Casual gameplay without a fail state.
Incredible art direction and beautifully designed world.
Crafting machinery doesn’t draw resources from nearby storage.
You can’t be an astrofarmer without cool tools, but first you must find and recover them.
Could use more wildlife and plant variety.
1.What is Lightyear Frontier?2.Gameplay3.Visuals and audio4.Accessibility5.Should you buy it?
The character’s mech suit won’t be farming for kills here.
Lightyear Frontieris my dream co-op scenario.
This review was made possible by a review code provided by FRAME BREAK and Amplifier Games.
The company did not see the contents of this review before publishing.
You can’t be an astrofarmer without cool tools, but first you must find and recover them.
What is Lightyear Frontier?
When Earth becomes uninhabitable, humans take to space to find a new planet to call home.
Players begin by finding their crashed mech suit and learning to repair it in the field.
This glitched noxious weed tormented me for way too long.
Lightyear Frontier nails this and never makes working on your homestead feel like a chore.
It’s not all slow, thoughtful Hygge living, however.
Lightyear Frontier is in early access, and there are certainly bugs to be found.
Lightyear Frontier includes a mech upgrade map that requires you to refine and craft resources into useful upgrades that make farming and exploring more fruitful.
No amount of busting rocks with my astrofarmer’s pickaxe would free it.
No seed planted in this mound of dirt would grow.
The only solution was to destroy the planter, scrub the weed, and then rebuild.
Ruins house strange stones which, when busted, expose artifacts so you can learn about the planet’s other inhabitants.
One of the best aspects of Lightyear Frontier’s gameplay may actually be the easiest to overlook.
This also leads me to my one source of contention with a game that I otherwise loved.
Lightyear Frontier’s homesteading design encourages players to build barns and warehouses to increase crafting production.
There are some adorable creatures running around, but the world could use more variety in animal types.
The player must collect the resources and have them in their inventory before using them.
Is it a minor gripe?
But I’m hoping it’s one of those promised quality-of-life upgrades comingverysoon.
You can not customize your astrofarmer, but we also rarely see them. The mech suit can be customized extensively, however.
The easy-going nature of the game is perfectly accented by a peaceful playlist of relaxing music.
PIP-3R’s narration adds context and story to Lightyear Frontier, giving the player purpose when exploring.
Farming and exploration are risk-free, with the player unable to fall into a fail state.
At worst, you may lose a few crops when slime or weeds land in your gardens.
Even falling off of large cliffs or entering deep water is no match for the astrofarmer’s mech suit.
While approachable, Lightyear Frontier does lack a dedicated accessibility menu.
There are still options, however.
Players can toggle subtitles and player names when in multiplayer sessions on or off.
Motion blur, look sensitivity, and effects like lens flare can also be adjusted as necessary.
Lightyear Frontier: Should you buy it?
There’s a risk to buying and recommending early-access games.
FRAME BREAK’s development team, while small, seems determined to see this game through.
But FRAME BREAK chose to do that, and the game is ultimately better for it.
Grab your besties and drop in for some cozy farming with mechs in space.
It’s certain to be a good time.
Price check:$25 (Steam)|$23 (Xbox)
