allies, but he's deaf, so you must communicate with him via handwritten notes.
The other AI is a mysterious blonde lady who slowly becomes your friend. You can give them outfits and weapons to help with fighting. The game world is vast, forested, and dynamic with weather and seasonal changes. A GPS is integral to highlighting points of interest on the map. The island is bigger than the previous game, but it results in longer walking sections, which doesn't add much value. The story is a vague fetch quest in a forest with freaks, and the end sequence feels abrupt with no real foreshadowing. Overall, the game offers good value and has more gameplay in the base building. However, if you've played the forest, you can finish this game quickly as the structure is almost identical
Graphics & Sound
Visually, the game world and characters are nice enough. It's not a game that will visually blow you away, but it captures the essence of survival and horror in its visual presentation. However, being in early access means that it does have glitches in the environment. Some textures were missing, and some AI characters get stuck in the environment, but I hope these issues get patched out soon.
In terms of sound, I'd say it's excellent. The sound effects, the cannibal AI voices, the ambient sounds, and the environmental elements are very immersive. However, the voice acting is almost non-existent, and what little I did hear felt like they just got someone's friend in on the cheap to do it. It's really not very good. It may just be placeholders, and they may be replacing it, but it's not that impressive, to be perfectly honest.
Good and Bad
What's good: Tons of the Forest is one of the most addictive survival games you'll ever play. It has the best crafting and building systems in any survival game, it's scary as hell with very good AI and grotesque enemies. Survival isn't too difficult in terms of eating and drinking, meaning that you can enjoy it a bit more compared to harsher games in the genre. It's also a great game for solo survivalists, with the added AI buddies giving you a little bit of companionship.
What's bad: The island is too big with few points of interest. The story needs fleshing out, as does the ending. It's a bit of a carbon copy of the first game, and this structure could have used some freshening up. The manual save/perma-death system is a bit annoying.
Final Thoughts
Sons of the Forest continues the excellent work of the previous game. It has a wonderful crafting and building system that allows really creative minds to conjure all sorts of wonderful base designs. The enemies are grotesque and weird, and exploring the dark caves is as terrifying as it was before. Overall, it's a good sequel. However, it doesn't really improve the game - it's almost like a carbon copy with a few extra bits, but structurally pretty identical. It doesn't really offer a different experience to The Forest - as you crash on an island, you have to find somebody, and that involves exploring, finding underground caves and facilities, and then leaving. Very similar indeed.
But saying that, for me, The Forest was the best survival game that I'd ever played. So, to make a sequel on par with that is not a bad thing. I had hoped that they would have mixed up the structure a bit more, rather than just replicating it. Think of it more like a continuation than any sort of evolution of the franchise. I really enjoyed Sons of the Forest during my 40 hours or so of play. It's amazing if you like building bases, and it's great if you're a fan of horror, but if you're expecting something fresh compared to the first game, then you might be disappointed. But still, I would recommend it even in its early access state.
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