The Lorerunner

STO


Star Trek Online

The beginning sucks (as is true with all MMOs) and the gameplay is wonky as hell, but the core nugget of Trek is there and it’s awesome. I highly recommend playing Federation aligned and skipping as much of the early stuff as you’re able, as the story doesn’t really get good until the Solenae arc. Having said that, I strongly recommend playing up until and through the Gamma arc, and then… stopping there. Solenae to Gamma is solid and easily worth the price of admission.

Total Story Score: +73
Total Gameplay Score: -15
Golden Number: 106.94
Cheats: No
Total Play Time: 19 days / 137.5 Hours
Time Reviewed: 4-9-2025

Spoiler Story Positives+
  1. NPC Set Dressing: Good in general. It varies, but the whole game as a whole gets at least one mention
  2. Intro: The TOS Intro is simple but good, digs into where STO shines best (continuity!), and sets you up for what’s to come quite well
  3. MSQ: Temporal Agent Chekov and his mission are simple, but good stuff, with some good moments and nice threading of the Babel episode
  4. MSQ: The final TOS mission does some good tying up of several threads, great foreshadowing, and ultimately serves as a nice cap to things
  5. Brickwork: ESD is… decent, it looks very much like ESD should look, with good usage of NPCs and the ships in dock
  6. MSQ: The Klingon mission Manhunt is actually pretty good in general; Good showcasing of Klingon fake-honor, good showcasing of how corrupt the Empire is under J’mpok, and the big scene with the Bird is fantastic
  7. Brickwork: Space skyboxes. There’s several, and they’re weirdly good
  8. Brickwork: Special praise to the early TOS missions for putting real and good effort into making everything actually look very early TOSy
  9. MSQ: Alpha (Klingon mission) is actually pretty good, sets up some good moments, has a few choices, and isn’t face palmingly stupid (a high bar for Klingons)
  10. MSQ: Afterlife (Klingon mission) despite pulling the ‘is it real or not’ crap, is still a great mission; good writing, good showcase of Klingon culture (literal or otherwise), and is honestly a pretty good connection and conclusion point for the Klingon story arc
  11. Intro: The initial storytelling, animation, and some scenes and battles make sense, and the inclusion of Janeway actually helps quite a bit, with the new Federation Intro
  12. MSQ: Spectres mission, What Lies Beneath is genuinely horrifying and uses its concepts (a broken murderous hologram) to good effect
  13. MSQ: Spectres mission, Everything Old Is New, is a good contrast to the previous horrifying deathdoom
  14. MSQ: Spectres mission, Night of the Comet is a decent payoff to both Drake and the Devidians, and while the nerve tonic is aggravating it was nice to see Scotty in action
  15. MSQ: The Spectres build up mission is great (and I love the Omega Particle joke)
  16. Brickwork: Bajor is neat, but I love the effort put into Mirror Bajor
  17. MSQ: I love the plot element and story sequencing of the 2800. Okay we’ve got a breather episode, cool, dealing with the Borg, cool, oh crap a gigantic fleet of Dominion show up and it’s the missing 2800 from DS9, and now we have a huge problem… well crap
  18. MSQ: The visual presentation of and general ideas around Boldly They Rode are great, and (narratively) walking on DS9’s surface to infiltrate it is great
  19. Cutscene: The Romulan opening cinematic does a good job of immediately putting yourself in the mindset of the post-Hobus Romulans
  20. Intro: And the Romulan Intro is probably one of my favorites, despite the obviousness of it it’s still well executed and enjoyable to boot
  21. MSQ: The initial Romulan story arc about struggling to get a crew together, help local refugees, and barely fighting back against the Elachi and the Tal Shiar is legitimately better constructed and generally more interesting than honestly the rest of the content to-date…
  22. MSQ: …for a solid double
  23. External Continuity: I love the New Romulus finding, its connection to future arcs, and its connection to Romulan (and Vulcan) past
  24. MSQ: And finally, the Khitomer conference is a great mission; Excellent writing for the Klingon representatives (and captain), perfect understanding of the cultures involved, and some Babylon 5 Effect for Sela’s introduction to the narrative
  25. MSQ: The Charva arc and revisit of Virinat is pretty neat
  26. MSQ: Tal Shiar arc has some pretty big flaws but the payoff of Taris, Hakeev, and Sela is fantastic
  27. MSQ: Everything about the Mind Game is fantastic. The horror of it, the fact that you’re forced to (and can fight it but… can’t succeed), just the whole thing
  28. MSQ: Continuing the nightmarish horror, the entirety of Installation 18 is a great narrative payoff to the mind numbing dulldom of Nimbus 3
  29. MSQ: The Colosseum mission has its issues but that initial setup is legitimately excellent, deserving its own plus individually
  30. MSQ: The Romulan finale and its implications about the iconians, the final death of Hakeev, and Sela being (temporarily) removed from the board
  31. Brickwork: The visuals and layout and styling of New Romulus is excellent
  32. MSQ: I love the actual ‘New Romulus’ arc itself; the last dying gasp of the Tal Shiar, the Hirogen and their willingness to fight whomever, and the slow reveal of the Dewans
  33. Moment: The big reveal of the iconian gateway, still functional and related to the fate of the Dewans, now in the hands of the Republic
  34. MSQ: Sphere of Influence has some good build up with the gateway and the slow, creepy reveal of the Solenae and how much they’re already planning…
  35. MSQ: …but the way they showcase their intel area, and the Omega bombshell, plus the implied politics of the entire situation, really nail it
  36. Visual Storytelling: A Step Between Stars deserves a positive literally just for the visual storytelling of that damned star and how terrifying it is
  37. MSQ: Continuing, the progression through the station and the reveal of what happened to the Jenolan Sphere was a great build up…
  38. MSQ: …leading to the big revealing twist with Cooper, and the unveiling of the Undine threat
  39. MSQ: The initial setup of Surface Tension is already awesome, with great moments with a lot of people (Garak, the xindi, Shon)
  40. MSQ: Surface Tension continues to do some awesome stuff, mostly with the destruction of ESD as well as the interactions with Cooper
  41. Moment: The big reveal of the Iconians, finally, and the tilting of the arc is just… such a great moment
  42. MSQ: The entire mindscape with Tuvok is delightful and very well executed
  43. MSQ: I love the simplicity of helping the talaxians out with local, small scale issues as they prepare to colonize a new world
  44. MSQ: Capture the Flag has some good moments, but really working and interacting with the crew is what sells it
