I run around at top speed sucking up cartoon apples so I can shoot them into the mouth of a giant grinning blob with the feverish desperation of someone trying to take down an enemy APC with a grenade launcher.
Why? I have no idea. All I know is there’s a huge slime blocking the opening of a cave, and he likes to eat fruit, and maybe if I feed him enough something will happen so I can get into the cave. Yes but Why? I don’t know! I really do not know. There’s a cave that I can’t get into because the goo is in the way. There might be something cool in the cave. I’ll take as long as it takes to find out.
Like Disney’s Dreamlight Valley, Slime Rancher 2 (opens in new tab) excels at forcing you to do things because you may be able to do more things once you’ve done those other things. Armed with a vacuum gun, you’ll start off in a base with just enough of a tutorial to let you know that sucking slime, expelling it in a holding pen, and feeding them their favorite snacks will cause them to pull out gems. Suck up the gems and blast them at the stock market to earn coins, or toss them into your manufacturer to print out gear upgrades. That’s about all the game tells you. While Dreamlight Valley describes everything for you with a never-ending to-do list, Slime Rancher 2 usually lets you figure things out on your own after the first 90 seconds, which is actually pretty fun.
Early on, as I was sucking up slime, roots, and gems, I came across a weird little geyser that spewed some sort of inky liquid that I couldn’t suck up. But when I looked at my manufacturer’s menu, I saw an upgrade I could make that would allow me to collect “scientific resources” from “environment nodes”. Inky geyser fluid feels scientific and loosely qualifies as a knot, so I thought I needed that. Sure enough, I soon guzzled up those geyers and other new resources that I could use to build more upgrades.
Slime Rancher 2 knows exactly how to keep me motivated. Running around sucking up carrots and chickens to feed my trapped slime, I could spy barely visible objects on top of distant cliffs or arches and immediately wanted to find a way to collect them. With my base in the center of the map, most of the world is closed off in three directions, covered in the ‘fog of lake’ (I just can’t call it ‘war fog’ in this happy place) which makes me anxious to unlock it and see what the rest of the map looks like. The spacious base makes me wonder what else I can build in it, such as gardens, silos and ponds, with an underground outbuilding promising even more space to build. I only have four slots on my vacuum gun, each of which can hold stacks of one item, so I’m already adding more slots and storage capacity. That’s why I have to keep sucking up everything I find.
Even without the to-do list growing in my head, Slime Rancher 2 is a beautiful, colorful world to spend time in. everything looks so damn good fluffy. Even rocks and boulders look comfortable enough to curl up on and take a nap. There are monsters, though: scary Tar blobs appear in droves at night, consuming everything in their path and happy to take a bite at you (although they can be turned off in the menu if you want a completely mellow experience).
I’ve only played Monomi Park’s original Slime Rancher for a short time so I can’t really make a comparison between the games, but early access or not, Slime Rancher 2 feels polished and fun and healthy unless you think too long about it in jail cute blobs and watch them go wild if you don’t feed them enough.
I do have a few minor complaints: the sprint meter feels totally redundant in a game like this (just always let me run at top speed, because what could hurt?) knows which direction I’m looking without having to open my map. But despite those minor objections, I can already feel my impending weekend being sucked into Slime Rancher 2 the same way I’m sucking slime into my vacuum.
Over there used to be something cool in the cave blocking the giant slime, by the way. Several things really, but best of all a cute kitty slime that I promptly sucked up and now lives at my base, a cute new inmate. Look, all that time I spent shooting fruit into a giant blob’s mouth was worth it. I knew it would happen, even though I didn’t know why.
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