When it comes to video games that are meant to be enjoyable or fun, there are obviously tons and tons that come to mind. When it also comes to video games that you wouldn't expect to be fun but are a ton of fun, games like Terraria tend to come to mind. I've mentioned Terraria specifically since we are talking about Starbound here. Now, I've not had a lot of experience with Starbound but i've played a little bit of it to sort of get a gist of what it has to offer. I've also watched a friend of mine play it and i'm basing most of my first impressions on that.
So, what is Starbound? From what I can gather it's basically like Terraria but on steroids. You walk in a left to right 2D direction with pixelated graphics looting building and killing bad guys. It seems this game tends to go a little bit deeper in terms of making your character stronger and ready to fight, as opposed to Terraria where the sole purpose is the mine as far down as you can while at the same time, crafting items and making your character stronger. The two games do have a lot of similarities, but they are both vastly different from each other at the end of the day. I won't be comparing the two as much as you think I would. Obviously one comparison one would make however is how similar the graphics style is. I admit, the reason I started playing this game is because it looked a lot like Terraria, and I wanted to see what all the hub bub was about. Granted, I didn't play much of it due to not really wanting to get sucked into a game that could potentially take me hours to understand. But from what i've seen, you can get into a lot more shenanigans than you can in Terraria, which to me basically means that this is more of a RPG style adventure game, which is cool. I like the idea and with the 2D pixelated graphics style, it compliments it nicely.
Unfortunately in my case, I haven't yet put the time I would need to put into the game to really convince you as to whether this game is great or not. What I do know is that the longer you play, the more badass you get. I suppose if that's not enough to get you to buy the game, than I wouldn't blame you. It does seem a bit complex in terms of the mechanics and the styles in which you want to play, but I suppose that adds a bit of individuality to each playthrough. Will I start playing the game again to form a better opinion on it? Honestly, probably not. From what I played, it just didn't seem like my kind of game. That's not to say the game is bad, it just doesn't seem like one that I'd like to put several hours into.