  45. MSQ: Dragon’s Deceit and the big reveal of the bluegills is fun in general, but the spy motif works amusingly well
  46. MSQ: Alliances defies expectations of its Voyager episode and instead is actually good, with several neat micro-stories of how we rope several sides together for the coming conflict
  47. MSQ: The final Vaadwaur mission (Takedown) is suitably well presented, a good payoff for the Delta arc, and the reveal about Gaul is exactly what it should be
  48. MSQ: Dust To Dust is excellent. Despite my… issues with the Kobali and their stupidity (gonna have words with ‘em, I swear!) I do love what they do with them, and the first Harry, and tying it all in to the vaadwaur and the Delta arc in general…
  49. MSQ: …easily earning a second positive
  50. Doodads: The game does… decent doodads, earning one positive
  51. Babylon 5 Effect: The Babylon 5 Effect in this game is real
  52. Foreshadowing: Excellent and consistent foreshadowing…
  53. Foreshadowing: …earning a full…
  54. Foreshadowing: …three positives
  55. Character: Obisek is a well written and engaging character, competent but still willing to bite back while still remaining diplomatic
  56. Character: The relevance of the PC in events honestly elevates my enjoyment overall
  57. Character: Tuvok is fantastic, big shock, but they use him to good effect
  58. Character: Neelix is excellent, not just for his usage and presentation but for absolutely nailing him and (surprise surprise) avoiding him being annoying
  59. Character: Seven isn’t quite as good as some of the others, but she’s still enjoyable and still manages good character moments re: the vaadwaur
  60. Character: The Doctor is The Doctor, played to perfection and generally excellent
  61. Character: Harry Kim is finally given a chance to shine, and despite the fact that he got positives in his arc he deserves a bonus one for the excellents of his performance
  62. Voice Acting: Which is a good time to talk about the voice acting of the original cast of Voyager. While some of the brought-back actors sway in and out of quality, the Voyager team just nails it
  63. Internal Continuity: This is a good time to talk continuity. The game keeps legitimately excellent track of what it’s already done…
  64. Internal Continuity: …earning a full…
  65. Internal Continuity: …three positives for Internal Continuity
  66. External Continuity: This is further added on by the big one. I have honestly never seen a game do this good with an external work, using external continuity to fantastic effect…
  67. External Continuity: …so it’s not just three…
  68. External Continuity: …positives, but actually…
  69. External Continuity: …I’m giving a bonus fourth positive for not just the external continuity being excellent and adding to the work, but for just how well STO nails that particular variety of ‘here’s a one off alien from one episode of one show, and let’s make something of them’ that they do so, so well
  70. MSQ: The big moments of Uneasy Moments are good, though they do have issues
  71. MSQ: Blood of Ancients is a game changer; The massive loss, the erasure of the Preservers
  72. MSQ: House Pegh gets right back to being awesome, with a fun infiltration and some actually brain-having Klingons
  73. Character: …but bonus points must be given for Kahless. He went out like a boss, knew what he was getting into, retained his honor by challenging T’Ket, and held his own for several seconds against the foe
  74. MSQ: Time In A Bottle brings back the Krenim in a big way (foreshadowed earlier) and gives us some good actual exposition about the iconians (also our first time really seeing them as a group), plus Nog is awesome
  75. MSQ: Butterfly has a lot of issues, really, but it’s a fun episode by itself, especially the what-if scenarios
  76. Plot: Okay so I have, have to give three positives for this because I absolutely love this. The fact that the majority of STO is in timeline 1, which is NOT the timeline of the shows, is amazing… the fact that we do an incursion, damning the Tuterians into becoming the Sphere Builders, which causes not only the events of Enterprise but also the entire Temporal Cold War, is fantastic …
  77. Plot: …so this single plot point…
  78. Plot: …earns a full three positives
  79. Brickwork: Ancient Iconia is brilliant, just visually
  80. Plot: The closed timeloop of Sela and the Iconians isn’t as brilliant as their previous temporal outing but it’s still a damned good one
  81. Tone: I should further mention that I absolutely love how… how very Star Trek it is to make peace with the Iconians rather than to defeat them
  82. Character: Sela manages to be a surprisingly interesting character, with her own arc and her own… moments, up and down
  83. Atmosphere: I really like how we spend the entire Iconian War losing and barely holding on
  84. Character: Nog is Nog and he’s as awesome as ever, and it was great to have him
  85. MSQ: The Temporal Ambassador mission is problematic, but is still creative, fun, and a good way to turn things on its head
  86. MSQ: The general arc wielding of the Yesterday’s War episodes is enjoyable
  87. MSQ: Survivor is well acted, emotionally powerful, and a great final, true sendoff for Tasha and Sela…
  88. MSQ: …making it one of the more powerful individual quests in the entire game, earning it two positives easily
  89. MSQ: Sunrise is, finally, properly, the post-Legion story arc we needed; Almost entirely focused on exploration and puzzle solving, with enough hints and connections to the Temporal War to make it interesting
  90. MSQ: Stormbound has a couple of glaring flaws but is a nice way to arc weld several temporal plots together
  91. MSQ: Ragnarok has a lot of issues, but Chekov is legit, as is Scotty, and it was nice to see the conclusion of Noye and the final results of our meddling as well as the creation of the Prime Timeline
  92. MSQ: Echoes of Light is awesome on many levels. It’s the breather episode we needed after the Iconian arc, while also still helping to establish several future plot points, and finally resolving the fate of K-13
  93. Voice Actor: Rodek and Tony Todd are awesome as always
  94. Character: Kuumaarke is just such a breath of fresh air, great original character who manages to be positive and energetic without being annoying or irritating
  95. Voice Acting: Further her voice actress nails it so hard, showcasing a lot of range and nuance in a very short period of time
  96. Brickwork: Another bonus positive as we keep getting further into the game for the quality of the skyboxes
  97. MSQ: Mirrors and Smoke is awesome. Great, great visuals, great storytelling, surprisingly dark but not too dark…
  98. MSQ: …just some lovely stuff all around, easily worth two positives
  99. MSQ: Brushfire brings back Kurn, which is awesome, ends Torg, which is awesome, and restores Martok, which is mega awesome
