Spore

The game took quite an interesting concept and turned it into something overwhelmingly boring. In 2024, I do not recommend. It makes sense if you still enjoy the game because of the nostalgic influence, but I played it for the first time in 2024, and by todays standards, it's not fun to play and mostly comes down to wandering and clicking a select few buttons with a little bit of thinking involved. Equivalent to modern free Android games.

I'm sorry but I found this game to be boring, the first section was very one note, and I gave up on the game by the second section. I guess the game works fine, however I just didn't find the premise very interesting while playing it despite the idea of growing an organism and eventually a living creature being interesting on paper.

Spore is a game that I hold very dearly despite not getting past the beginning stages when I first played it as a kid. In the recent years, I decided to replay it to see on what I missed out - not much.

The beginning stages were just as good as I remember them: We begin with the Cell Stage, a part akin to the ".io" games like agar.io or slither.io. This stage doesn't overstay its' welcome and remains interesting throughout the whole 20 minutes you can get past it. The Creature stage is definitely the most iconic, and best, part of Spore. The customization of your creature is amazing. You get a natural feeling of evolution. Maybe your creature starts as a quadrupedal, but over the course of the stage you adapt to your surroundings. Want to reach more food? Evolve to get wings. Want to increase your damage? Get sharper teeth. By the end of the stage, your creature might have become a humanoid, completely different than how it started. Although truthfully, having to replace the body parts you liked with uglier but more functional ones always felt disappointing. Starting with the Tribal stage, the gimmick of evolution starts to feel forced. The gameplay is boring. You're stuck in a cycle of Make babies>Get food>Get gear>Befriend other tribe>Make more babies>Get more food>Get more gear>Repeat. With no option to speed things up, watching your creatures slowly hop throughout the island to complete all of these tasks quickly gets tiresome. And if you didn't get wings in the creature stage, the game indirectly gives you a massive middle finger, as your creatures move much slower without them. Not to mention the constant fear of when an enemy is next going to attack and destroy all of your progress if you're not careful. By the civilization stage, the only charm thats left is the occasional blabber of your or another civilization's creatures. This stage is non-stop multi-tasking, and it's not fun.

In conclusion, Spore overstays its' welcome, but the customization features are still umatched. Hopefully one of its multiple spiritual successors in the works can deliver something better.

I've heard someone describe the experience of playing the original Metroid for the first time as an immediately mind-blowing experience. In Mario, you always just go from left to right. Playing Metroid in that context, finding out you actually have to go left of where you started in order to progress is just the beginning of an experience that changes one's perspective on what is possible in the medium. For perhaps the first time, an entire vast world is created for you to explore freely, where you can go in any direction you want. It is something we struggle to imagine in our day of open-world popularity.
I think that's one of the best ways to describe Spore's space stage. You are given the entire galaxy. Spore is a game whose scale is so big, it becomes impossible to comprehend, and even more impossible to experience fully. I firmly believe that the impact that an experience like this can have on someone is equally as grand as the galaxy you are presented with.
And that is only the exploration, of course. To be able to go to any of these planets, and just play around with them (even if it is in a limited way,) to design ecosystems and populate them with animals of your own creation, it is something that CANNOT be matched. I won't say that overall the game is good or bad, but it is certainly, at the very least, unlike anything else in the entire world.
I cannot even begin to describe the creature creator. There is simply too much to say and no way to properly express it. I tell you, if you take these tools seriously, if you have a creative spirit within you, really as long as you aren't the kind of person to construct a crude phallus and call it a day, then it is an experience of a lifetime.
Aside from all that... well, the writing is funny at times, I suppose. But there isn't much else to say. As everyone knows, the game is absurdly unpolished in every aspect. It is infamous for it's controversial nature. I cannot even say as a diehard fan that I truly enjoy this game, really. I think that will have to be the takeaway from this review: the game isn't good, but it is unlike anything else that has ever been made and maybe ever will be made.