Morphite

Morphite is a mixed bag. Ultimately, I found it worth finishing but it also is an unpolished, buggy, glitchy mess.
The main game follows a simple story-line leading you to fly to different star systems, land on hand-crafted space stations and planets, collect currency and other resources and lifeform or tech scans to upgrade your ship, suit and tools to unravel the narrative while fighting a few bosses along the way. There is a bit of grind that can be done on procedurally generated planets and space stations.
This layout prompted many comparisons to No Man's Sky - which is fair for the base concepts but in the way they are implemented (depth, usability) the games quickly distinguish themselves. Now, I have not played NMS, so I will only say: You cannot fly around on planets and flying around in star systems is only ever confusing. Also, this game is clearly low-poly.
As the draft of my review closes in on 2000 words, I decided to change focus and only highlight some things.
Hint: You may want to manually keep track of visited systems and planets, and maybe which resources they offered. The game barely supports that.
Hint: Return objects in main missions as soon as possible or the game may glitch and a return will no more be possible, e.g. the car part for the race. Although glitchy, this does not block game progress.
Favourite dialog:
"I will never forget him." - "You're in denial right now."
+ low-poly graphics, not too interesting but serviceable
+ sort-of a budget NMS
+ planet temperature used as progress wall, requires suit upgrades
+ largely location-independent side missions, can be completed on other but similar planets or stations
0 procedural generation give short-term incentive for exploration, not enough variety
0 simple story
0 did not like the music and turned it down
0 looks like universe map can be scrolled for minutes without repetition
0 acceptable grind for simple game completion
- most of the time no access to mission log, inventory, state of upgrades
- lots of keys not explained, remapping menu does not work (does not show)
- only one auto-saved save state
- okay voice acting marred by mediocre writing and bad audio quality
- cannot shoot down, shots catch on invisible barrier
- bad hitboxes, objects often have parts you can see through but not shoot through
- universe map shows only small piece of (at least large) universe, can be scrolled, not zoomed
- universe map does only show recently visited systems, no system search, no planet search
- system map for current system only, not even for other visited
- planetary map always centered on player, can be zoomed, not scrolled
- planetary map dependent on player altitude
- planetary map should better distinguish points of interest by colour
- no North in minimap
- scanning should not work as "closest in view" but as "aimed at"
- when one ship weapon overheats, all weapons are overheated
- not all cutscenes skippable
Key hints:
WASD move avatar, next star system
1-9 Weapons
Q target lock
E use
left-click shoot/use
right-click target lock
space jump, then hold space to hover/rise; confirm star system selection
F weapon selection
N "Weapon Acquired " (?)
M map
hold left mouse: skip cutscenes
backspace exit dialog
Z Ice Vision (?)
-/right_arrow previous weapon slot
left_arrow next weapon slot
down_arrow previous weapon, zoom out
up_arrow open map, zoom in
kp_off_8 map, zoom in
kp_off_6 next weapon slot
kp_off_4 previous weapon slot
kp_off_2 previous weapon
Despite and a bit because of its many problems, I recommend to buy Morphite at 50+% discount. It started of interesting, soon dampened by mediocre story-telling, 100%-ing achievements became a chore.