  100. Moment: The reveal of the germanium eggs is a decent moment, and sparks a turn in the arc
  101. Moment: The reveal of the Hur’q is honestly pretty awesome by itself
  102. Moment: And the cliffhanger! Odo being back, and with just one line; “We need to talk.”
  103. MSQ: The Renegade’s Regret is a great quest really, tying things up nicely while also showing how horrible the Tzenkethi really were
  104. Cutscene: The Victory Is Life cinematic really throws a lot of characterization for Odo into it, while setting up the stage for what is to come brilliantly
  105. Intro: The jem’hadar intro is short, but sweet, doing a lot with very little time and sending tons of foreshadowing hints everywhere
  106. Brickwork: DS9’s revamped interior is excellent; great doodad usage, showcasing of the station, and of course a nice place to just chill
  107. MSQ: Storm Clouds Gather is very, very talky, but it’s good talky. A whole lot of catching up on a whole lot of characters
  108. MSQ: Armistice is simple, but effective, and a lovely way to tie up loose ends and free Kira up to join the ‘party’
  109. Cutscene: The big confrontation scene between Odo, Kira, and Garak is absolutely fantastic. Well acted, well portrayed, very Trek; dark, but with purpose and hidden idealism. It’s a massive, quadrant-level stakes moment and yet it’s all about the personal interactions of these three people…
  110. Cutscene: …and so it earns…
  111. Cutscene: …a full three positives
  112. MSQ: The Search is well acted and well presented and honestly just good damned stuff in general
  113. MSQ: Doomed To Repeat is just… great. The revelations about the Fek’iri, the Dominion involvement in history, Weyoun’s intervention, Kira and Odo’s dynamic, and of course the big shocker…
  114. MSQ: …all earning two positives
  115. Foreshadowing: The entire Gamma arc has some great foreshadowing
  116. Babylon 5 Effect: And further, really builds itself up properly but quietly, lot of Babylon 5 Effect going around
  117. Moment: Lek walking away from the explosion is legitimately so amazing that, even knowing it was coming, it still made me grin
  118. Humor: The references and general humor of the Quark’s Lucky Seven is legit by itself
  119. Banter: The banter between characters is, for one of the only times in the entire game, actually quite good across the DS9 crew
  120. Moment: Quark talking down T’Ket is another type of awesome, but it’s still quite awesome
  121. Writing: The general cleverness and tight writing of Quark’s Lucky Seven is just fantastic
  122. Atmosphere: Tenebris Torquent has cheesy but enjoyable atmosphere and general tone and vibe
  123. MSQ: Similarly, the lowkey payoffs of plot threads (the admiral, the backpack, the calling device) all work very nicely
  124. Moment: But the big reveal about the female changeling, her role in the Dominion, is a hell of a twist that turns the entire Dominion on its head
  125. Character: Dukan’Rex goes through a wonderful arc across the Gamma arc, as he slowly questions, considers, and develops
  126. Outro: Home kinda… sucks honestly, except for that lovely outro which serves as a great coda
  127. Character: Odo is just amazing, showing the layers of desperation, fear, care, concern, and his finding a place as both a founder and a good person…
  128. Character: …so two positives for him
  129. Character: Kira, similarly, absolutely knocks it out of the park, being one of the main characters throughout and being used to great effect…
  130. Character: …also earning a second positive
  131. Voice Actress: A bonus positive just for Nana Visitor, who is legitimately a fantastic actress throughout
  132. Character: Weyoun is exactly what he needs to be, broken and insane while supporting his founder
  133. Character: Bashir is excellent, and it’s great to hear Siddig again
  134. Character: Quark is very Quark, retaining his humor while also his sense of gravity
  135. Character: Rom doesn’t have as much of a role, but he’s still awesome
  136. Character: Garak. Garak is perfect for this, being someone who’s enjoying himself immensely while never taking his role and duties anything less than completely seriously, and staying a half a step ahead of most everyone else as he goes…
  137. Character: …earning him a second positive
  138. Voice Acting: And Andrew Robinson also gets his own positive for managing the nuance, subtleties, and excellence in acting
  139. Character: Tilly is legit, thankfully
  140. Character: Okay so I have… issues with how they just create life all willy nilly, but Anthony Rapp does a pretty good job with Stamets, not just in general but in distinguishing between Stamets Hologram and Stamets 2
  141. Brickwork: Credit where it’s due, the Mycelial Realm actually looks and acts pretty legit, and tying it in to the Elachi works better than it should
  142. Secondary: The Discovery Patrols are actually pretty decent overall, brief but fun snippets with Stamets and crew
  143. Moment: The big cavalry moment of all the Enterprises coming back, even though it was to sell the 10th Anniversary Bundle, is still pretty awesome
  144. Character: Credit to Seven in the entire 10th Anniversary sequence. She nails her character and her role quite well
  145. Moment: Madran’s bit in the Klingon Stupid Arc was legitimately enjoyable and honestly amusing
  146. Character: Okay, I’ll give you this one, Gowron is great here. O’Reilley does a great job of the role and his presence honestly elevates an otherwise terrible story
  147. Moment: Firewall intro. Quiet, ominous, and great foreshadowing
  148. MSQ: Firewall. Nice intrigue, nice build up, and some good plot beats
  149. Voice Acting: Janeway(s). Of course Kate Mulgrew nails it, as both Janeways even
  150. Brickwork: Starfleet & Federation brickwork. They really do nail the aesthetic in a solid way
  151. Brickwork: Klingon. Again, fantastic usage and colors
  152. Brickwork: Romulan. Look, they look good, what do you want from me
  153. MSQ: Blue Shift. I’d say there’s just enough good banter and dialogue here to qualify, between Janeway (“My phaser outranks Tilly”), and the Exocomps (who are just delightful)
  154. Music Direction: Some surprisingly good stuff in the modern arcs
  155. Brickwork: The Other, on ground and in space
  156. Moment: Crusher’s reaction to having to use his power and the reveal that it’s HIS power
  157. MSQ: The flashback scenes in Fujiwara Effect fleshing out Crusher, Wesley, and the Terrans
  158. Brickwork: So periodically there’s one-off areas. They’re not super great, but there’s a lot of them, there’s good variety, and they do their job (helping to sell the scene)…
  159. Brickwork: …so here’s a bundle…
  160. Brickwork: …triple positive
  161. MSQ: Wish Upon A Star is actually surprisingly good for the era. Primarily non-combat focused, which is always nice, helping to restore the star, following up with the Lukari and Na’Kuhl, good stuff
  162. Brickwork: Borg. Love the interiors here
  163. Brickwork: Iconian and Solanae stuff in general
  164. Cutscene: The spectacle of the Battle of Wolf 359
  165. Moment: Okay, I’ll give you this, the segment of being assimilated worked weirdly well
  166. Moment: I also like how Kuumarke is NOT handling any of this well
  167. Moment: Kuumarke’s hallucinations, voice acting, and animations all do a great job of conveying how bothered she is that ‘we’ nearly assimilated her
  168. Brickwork: Harmony’s interior is appropriately pretty and alien
  169. Animation: Weirdly good stuff here and there to help set the scenes
  170. Camera: Especially the later stuff
