The best way I can describe this open-world survival game is - a poor Valheim clone. It does add some new things to the mix, but while you're playing it you're just constantly thinking of playing Valheim. So, without mentioning "that other game" too much in this review, let's list everything Omega Crafter adds to the mix.

You start with a programmable robot called Grammi that you can "program" to make him cut wood, craft or fight and you can switch his "code" whenever you want. The reason why it's "programming" is that it's very beginner-friendly with tons of prebuilt code for you to use, the programming part is also just dragging and connecting certain things, for example for cutting wood it would be something like this - you make a loop, search for a tree, cut tree, repeat. but you don't actually HAVE to drag and drop stuff since the game has prebuilt codes for you to use, to the point where I was just using those prebuilt codes.

Another new feature that was added here is the City, which you can place anywhere on the map, and that basically operates as your building zone that you can expand. You can also collect in-game items called Bug Fragments which you can use to summon a City Grammi. You can program these robots to process resources for you, which is highly encouraged since if you're the one processing it takes around 20 seconds of holding a button for one thing, so having the robots do it while you're out exploring is really useful. You can basically program the robots to take a certain item from one chest, bring it to the workshop, process it and then put it into another chest. That whole system was where the programming actually seemed really cool, but it would probably be more cool if I could discover it on my own, instead of having it prebuilt for me.

The biggest issue I had with this game is the translation. It is very poorly translated to English, and some parts of the game aren't translated at all so you're just gonna be looking at Japanese letters and hoping you pressed the right thing. But that might be fixed until the full release of the game which is happening on March 2024.

The problem is, everything kinda feels... early alpha-ish. The gameplay loop is (stop me if it sounds familiar) Gather and craft gear/weapons, find a boss, the boss needs certain items to be spawned, kill said boss, get better gear/weapons, find new boss etc. but everything just seems like it's unfinished, the gathering feels slightly off for some reason, the combat is basic, the crafting is meh, by far the best feature in the game are the bosses.

I really can't explain why everything felt off in the game, I loved Valheim, so by that logic I should also like this. I mean, the gameplay loop is the same, the food feature is the same but I just can't click with it. I will be coming back to it when it releases on March and I really hope they make the game feel more... fun?.

Now, should you buy this game? I mean, if you like survival games, and nothing is on your radar currently, sure, it might also be more fun to play in co-op. Since the game world is just - quiet. It also largely depends on how much the developers are gonna put it up for, since the price still isn't listed on the Steam page. I am also being kind of harsh to the game, it's not like so many survival games are unique and offer something new, but this isn't a mash up of multiple survival games, it's straight up Valheim but - worse. and if the game ends up being more expensive than the game they're taking inspiration from, it's just better to go for the original.

5/10