Nightingale - Early Access Review | MMORPG.com

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Nightingale - Early Access Review | MMORPG.com

Inflexion Games' survival MMO Nightingale released into Early Access last week, and we've been putting it through its paces. How does the Gaslamp Fantasy survival game hold up in Early Access? Here is our review.

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Terazon

So much potential wasted on poor execution and curious design decisions.

Slapshot1188

I pretty much agree with the review. It's definitely showing it's Early Access issues as described, but my team still looks forward to logging in each night.

7 seems about right to me.

But as I havent gotten to the end yet that could also change. Just got a big step up in power to the 100 level gear so hopefully stuff doesnt get trivial.

Valentina

Slapshot1188 said:

I pretty much agree with the review. It's definitely showing it's Early Access issues as described, but my team still looks forward to logging in each night.



7 seems about right to me.



But as I havent gotten to the end yet that could also change. Just got a big step up in power to the 100 level gear so hopefully stuff doesnt get trivial.

this is how i, and my friends feel as well. we definitely look forward to logging in each night and this game has a huge amount of potential, and am excited to see what they do with it going forward through early access

slowz2secret

tested it, the game is a 5/10 for me, still so much work and they wasted so much potential on it.

Groqstrong

Ive played Ark:Ascended, Palworld, Enshrouded, and Nightingale.

Enshrouded has been the best Survival so far for me.

ValdemarJ

Groqstrong said:

Ive played Ark:Ascended, Palworld, Enshrouded, and Nightingale.

Enshrouded has been the best Survival so far for me.

What parts is that in regards to and what things stand out to you? I liked Portal Knights a lot and plan on picking up Enshrouded at some point (after it comes to Xbox). I'm interested in the good stuff.

I'm a big fan of voxel building despite its limitations.

Groqstrong

ValdemarJ said:

Groqstrong said:

Ive played Ark:Ascended, Palworld, Enshrouded, and Nightingale.



Enshrouded has been the best Survival so far for me.

What parts is that in regards to and what things stand out to you? I liked Portal Knights a lot and plan on picking up Enshrouded at some point (after it comes to Xbox). I'm interested in the good stuff.

I'm a big fan of voxel building despite its limitations.

Enshrouded felt the most crisp and streamlined, it feels good to move around in the world and combat feels weighty. It doesn't bog you down with mundane tasks, it lets you play. When I go out to explore it gives me a sense of adventure with danger lurking just around the corner. The Shroud(timed danger zone) is well done and zones mesh together. Lots of good loot in the open world or by crafting and speaking of crafting it has so many options gives you a lot of freedom to build with your imagination.

It does have some faults though, you can cheese for gear and mats, which I've avoided doing. The action bar also needs some work.

Robokapp

how's the endgame raiding?

Scot

So what another year at least before we see this or Enshrouded released. Happy to wait till then and hopeful that the survival mechanics get played down.

ZenJelly

At the moment this game is a strong 4, weak 5. They have a long way to go in it's current state. But unlike other recent games like Wayfinder, these guys at least have some thing to work with. Of course they could make all the wrong choices and send this down the drain.

Vidahr

I was lucky enough to work on the music for this game. Oddly enough, I never actually played it outside of logging in listening to atmos, sfx, and just music intervals.

Kind of sad to see the game itself is being reported as mid, I worked really hard on the music. Hopefully people enjoy that part at least.

2TonGamer

ValdemarJ said:

Groqstrong said:

Ive played Ark:Ascended, Palworld, Enshrouded, and Nightingale.



Enshrouded has been the best Survival so far for me.

What parts is that in regards to and what things stand out to you? I liked Portal Knights a lot and plan on picking up Enshrouded at some point (after it comes to Xbox). I'm interested in the good stuff.

I'm a big fan of voxel building despite its limitations.

Another opinion from me is that it is great, but outside of building which can go on for many more hours and is seriously some of the best from any survival game ever, it simply lacks gameplay beyond the initial offering. Depending on your skill and how you play you can finish whats there now in anywhere from 25-50 hours easily. There's still a lot of map left for them to add and more story and items to get but they really need something more for end game to add to repetition but this can be said for many survival games but it's really short with Enshrouded.

Kappadonna

Easy to pick up, play, and put down.

But once you put it down you never pick it back up.

Complete miss of a game.

Sovrath

slowz2secret said:

tested it, the game is a 5/10 for me, still so much work and they wasted so much potential on it.

I would argue that the potential is not wasted and it still has a chance to realize that potential. Well, as close as any created work can.

It's an unfinished game. What players encounter now is just where the game is in its current state.

Of course, one might say "I would have made it differently." And I'm sure it could be made differently but until we see the final product we won't know how good (or bad) the game will be.

zyxxery

Ty so much for a useful review It's convinced me to perhaps stay clear of a game that perhaps promises too much but doesn't quite deliver a truly unique and different experience.

I took the stance pre-release that I wasn't sure what Nightingale was trying to be, and I'm pretty sure that they aren't quite sure either!


Really enjoyed your review!

Scot

zyxxery said:

Ty so much for a useful review It's convinced me to perhaps stay clear of a game that perhaps promises too much but doesn't quite deliver a truly unique and different experience.

I took the stance pre-release that I wasn't sure what Nightingale was trying to be, and I'm pretty sure that they aren't quite sure either!


Really enjoyed your review!

I have concerns about this as a growing issue in gaming, games come out with a lot of gameplay systems but they do not make a coherent whole. Meanwhile lore is abandoned so games have little in the way of theme to center the games concept. But early days for this one, lets see what the release looks like.

kitarad

Was looking at this but it seems very buggy and the random disconnects points to an issue with their servers. I hate disconnects and they are looking into solo offline mode which is what I prefer for these types of games. Not into grouping with random so-and-so that destroy your buildings and steal from you.

I hate the tendency of random strangers that absolutely just for kicks end up destroying your fun. I want solo or safer private server options.

When the game is less buggy and they introduce the solo offline mode I will look at it.

goemoe

Fun fact of the support of nightingale. They asked me to file a ticket because a freshly installed win11 pc (which does not have any issues otherwise) did crash within minutes every time I tried to play. Another quite old pc runs the game without issues (but with loading times worse than in the disc drive times...). After I filed the ticket, I heard nothing and after some days I was asked how pleased I was with the support. The support seems to be in early access as well... a week later I still have heard none about my issue.

7/10 is a fair rating. I would give it 6/10. The game lacks a soul like so many procedual generated games. Some nice mechanics grouped with nice graphics and a nice idea get repetitive fast. Every realm has some of the same locations you get used to fast. You work/grind them to gather resources to proceed to greater gear only to repete the process in later realms.

The story get provided by bits you have to find somewhere. It does not propell you through the game, it is just accompanying you. The great start with a cool voice of puck is followed by overwhelming UI crafting menus, loads of craftings stations and complete forests and hills you have to grind down to build your homes. Though it is quite a fighting game the rudimentary combat system provides little fun in using it.

To sum it up... 80 hours in... I am thinking to give Enshrouded a visit, might be worth it.

Gruug

I have two negatives about the game (which I love regardless). One is that things are not well explained such as the system of using augmentations to upgrade your crafting benches. Additionally, the shear number of augmentations and how they overlap with others was not clear at first. You can spend a lot of time asking questions of their Discord channel or looking for answers on YouTube or whatnot. The other negative is somewhat related to the first. That is that the build limits seem far too low. Once you start crafting you accumulate a lot of items and this takes up a lot of space. The item limit means you have to be continually be adjusting to stay within the build limit.

ILLISET

Are we really considering Ark/Conan Exiles type games MMO's now? I just don't get how that server model equates to what MMO means.