  171. Spritework: Some really solid stuff, especially in how it easily and properly conveys both characters and species really well…
  172. Spritework: …earning…
  173. Spritework: …a solid triple
  174. Storyboarding: Especially in the ‘golden era’ stuff, there’s some solid storyboarding here…
  175. Storyboarding: …for a double
  176. Theme: STO is very, very Trek to its core, good and bad. And when it’s good, it’s really, really good. Some of the best Trek stories happen in this game and a lot of that is because they get what Trek ‘is’ and nail it…
  177. Theme: …so earning itself…
  178. Theme: …a triple
Spoiler Story Negatives+
  1. Cutscene: Cutscenes are hilariously bad in their storyboarding, animation, and blocking
  2. Voice Acting: Voice acting varies pretty wildly in overall quality
  3. Voice Acting: This is a good time to re-iterate the voice acting problems because holy crap. Between dull takes, readings that literally ruin lines, and repeats and bugs…
  4. Character: Daniels and his convenience stupidity
  5. Segregation: The gameplay and story segregation is pretty stark in this one, easily some of the worst I’ve ever seen, with events in lore having no real connection to actual gameplay…
  6. Segregation: …like us taking on dozens of superior ships and entire fleets regardless of logic or sense…
  7. Segregation: …and killing literally thousands of troops by ourselves without incident, all while being a normal officer in cutscenes
  8. Intro: Klingon intro is… pretty stupid on several levels, to the point of being aggravating, made all the worse by how stupid evil we are
  9. Character: Worf is honestly… bad in the early Klingon stuff (and absent later)
  10. MSQ: The Klingon Mission Heir We Go Again stumbles over itself in its stupidity; the giant holes in security, the sudden turn-on-a-dime switch for Worf, the romulan Tal Shiar agent being mind bogglingly stupid, the aforementioned Tal Shiar giving away the identity of his co conspirator and then on top of that our refusal to acknowledge it
  11. MSQ: The Mars, Bringer of War mission is an old, crap mission and it shows… revamped to play better, but the story remains disjointed, clearly from back when the KDF wasn’t even a real faction, and disconnected from reality on so many levels it plays like a bad TOS episode
  12. Intro: The Federation Intro is really, really, really aggressively stupid. Detailing it would take quite a while, but there’s a lot of nonsensical, disjointed, or otherwise plot hole elements throughout, and that’s before you even include the Borg…
  13. Intro: …because the friggin’ Borg being the intro villain makes no sense on essentially any level, and they do it terribly…
  14. Intro: …for a full three negatives
  15. Segregation: There’s a weird game / story segregation problem with how it does ranks, because we (very very quickly) get promoted to Fleet Admiral, while still acting like a captain, for no real good reason or purpose
  16. MSQ: The B’vat arc in its current, gutted state starts too late and literally only lasts two episodes, so no build up and no pay off, and it sucks
  17. MSQ: Pretty much the entire Cardassian arc as is honestly sucks. It starts off with the True Way, instantly shifts into the Terrans, bounces over to the Alpha Jem’Hadar only to immediately abandon them in favor of Laas. The chopped bits make you feel like you’re reading a book with pages torn out, which is appropriate, because you are
  18. MSQ: The writing and specific moments of the 2800 plot honestly suck
  19. MSQ: The entire Cold War arc is so bland it drifts into bad
  20. MSQ: I hate to mention it but during the Taris and Mind Game arc, there are bits of writing and voice acting that simply do not work
  21. Cutscene: The Romulan finale cutscenes honestly kind of sucked, failing to capture what was actually going on the entire time
  22. World Building: The Voth Fortress Ship is so, so dumb on so many levels… it’s a setting breaker, threat of the week nonsense, but worst of all it just doesn’t fit in Trek in general
  23. Writing: Vaadwaur overblown as a big quadrant-level threat… even if it makes sense with their iconian backers, it still hurts the entire arc
  24. Dialogue: There’s some weird dialogue issues in the Iconian arc, along with weird repetition
  25. MSQ: Delta Flight… weirdly sucks. The dialogue is bad and stilted, the voice acting is subpar at best and laughable at worst, the whole mission is just bleh
  26. MSQ: So let’s go ahead and mention something here; Butterfly is total nonsense, but what makes it negative worthy is how Jarok and everyone else are all gung ho about doing their first incursion
  27. MSQ: The Yesterday’s War episodes are horribly misplaced. They start without preamble or explanation as though you know what’s going on, and feel like filler despite being about huge scale death dooms, it’s weird
  28. MSQ: Let’s get this out of the way. The way they… use time travel in the Future Proof arc is so elasticy and so loosey goosey for the sake of the game that it’s ridiculous
  29. Cutscene Incompetence: Okay so for the most part STO bypasses the cutscene incompetence problem but good lord, the temporal arc is stuffed with it
  30. MSQ: Ragnarok has a lot of issues, easily earning up to a negative for the frustrations throughout
  31. Character: Admiral Tzen-Tarrak is just evil. Any possible nuance and layer is torpedo’d by virtue of him being horrifically evil and enjoying it
  32. World Building: The Hur’q are too strong. Them being a challenge for a beleaguered Alliance? Sure. Them pasting the Dominion? Uhhh…
  33. MSQ: Home… falls flat, in several ways; the directing, the voice acting, the non relevance, just… bleh
  34. Intro: The DIS intro being copy paste of the Fed one does it no favors (or vice versa)
  35. MSQ: The Plausibility of the Possible is… weirdly bad. It’s very surface level and simplistic, stating a point and doing nothing with it, and this is on top of the other issues with it
  36. MSQ: Impossibility of Reason begins… really badly. The shuttle nonsense is insanity on every level, and us being on the shuttle is even stupider
  37. Moment: Amna’s death scene was absolutely terrible. It could have actually worked but they wanted to have the big sacrifice goodbye and so instead a woman walks over, hits a bomb manually, then spends half a minute giving a tear felt goodbye before dying
  38. Fake Drama: Melodrama. Just… so much melodrama
  39. Cutscene Incompetence: The cutscene incompetence has always been there but it really starts to rear its ugly head in the Discovery stuff
  40. World Building: The very existence of the Pahvo weapon is by itself a negative; a super weapon that can nuke whatever at near infinite range nearly perfectly… sure
  41. Writing: This also ties into a problem STO has in general, but is worst here in the Discovery stuff; insisting that each new threat is some big galactic scale conflict
  42. Cutscene Incompetence: The… absolutely insane level of cutscene incompetence displayed on Pahvo really bothers me on so many levels
  43. World Building: Did I mention the super weapon can also beam you anywhere instantly?
  44. Plot: The plot point of murdering tons of people to allow other people (who are just as evil) to return home safely actively aggravates me
  45. MSQ: The Pahvo missions are… just bad. BILLIONS will die!
  46. Writing: Oh and J’ula’s super weapon simply by using it repeatedly can wipe out all life, in all universes, everywhere… right
  47. MSQ: The… ridiculousness of the Mycelial Realm is its own problem, but creating life (Stamets) just to bypass a bridge without even really addressing it is… what?
