Bean Stalker - VR Gameplay Valve Index
10An interesting crafting game with plenty of potential but a number of EA issues. I wouldn't really call it a 'looter shooter' so much as just a crafting game. While crafting materials are technically 'loot' when I think of a 'looter shooter' I think equipment drops. Weapons, armor, accessories. That's not what you find here. Wood, iron ore and flowers don't really tickle the looter shooter lover inside me. Granted there are looter shooters like Warframe that heavily rely on crafting materials as their loot but they also drop modules which are effectively more important than your gear. I would personally remove the looter shooter tag off Steam as I think it's misrepresentation of the gameplay available.
I would like the hand models to be expanded upon to implement more responsive gestures. Pointing, thumbs up, open and closed fist. The last one is there but it was kind of janky and not very responsive to me opening my hand. Full Index finger tracking would be ideal. I was expecting my hand to open as I reached for a lever and to close around the lever as I gripped and pulled. Seeing my hand remain a closed fist and pass through the lever took some getting used to as it initially feels like you didn't actually grab the lever.
Hand tracked locomotion. Give me locomotion options. In a game that has as much looking around as this game requires, head oriented locomotion is a no go for me.
The voice acting could have been better. Especially for the main character calling out things like night fall or a nearby extraction point. The ability to turn off or reduce the frequency of the extraction point call outs would be a welcome addition. They were more annoying than informative. Maybe they might be more useful in higher levels but atm they weren't helpful at all.
Some inclines are a bit difficult to start the hook process when you need to climb up. Getting pushed back when you lean over just exacerbates this issue. This is a hard issue to tackle and they've done better than I expected but it is still present here. It's much smoother than something like A Township Tales climbing mechanics but it's still an occasional issue.
Melee combat needs quite a bit of love as it's currently not very satisfying. All you really need to do is touch your weapon to an enemy. No real amount of force is required to swing at something
There are obvious EA bugs that I'm not going to really fault them for such as the wrist screen being janky or the lack of full turning animations for the tutorial spider boss. I'd like to see those addressed of course but they feel more like EA jank than issues. The same can be said for Quality of Life issues like inventory management or two handing your shotgun.
To the things I liked! The most telling is likely that I didn't realize I'd been playing for an hour and a half. I was straight up having fun and lost track of time. I feel like I've barely scratched the surface of the available content. I've hardly unlocked any recopies and only cleared two levels.
The scale and ease of getting lost is really impressive. It's so much easier to get lost than I expected. The size and scale coupled with the chaotic nature of the bean stalk and how you're climbing in circles to grab loot... You get quite flipped around and I loved it.
Feeling like batman! I loved the grappling hook. It felt so good.
The blade slammers worked wonderfully! One of the smoothest climbing experiences I've encountered. Overall smooth, responsive and natural to use.
The music was great. Certain bits with the harp felt very FF inspired which I love.
The graphical aesthetic and all the little details in the world were great. Especially your home.
I will definitely be playing this on stream and giving more feedback as I do. I love that they've considered streamers and have added a Twitch integration and I really want to try that out. More devs should put some time into this as streaming a VR title can be difficult.
I really enjoyed myself and can't wait to jump back in and start really making some progress. It's hard to say at the moment if $30 is a bit steep or not. I definitely think you'll get your moneys worth in gameplay hours but this is definitely an EA title with some EA issues. If you're not a fan of paid beta testing then you should likely wait but if you're ok and accepting of Early Access titles then this is definitely worth your time.
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