It's one of those games with that something special that keeps pulling you back in, but there's also multiple things that push you away twice as hard. I genuinely think I hate it, but I also keep playing it for some reason. Someone, please, help me. Oh, good news, they pushed an update on May 26th that makes it crash constantly on Xbox. Guess I can finally stop playing now.
That description of Minecraft meets No Man's Sky really is exactly what Cubic Odyssey is. It's all made of blocky cubes, and you mine and craft, but it's sci-fi and you can build spaceships and travel to other planets and systems. It's really gorgeous looking, too, with some truly beautiful planet biomes and outstanding outer space visuals. And, yes, the planets are all cubes just like everything else, which is pretty cool.
I've got issues with it, though. Issues that are deeply ingrained in both Minecraft and No Man's Sky so you'd think the developers would learn from them and do better in their own game but, nope. First off, just like Minecraft, there's just too darn much stuff. Too many block types. Too many resources to mine. Every essential workbench or tool you need requires a bunch of components that all require a bunch of separate materials to make. Resources are spread too far apart - on separate planets - and you only have limited storage space. It's all such a grindy ass grind.
Maybe I'm old, but the most fun I ever had with Minecraft was with the initial Xbox Live Arcade release of Minecraft in 2012 when everything was simple and straightforward. Now they've added so much stuff to the game that it's just overwhelming and not fun anymore. Cubic Odyssey has the same problem. They could cut out half of the stuff and simplify it all and it would be much more fun.
The second problem I have with the game is the same issue I have with No Man's Sky - It's clunky and awkward and freaking boring. I'm sorry, but No Man's Sky still sucks in 2025 even after all of the updates. They keep adding more stuff to it and everyone goes "Wow No Man's Sky is good now, akshually" but I try to play it and it still plays bad and what you actually do is still tedious and boring just like it was at launch. There's lots of it, though, which is apparently enough for some people. Not me. Obviously. But it's the same with Cubic Odyssey. It's clunky and awkward and doesn't really feel very good to play.
Perhaps the most egregious issue with Cubic Odyssey is that everything you do runs off of batteries and it is an absolute pain in the butt to deal with for the first like 15 hours you spend with the game. Your crappy mining laser needs batteries. Your suit needs batteries and if you don't have power you can't run. Your weapons need batteries. Your spaceship needs batteries. You only have limited backpack space, though, so you can't carry enough batteries to actually be comfortable and have fun or you won't be able to carry anything else.
Now, eventually you do get to a point in the game where you're swimming in batteries and it isn't a problem anymore, but that just makes their existence in the first place feel especially superfluous and like it was only included just to add busy work to the opening hours of the game. They could (AND SHOULD) get rid of the battery system entirely and the game would instantly be 10,000% more fun. They were smart enough to not make it a survival game where you had to eat and drink water and worry about temperature, but then included this moronic battery system anyway. You were so close, devs. Lose the batteries. Seriously.
It begs the question of - Why do all of these crafty survival-y games have to suck absolute ass for the first 20 hours? Every single game eventually gives you better items and equipment that trivializes the pain in the ass stuff, so why insist on making the first 20 hours people spend with your game absolutely miserable? Just give us the good stuff to start with! "It gets good eventually" is unacceptable when your players want to quit before they even get there. Yes, I know fans of this genre will be angrily hammering on their keyboards that all of the games are like this and I'm a noob or whatever, but isn't that a problem? That all of the games are like this? Seems like something that could be improved.
There's a reason why everyone except young children got tired of grinding for materials in Minecraft and just skips straight to creative mode. If Cubic Odyssey was intended to appeal to those bright eyed young children who aren't already exhausted by the grind, they messed up because they made everything you do far too obtuse. It isn't just a grind, it's a convoluted confusing grind.
And now, the #1 actual worst thing in Cubic Odyssey - The Red Darkness. The main goal of the game that compels you to explore space to begin with is to cleanse mysterious red darkness from the galaxy, and it absolutely sucks. Every single aspect of the red darkness is just the worst. It isn't a fun mechanic. The darkness enemies suck. Grinding to collect all the parts to make the doodads to cleanse the darkness sucks. It's supposed to be the main driving force to motivate you to explore the rest of the galaxy, but instead it does the opposite. It makes you not want to explore at all because dealing with it sucks. There's an achievement for clearing 50 planets of the darkness but, bruh, I'm not even going to bother to do 2 of them. It isn't fun. At all. The princess or whoever isn't going to be saved this time. Sorry. The darkness is going to take over completely. Oh well, whoopsidoodles.
In spite of my many, many complaints, I do keep coming back and playing Cubic Odyssey, which means it's doing at least some things right. It looks great, and exploration is genuinely satisfying. There are so goddamned many things that suck the fun out of it, though. Mining and crafting is too overloaded with stuff and isn't fun. And building stuff with your blocks feels utterly pointless. Unlike Minecraft, I feel zero desire to build anything here. It's just too much of a pain in the ass. The bottom line is that Cubic Odyssey is just too darn much work. And when you think you have it figured out, the game just piles even more work on top of you.
Every time I get a new story mission that requires a bunch of resources I've never even seen before my desire to keep playing decreases a bit. I'm not kidding about how terrible everything about the red darkness is, either. It is just momentum killing anti-fun that ruined the game for me. The game has dozens and dozens of systems and tons of planets to land on, but I'm already sick of it after the first system and don't care to see the rest.
In its current state, I'd say Cubic Odyssey is pretty mediocre. It's OK and can hook you, but if they'd simplify the crafting and cut down the resource grind it would be way more fun. And if they would dump the battery nonsense entirely it could be genuinely great. Somehow I doubt they'll ever address either of those things, though, which makes it hard to recommend. It's only $25, though, so it isn't too much of an investment and can be OK as long as you know what kind of gigantic annoying tedious pain in the ass you're getting yourself into.
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