  48. MSQ: The childish moralizing in the Measure of Morality quest honestly irritates me. It doesn’t matter that it’s in character, it’s still annoying
  49. World Building: The Mo’Kai Virus is a macbook hacking an alien mothership…
  50. World Building: …it’s so, so stupid on so many levels and I hate its stupid face
  51. MSQ: The Khitomer Discord mission is just… peppered with bad writing, idiocy, and character assassination
  52. Consequence Storytelling: Where do all these Mo’Kai come from? Her and a couple ships got warped to the future but she has fleets (plural) at her disposal in the present
  53. Plot: The central plot of the Klingon Civil War (that we are literally working for J’mpok against the rebel J’ula) irritates me on so many levels
  54. Moment: The fact that J’mpok’s ‘I’m evil ha ha’ is treated like some big reveal is… insanity
  55. Moment: The big swap and ‘twist’ of J’ula actually being good all along and the Hero and the Good Guy is honestly the worst thing to come out of this game. It flies in the face of logic, reason, good storytelling, development, and personal opinion…
  56. Moment: …earning…
  57. Moment: …three negatives
  58. Writing: The Kai Leng field engulfing the captains as we leave Khitomer and making them all stupid
  59. MSQ: The fact that the story wants so badly to have this ‘desperate, on the run’ take because J’mpok declares us terrorists is so stupid on so many levels I had to stop and think about how to properly explain it
  60. Voice Acting: J’ula’s actress… sucks, which is made worse because she’s surrounded by better Klingon actors
  61. Internal Continuity: The sudden near-total absence of the Alliance during the Klingon Stupid just adds all types of aggravation to it
  62. Character: The fact that the PC is an observer in J’ula’s story legitimately hurts the narrative on several levels; Ignoring the obvious facts that have their own negatives, it also doesn’t really do anything with her story, and hurts logic and reason by having us be her uber driver without having us have any impact on said narrative
  63. External Continuity: T’kuuvma keeps being talked up like some great and venerable leader who’s super awesome and they just keep hammering it in so often it’s aggravating (ignoring the fact that T’kuuvma was Klingon Hitler for a second)
  64. World Building: I have other issues with it but at the end of the day, the introduction of Grethor as a real, actual place we can go and grab someone’s soul to drag back into a clone and the entire affair is a huge example of underthought. No real effort or thought put into… the huge, huge implications this has, just nope let’s do it. This is insanity on so many levels…
  65. External Continuity: …nevermind the greater implications for all of Trek
  66. Character: J’ula is a freaking mary sue, one of the worst ones in Trek. The whole narrative of three separate arcs bends and twists around her to make her win, make her right, and make her awesome, and that’s the core distillation of what a mary sue really is…
  67. Character: …so enjoy that…
  68. Character: …triple
  69. Character: The excessive emphasis on how amazing L’Rell is bothers me on every level, especially since it’s all told and none shown
  70. MSQ: The primary plot of ‘go to hell to recover the soul of someone to serve as a legend/advisor’ doesn’t work on either level because we have literal living legends with us and much, much better advisors…
  71. Consequence Storytelling: …on top of the fact that we don’t need any help beating what’s left of J’mpok’s pathetic empire which (in addition to losing a gargantuan portion of its forces during the a-year-ago Iconian War) just lost its unity as most of the Houses all fractured and splintered off. There is NO reason to bother getting this woman and yet it’s the central plot of an entire episode…
  72. Consequence Storytelling: …for…
  73. Consequence Storytelling: …a triple
  74. Writing: The absolute ass kissing going on about how amazing L’Rell is and how amazing J’Ula is is legitimately sickening, and that’s before you realize that a 150 year old ship and a no-name idiot calling for help is what unified the friggidy Klingons
  75. Dialogue: The dialogue in the later Klingon missions is just not good, lots of repetition and stating the obvious and general empty text
  76. MSQ: The Outro to the Klingon arc is bad in general, just across the board
  77. Theme: Special mention for the use of the reset button with the Klingon Empire in the wake of the entire story arc (about the Empire being on its way out) and the thematic and literal narrative core of the rest of STO (reforming and moving forwards to better ourselves… see the Romulans, Dominion, etc.). This is anti Trek and anti STO…
  78. Theme: …and screw it
  79. Voice Acting: L’Rell is just not salvaged by her actress…
  80. Character: …and she is an awful character who is terribly positioned and takes over the Empire for no damned reason
  81. Character: Mirror Tilly is just obnoxious top to bottom and, honestly, needs to get off my screen
  82. MSQ: The Calling is when things are starting to get pretty bad in the Terran arc. The return of Pahvo is never a good thing, us being jobbered by the super death cannon is ridiculous, and then the Emperor is just invincible and STILL not revealed
  83. Voice Direction: Evil! Everyone’s hit by this but it’s especially bad in the Mirror stuff
  84. Plot: Stop talking up the Terran story arc as if it’s a big conclusion just like the Iconians were
  85. Pacing: Also they really rush this for what it’s going for
  86. MSQ: And finally the whole thing just… sucks. The whole thing falls completely flat. The writers forgot who they were writing for and it all wraps up on a big ‘happily ever after’ which is totally unearned
  87. World Building: Borg Kingdom. Just… everything about them is very stupid. The game spends a very long time and a lot of real estate trying to talk up how they’re the Super Borg, but the problem is not only does that not make sense, but they’re not portrayed that way in action at all. They end up just being cheap
  88. MSQ: Taken By Surprise. Just… all of it, honestly, I don’t feel like summarizing…
  89. Pacing: …though the pacing deserves special mention
  90. Plot: By the way we’re trying to save the entire multiverse from I Can’t Believe It’s Not Borg. Sigh
  91. MSQ: Scorpion’s Abyss. So we group up with the Undine, which is fine, and we go fight the Borg, sure, then we’re assimilated, which is awesome, aaand then we’re… fine. No build up, no real pay off, and removing the implants is out-patient surgery. What?!
  92. MSQ: Oh my gawd. So in Situation Under Control we rush in to find another dimension being overrun by alternate Borg aaand our TWO ships rush in and save the day, destroying their Borg Queen and salvaging the entire galaxy. By the way as a reminder they emphasize that the ENTIRE galaxy is screwed and all that’s left is the sphere. This is… awful…
  93. MSQ: …badly paced…
  94. MSQ: …and generally nonsensical
  95. Cutscene: Also the voice acting and dialogue is bad, like early STO bad
  96. Moment: And Kuumarke rushing in to ‘save’ us after we’d mopped everything up was… bad. Really, really bad
  97. Dialogue: The dialogue here is REALLY bad. Too much saying too little…
  98. Writing: …and an absolute mass of needless technobabble which sounds so out of character I honestly thought Kuumarke was a changeling
  99. MSQ: Before we even go any further I’m giving a separate negative for Axiom’s quests up to and through the initial Harmony sequence. It’s long, it’s AWFUL, and it’s boring
  100. Voice Direction: Kuumarke and Hugh are AWFUL in Axiom. It’s hard to even put it into words
  101. Pacing: The build up to the big reveal takes way… way way way too long and that sort of destroys any impact it could (and should) have had
  102. Cutscene: Hugh trying to talk to one of the Aether drones is… God I don’t even know how to explain it, it’s awful…
