Choose My Adventure: The quest for power and pants in Once Human

After last week’s Choose My Adventure episode, it was pretty much a foregone conclusion that my Once Human character would get some pants for herself – this is a basic set of equipment and ultimately not challenging to put together when I was informed on where to look (cheers, Hikari). Still, I wasn’t just doing this all for a bit; I really was not finding any deer to hunt in order to get the rawhide I needed over the course of simply following the guided quest steps.

Even so, this instructed pause on chasing the quest steps and directing focus toward character advancement and gear unlocks was an important one, especially since I had been mostly eschewing the survival portions of this survival shooter for the most part beyond breaking down scrap and getting materials. And it turned out that this portion of the game was just as routine as I had supposed.

I guess there shouldn’t be a whole lot of surprise here. There are only so many ways these kinds of games can dress up knocking over trees, blowing up rocks, and making sure food and water bars stay filled. So while the routine is… well, routine, there are some solid positives I can point out.

For one thing, the aforementioned hunger and thirst mechanics are not quite so intrusive. There are little pop-ups that alert when my character was growing a little hungry and thirsty, but the degradation of those values wasn’t quite so rapid that I was being stopped from what I was doing. Pair that with how much water and food I was able to make from what seemed like just a few materials and I was pretty appreciative that Once Human didn’t turn into a simulation for a real human being’s needs.

Another thing that I’m extremely happy to say is that my character didn’t really seem to be burdened by encumbrance mechanics, which mean she can haul around huge stacks of ore and logs with what seems like near impunity. Perhaps there is some punishment for the hoarding I was doing, but it wasn’t immediately obvious in terms of character movement and reaction, and as far as I could tell, my inventory load wasn’t burdensome. I still made sure to deposit as many mats as I could whenever I could, but once again Once Human’s devs knew enough to get out of the freaking way.

With that all said, I still have to point out how those conveniences made the general survival gameplay that much more typical and unremarkable. I would have liked to see Starry maybe push the beats of gathering, crafting, and enhancing things a little bit further, but again, I concede that there are not a lot of ways to gussy this stuff up. It works, it’s functional, and it’s fine.

About the best thing I can say with regard to this progression break is that it didn’t seem to take me all that long to get to a point of what felt like higher power. Of course that started with my finding deer to hunt and harvest, which indeed ended up being everywhere once I knew where to look. I felt pretty silly that I was experiencing an embarrassment of rawhide riches. It was like the game was making fun of me for my inattention. All the same, it was nice to be able to get the materials I needed.

Another happy thing about this gathering pause: I was still able to enjoy some of the game’s combat. Most of the materials I was looking for in general were hiding within nearby outposts, so that meant going to an area, once again clearing out the miniature list of objectives, and having a pretty good time with my weapons all over again. It’s a nice addition to the survival game loop.

So, yes. I made pants. And I also made a near-complete set of one specific type of gear. It was at Tier I, but only because I didn’t have a whole lot of materials needed for Tier II. Even as I was nearly unlocking the methods for crafting them. And naturally, that also meant that when I was plumbing an outpost, I found some pants in a gear crate. Mercifully, they were not as good as my crafted ones.

This means it’s time to talk about character progression: Much of that is locked behind spending points in four different trees to unlock things like building pieces, crafting tables, recipes, and other things. It all seemed to run a little faster than the quest progression did instead of running parallel, and at a certain point it seemed as if I couldn’t really progress my survival stuff without clearing story bits. I suppose I should be thankful that it all wasn’t running behind the quest steps.

So as far as I can tell – and after a quick probe towards the next main quest region that I was being directed towards – I’m all caught up in terms of gear for the time being until such time as I explore this new segment of the map and find more materials for new recipes or perhaps Tier II equipment. Generally speaking, I feel like I’ve got one more set of in-game activities to complete, which means it’s poll time.

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The next poll question is a bit of an odd one but I wanted to ask anyway: Over the course of my tree unlocks, I opened up and built a way for me to spend starchroms – a currency I’ve been raking in for completing basic objectives – in order to get some goodies. One of those goodies is a new gun. I’ve got enough currency to buy only one gun, so I figured I’d ask if it’s worth it.

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Polling will once again wrap up at 1:00 p.m. EDT on Friday, September 27th, while I’ll once more sit and wait on results before heading in again. There’s a bold, brave, pants-wearing world waiting for us out there. Let’s finish strong.

Welcome to Choose My Adventure, the column in which you join Chris each week as he journeys through mystical lands on fantastic adventures – and you get to decide his fate. Which is good because he can often be a pretty indecisive person unless he’s ordering a burger.