  103. Cutscene: …and screw it
  104. Character: Hugh will NOT shut up about his… weird moralizing and brooding
  105. Storyboarding: And then in the rest of the content the storyboarding is legitimately awful
Spoiler Gameplay Positives+
  1. Music: Music is mostly licensed stuff, but what’s there and is unique is good
  2. Character Creation: The character creation has sliders, modular outfits, good presets, and variable based on starter…
  3. Character Creation: …easily leading to…
  4. Character Creation: …three positives for sheer quantity and quality
  5. Intro: The TOS Intro is good for what it’s trying to do; it’s a solid tutorial for the basic systems of the game and has surprisingly good level design and layout to guide you where you’re doing and what
  6. Co-Op: Game is exceptionally co-op friendly, allowing you to do roughly 98% of the entire game with a friend, in addition to scaling and team matching…
  7. Co-Op: …earning a second positive
  8. HUD: HUD rearrangement and editing
  9. Hub: ESD is reasonably well laid out, with the three main spokes all relatively close to each other and nicely knit
  10. Build: The massive, insane amount of build customization… is totally optional
  11. Build: Ship selection is insane…
  12. Build: …with so many hundreds of ships it’s hard to even properly summarize the variety on display here…
  13. Build: …easily earning a full three positives
  14. Build: Ship slots and the variety thereof is similarly excellent throughout
  15. Build: Weapons variety in terms of reach, range, special abilities, and damage type are similarly astonishingly varied and contribute enormously to the Build gameplay…
  16. Build: …easily earning…
  17. Build: …three positives
  18. Build: Sets are great, often offering good bonuses and being worth building around
  19. Build: Consoles are just as good and varied as weapons, and so earn the same…
  20. Build: …three…
  21. Build: …positives
  22. Build: Specs are a nice way to add some additional customization on top of everything else
  23. Build: Traits are mostly neat, and worthwhile on their own…
  24. Build: …but what really pushes this is the starship traits you get for leveling ships
  25. Build: Bridge Officers (BOFFs) and their extensive and expansive abilities serve as still further excellent build and customization…
  26. Build: …earning…
  27. Build: …three positives
  28. Build: Duty Officers (DOFFs) aren’t quite as extensive, but still can be used to great effect if carefully set up
  29. Core Combat: All of this supports a surprisingly solid and enjoyable space combat that, weirdly, I have never gotten tired of. The variety of builds helps with how you actually play through it and it’s intuitive and just generally fun…
  30. Core Combat: …earning…
  31. Core Combat: …three positives
  32. Enemy AI: Weirdly, yeah. All in space of course, but the enemies are pretty good about using their gimmicks consistently
  33. Mid-Mission Checkpointing: Strangely yeah, pretty well done across the board
  34. Party AI: Again, surprisingly decent. Your companions will use abilities pretty consistently and on point, and even rez each other
  35. Cosmetics: The tailor customizations is some good, if not great, cosmetics… mostly hampered by its interface, but still excellent overall variety…
  36. Cosmetics: …earning two positives
  37. Cosmetics: The usage of shields in space as a form of layered customizations for ships
  38. Alternate Leveling: Usefulness and rewarding nature of reputations
  39. Itemization: Usefulness and rewardfulness of fleet gear
  40. Minigame: Endeavors are a nice way to encourage you to go out and do things, and are a nice account-bound reward system
  41. MSQ: The Klingon mission Manhunt is a bit brief but still enjoyable, nice little jaunts, visuals, and flow to it despite the size problems
  42. Kit: Ground weapon variety is actually surprisingly good…
  43. Kit: …especially when you consider the kit of, uhm, Kits
  44. Alternate Leveling: Salvaging and re-engineering is actually a pretty great system, very accessible even to new, casual, and leveling players
  45. MSQ: The Afterlife mission is a decent example of visuals, audio, and some (minor) gimmicky fights
  46. Co-Op: The ‘synch to team leader’ level thing is a great way for people to help people group up and keep things fair and fun
  47. MSQ: Into The Hive is surprisingly good, with an actual boss fight with actual mechanics that are tutorialized through the stage and everything
  48. NG+: The ability to replay missions infinitely and whenever is a very effective form of New Game +…
  49. NG+: …honestly one of the better ones I’ve ever seen…
  50. NG+: …and easily worth three positives (why aren’t more MMOs doing this?!)
  51. MSQ: The Kobyashi Maru is decent enough; it’s an arena, but the hazards and suffixes help // Azure Nebula is decent enough // As is the Nukara hold the line mission
  52. Viscerality: The viscerality of the game is legitimately quite good…
  53. Viscerality: …in both space and ground
  54. Prime Opt: Borg space missions are still generally fun even after all these years
  55. MSQ: Mind Game is a simple mission but the choices and the structure of it are great for how they emphasize the narrative
  56. Prime Opt: The Vault (Tholian one) is actually kinda neat and fun, with a little gimmick and general enjoyability
  57. MSQ: Sphere of Influence has been much improved in the ‘roleplay’ section of piloting another ship (unique abilities for our unique crew help a lot), plus it’s nice to have a ground mission not lean on killing dozens of trash mobs
  58. Secondary: Finally we reach a point where the adventure zones are actually good. The various space zones are decent, but the ‘recurring events’ format actually worked quite well for it
  59. Secondary: A separate bonus for the Undine and ground Voth adventure zones and their event focused cycling and rewarding
  60. Prime Opt: The Breach does do some good stuff here and there, making the experience actually fun when it isn’t arduous
  61. MSQ: A Step Between Stars starts the chain of actually good quests, with some neat sections and gimmicks and actual gameplay in level design
  62. MSQ: Surface Tension serves as a new tutorial for the game, and does a good job of it
  63. MSQ: Surface Tension is fun, good layering objectives and good usage of unique gimmicks to vary up the combat
  64. MSQ: The Mindscape mission is easily one of my favorite quests in the game, even gameplay wise, using its conceits in new and creative ways to keep it fun and interesting
  65. Prime Opt: Undine Infiltration is actually pretty creative; It’s simple, but it’s still fun and enjoyable to piece together the infiltrators, and leans light on the combat
  66. Prime Opt: Viscous Cycle continues the modern trend of good TFOs, with fun targets and enjoyable semi optional mini objectives
  67. Secondary: The competitive ‘pvp’ TFOs are actually pretty fun…
  68. Secondary: …both of them
  69. Enemy Variety: The enemy variety in the game is legitimately excellent, with a huge range of enemies and differing tactics…
  70. Enemy Variety: …easily earning…
  71. Enemy Variety: …three positives
  72. MSQ: Takedown is a great mission, between the layered areas which don’t reload the cell (persisting buffs and the like), calling in different allies with different results, and the final ground battle…
  73. MSQ: …it earns two positives
  74. MSQ: The Dust To Dust quest is actually pretty fun, between the lightning, the maze, and the collapsing platforms
  75. MSQ: Iconian 1 and unique platforming stuff
  76. MSQ: While it’s not much, the varied up gameplay and different focus of Sunrise is very welcome, and honestly is the type of mission I’d like to see more of
  77. MSQ: Days of Doom is actually pretty fun. It’s got unique objectives which aren’t irritating, encourages the team to split up and coordinate…
  78. MSQ: …and is topped off by a fun and enjoyable encounter you defeat through interaction and not just shooting it
  79. Secondary: Tzenkethi Front is decent overall, back to objective based actions and some neat give and take on offense/defense
  80. MSQ: The Renegade’s Regret is great, they do exactly what they should do with the ‘roleplay’ system and make the entire experience fun
  81. Intro: The Dominion intro gets you into things quickly, tutorializes well, and hands you all you need to jump right into it
  82. MSQ: Quark’s Lucky Seven and the variety in gameplay and general fun is just… legit
  83. MSQ: Call me weird but I actually rather like the Tenebris Torquent gameplay; it’s flawed, but they branch out and do more than the typical ‘trash fights’ approach to it
  84. MSQ: The Pahvo Dissension mission is actually pretty fun, with the chained objectives and decent map design
  85. MSQ: Beneath The Skin is actually not bad gameplay wise, mixing it up a bit and having some neat little attempts at gameplay
  86. MSQ: To Hell With Honor actually isn’t bad on the face of it, with the layered objectives and the reward/penalty for rushing the bases
  87. MSQ: Mycelial Realm isn’t bad either, with real objectives and decent layouts which encourage multiple tactics
  88. MSQ: Sentinels is quick, rewarding, and fun
  89. MSQ: The advancing wall of doom while rescuing people in its path during Khitomer Discord was actually pretty clever, unique, and fun
  90. Prime Opt: Best Served Cold is when TFOs finally start to come into their own; base holding with dynamic objectives around defeating then protecting transports, and the exploding ships which we have to defeat before the stations get hit…
  91. Prime Opt: …earning two positives
  92. MSQ: Firewall, space and pacing. Fun stuff
  93. MSQ: Weirdly, Calling (despite having bad parts) still has some solid space segments. Good enemy composition, good side objectives
  94. Prime Opt: Bird Cage was surprisingly fun for what it is. Despite some basic dungeon design, I did have fun the entire time
  95. Prime Opt: Leviathan is one of the better objective-based TFOs, encouraging players to split up but also ‘roam’ if needed, and fun optional objectives
  96. MSQ: Wish Upon A Star. Some usual good quest design here
  97. Prime Opt: Battle of Wolf 359. Lots of moving parts, really good sense of scale and urgency, even spheres being minibosses
  98. MSQ: Scorpion’s Abyss. Some basic stuff which I’m not a huge fan of, but I do unironically really like the assimilated section. For once the custom kit you get actually works really well
  99. Prime Opt: Guillotine is actually a pretty fun objective-based mission with good variety of enemies and bonus objectives…
  100. Prime Opt: …for a solid double
Spoiler Gameplay Negatives+
  1. Interface: Bindings and options don’t share (or have the option to) across characters
  2. Co-Op: Co-op issues with dialogue, triggers, and other nuisances
  3. MTX: Tailor customization options locked behind in game store
  4. MTX: The in game store, as usual, sucks
  5. MTX: The way the game locks amazing stuff behind ludicrously overpriced bundles is asinine
  6. MTX: The in game lootbox system is bad on so many levels. First there’s the fact that lootboxes exist at all
  7. MTX: Then there’s the fact that they shove them into your face as regular loot, despite the fact that you can literally buy them infinitely for free
  8. MTX: Then there’s the chat spam (which is admittedly toggleable) that tells you when anyone, anywhere, successfully gets a rare item
  9. MTX: Speaking of which, the worthwhile stuff is ludicrously rare, and random
  10. MTX: Then we add in the extra layer of predation by making the boxes free but you have to pay for the keys, adding that extra layer of crap
  11. MTX: Each box also gives you a very small amount of lobi
  12. MTX: Lobi itself is its own issue, as the only (reliable, repeatable) source of lobi in the entire game is the lootboxes
  13. MTX: There is a degree of FOMO with regards to ships, consoles, devices, and traits
  14. MTX: Vanity shields from lockboxes! Because of course they are
  15. MTX: Also, no preview pane so no idea what you’re buying
  16. Traversal: Sector travel at low level sucks, really really badly, and only avoids more negatives by virtue of the transwarp to quest option
  17. Padding: The load times are honestly ridiculous, even after patching everything
  18. Sound Design: The game has the usual audio overlap issue a lot of games have, making it a bit too easy to miss dialogue (and being irritating regardless)
  19. Viscerality: The ‘animations’ of ground combat are, let’s be as blunt as we can here…
  20. Viscerality: …bad, bad, bad, easily two negative territory
  21. Audio Spam: There’s quite a bit of audio spam and no real way to avoid it (both in dialogue and in SFX)
  22. Itemization: The game has no real controls or safeguards over the dilithium in game economy, which has a knock on effect on quite a bit of the rest of the game
  23. Info In Game: There is a fairly substantial lack of information in game on several key aspects of the game
  24. Interface: The interface has to be ‘dealt with’ almost constantly… honestly being one of the worst interfaces in general and in an MMO in general…
  25. Interface: …leading to two negatives
  26. Grind: The grind time on reputation is unacceptable
  27. Grind: The grind on procuring marks for the rep items is pretty bad too
  28. Core Mechanic: The very nature of how Fleets … just… work is entirely too convoluted to the point of ridiculousness
  29. QoL: So there’s an extensive problem with how fleets function. First, outside of the obvious social aspect, Fleets are there for Fleet gear first and foremost. Fleet gear costs Fleet CREDITS. You cannot earn Fleet credits, only Fleet MARKS. You then have to toss them into projects with limited basins and other irritating stuff to contribute in order to turn marks into credits. This has… all of the problems with it…
  30. QoL: …and honestly giving it only two negatives is just because of how unnecessary fleet gear is
  31. Crafting: Crafting is arduous, grindy, and mostly vestigial
  32. Alternate Leveling: The entire DOFF system is barely explained and requires either looking things up on the wiki or dropping an obscene amount of in game (or real) money on the good ones for builds
  33. Early Game: There is a pretty bad early game syndrome going on here, as early combat (both ground and space) is mind numbingly boring
  34. Walkthroughitis: There is a lack of tutorialization and categorization for the massive, massive and extensive builds mechanisms in the game, leading to being lost in the candy store
  35. Secondary: Defara Adventure Zone. Ill defined quests which have no real feedback and aren’t good to begin with
  36. Secondary: The Arena of Sompek could be worse, but it’s boring and dull and infinite
  37. QoL: The game kicks you from group (disbands it, actually) after leaving an instance
  38. QoL: Any issues with instances mean bailing; Any bailing (under any circumstances) means a 30 minute penalty, period
  39. Secondary: Old Patrols just… sucked, so badly
  40. Secondary: They were boring, disinteresting, and sloggy…
  41. Secondary: …and plagued with issues reminiscent of older game design
  42. Bug: The Spectres Flickering is honestly awful and literally causes client wide issues
  43. Backtracking: Spectres, my goodness
  44. MSQ: The Spectres nerve tonic puzzle isn’t bad at its core but is just arduous to slog through
  45. Audio Spam: Forged In Fire audio spam is above and beyond
  46. Prime Opt: Forged In Fire is also really bad about boss padding in health, even if it’s not as bad as it used to be, it’s still bad
  47. MSQ: The entire ‘forced to occupy Bajor’ quest series is bad, bad, bad. It’s excessively padded, boring as sin, and drags on longer than most entire episodes…
  48. MSQ: …earning its entirely necessary two negatives
  49. MSQ: Meanwhile having to deal with the ferengi twit and the swarmers and the shuttle AND the bugs… earns a negative
  50. Audio Design: General audio mixing problems
  51. MSQ: Severe and multiple softlocking bugs with Boldly They Rode
  52. Prime Opt: Borg ground missions suck in general, regardless of the follow up missions which suck even more
  53. Prime Opt: The Cure Applied TFO can go straight to hell. It’s long, slow, boring, easy to screw up, has almost no feedback, and can literally bug out
  54. Prime Opt: Khitomer In Stasis isn’t bad until you get to the confusing cross team thing which is padding at best and confusing at worst
  55. Secondary: Exceptionally boring quest design on Nimbus III (very x of y)
  56. Overworld: Speaking of which the overworld design of Nimbus III is… not good, at best
  57. Secondary: Boring MMOy quests in New Romulus, on top of honestly pretty bad overworld design
  58. Bug: This is in addition to New Romulus having long swaths of boring, bugs and irritations everywhere, and timed events that don’t share credit even across teammates
  59. MSQ: The Elachi station mission sucks
  60. Prime Opt: The Elachi TFO is identical to the mission and therefore… sucks
  61. Secondary: The Elachi patrols suck
  62. Secondary: The Elachi ground missions… suck (forced rebreathers in an area where the enemies do tons of status effects and damage)
  63. Prime Opt: The Elachi ground TFO sucks…
  64. Prime Opt: …and is identical to the mission. But let’s talk about why…
  65. Kit: …shuttlecraft suck. They’re just ships. Fast, mobile, but with none of the massive build variety or options you get for ships. So they’re just ships, but… bad. And thus all shuttle missions independently suck
  66. Core Combat: So, why does ground combat suck? Well it contains issues that space combat has, with none of the benefits… no facing to speak of, no variety of weapon arcs, and none of the extensive build gameplay. So it’s just bad…
  67. Core Combat: …and easily worth…
  68. Core Combat: …three negatives by itself
  69. Controls: Then we get into targeting, which is some of the worst targeting I’ve ever seen in an mmo, bouncing back and forth between being better to hit tab, another hotkey custom bound, or mouse click depending…
  70. Controls: …so targeting…
  71. Controls: …is another three negatives
  72. Prime Opt: The Vault continues the trend of bad shuttle missions. Aside from the usual problems, the tight vertical space in a game that doesn’t support going up or down, on top of time wasters and irritants, makes the whole thing bleh
  73. Prime Opt: Vault Shuttle Event has established a new precedent as the worst MMO dungeon we’ve covered to-date. It’s a shuttle mission, with the verticality mentioned previously in the Vault, with boring trash that respawns, which is an escort mission, which takes forever to repair if you screw up, for an escort that doesn’t dodge anything, while requiring you to kill all enemies to progress, while nothing indicates that whatsoever, while enemies can get bugged and locked inside the terrain…
  74. Prime Opt: …thus earning us…
  75. Prime Opt: … a triple negative dungeon
  76. MSQ: The Coliseum mission has a few dozen constant little irritations and bugs to it
  77. Padding: Having to redo the New Romulus missions is just whatever on so many levels
  78. Padding: …uh, twice. Redoing the missions… twice
  79. Padding: So both of these iterations…
  80. Padding: …deserve double negatives
  81. Padding: And they pull this crap AGAIN later in New Romulus…
  82. Padding: …which continues to be awful in every way
  83. Prime Opt: Breach has some bad padding issues and it’s still easy to get lost at points (plus the loss of the ‘speed buff’ can screw over players)
  84. Difficulty Options: Lazy difficulty settings
  85. Prime Opt: Audio spam problems return for the Iconian TFOs
  86. Prime Opt: Unfortunately the Iconian TFOs in general kinda suck. They tried some gimmicks but these ones didn’t work
  87. HUD: The HUD has another problem; lack of feedback. It’s legitimately hard to see buffs and debuffs, both in general and in the field
  88. Prime Opt: Miner Instabilities has… some issues. The audio spam is really bad in the early part, the game isn’t clear about splitting up, and the progression triggers are buggy
  89. Interface: The game’s in-game chat is… bad. Bad filtering options, bad options in general, bad presentation, just bad…
  90. Interface: …worthy of two negatives
  91. Secondary: Tzenkethi warzone… honestly sucks. The scaling is off, it takes forever to progress and you can lose progress, and it’s barely rewarding (especially in terms of time investment)
  92. Prime Opt: Gravity Kills has some great ideas but awful implementation; between the pull issues with certain ship configurations, the literal instant respawning of enemies, the bad placement of hawking particles, just… everything really
  93. Prime Opt: The recurring ‘hold the line’ TFO format isn’t ‘bad’ really but it’s over-use drags it into bad territory
  94. Secondary: The Gamma ‘adventure zone’ sucks. The individual quests are alright but badly scaled and badly balanced and can get boring, fast
  95. MSQ: Home is one of the most boring missions in quite a while; it’s (literally) kill a bunch of trash, kill a bunch of ground trash, hold the line against ground trash, kill trash, kill ground trash, hold the line against ground trash. That’s… it
  96. Intro: The DIS Intro being copy paste of the Fed one (or vice versa) is really lazy
  97. MSQ: Yet another negative for the continuing reliance upon the same boring one-note hold the line objective
  98. MSQ: Hold the line, dammit
  99. MSQ: J’ulu’s consistent usage of the Kai Leng field can go straight to hell
  100. MSQ: To Hell With Honor has entirely too many turrets which are entirely too overtuned, and having to kill all the elachi at each step honestly drags it down
  101. MSQ: The first Measure of Morality quest isn’t… bad, but it has some weird and wonky issues, made worse by being forced to not have our BOFFs, and of course the irritation of the Control fight
  102. MSQ: The pure RNG bad design of the arena fight of Madran’s deserves its own negative
  103. MSQ: Firewall, hold the line doldrums. I’m honestly shocked. As I went and re-read and audited my own notes and it’s amazing how often they use this awful, awful format of stand in a spot and kill things until you’re done
  104. MSQ: Red Shift Sten Section. To explain; a Sten Section is when a game suddenly shoves you into another character, and it’s badly designed. So here we’re forced to be our own mirror universe self… who not only has absolutely terrible abilities, but our basic attack cannot be auto-fired (for no reason) meaning mashing 1 for every single attack
  105. Prime Opt: Iuppiter Iratus. It’s not actually bad, per say, except for a few things. First, the fact that the respawn point is directly on where the enemies congregate is awful and leads to snowballing. Second, the audio spam is REAL, my God
  106. MSQ: Blue Shift. They… really are in love with these hold the line missions aren’t they? This one’s especially egregious as it’s actually three separate ones across the mission
  107. Bug: Dialogue playing over itself, and often out of order. Even if you’re super careful it happens, and can be easy to lose in the noise
  108. MSQ: The Calling has yet another forced bad section AND a hold the line, good lord
  109. Guidance: The entire game… lacks guidance. Obviously there’s systems and builds and the like, but even basic things like what TFOs exist and when they happen in the story requires looking up the frickin’ wiki…
  110. Guidance: …earning a double
  111. MSQ: Eye Of The Storm. More hold the line missions while piloting a terrible character
  112. Interface: Feedback, or lack thereof. Good luck figuring out what’s going on, often
  113. MSQ: Taken By Surprise. That one boss fight (you know, the only one) and Hold The Lines while doing not-puzzles
  114. Bug: Audio peaking issues in Axiom
  115. Unskippable Cutscenes: Sadly, yeah