So the one question I have about this game having watched a little bit of it...
since Medieval Engineers was “finished” without ever actually implementing most of its features, is this a decent replacement?
I saw that it has a similar structural inegrity system. But all I saw was people building cottages. Could you actually build a stone castle, or even a town? Are the enemies strong/smart enough that there’s a need to? Are they planning to add NPC’s so you could make a village?
The building is simply a part of Valheim, rather than the core of it, if that makes sense. Valheim's best aspects are its random encounters (they do get a little less exciting as you progress) and the sheer amount of things you can do relatively glitchless on EA launch day. In 30 hours I have yet to experience a single bug other than maybe some clipping issues, if you consider that even really worth pointing out, and it certainly doesn't impact the gameplay in any substantial way.
The combat system is rather simple, but keeps you on your toes with the stamina system and you can level up various skills to tailor your combat style. I use bow almost exclusively with a little sword and spear and thrown in occasionally. I haven't bothered much with shields, other people play heavy block style.
Building is...hit and miss. The buildings fucking look cool, there is no doubt about that. There is just something incredibly satisfying about how they sit in the world, how the fire looks as you relax inside after a hard day's gathering as a massive thunderstorm rolls overhead and your campfire smoke wafts up and out of your chimney. It's cozy AF. Until a Troll attacks at least.
The miss part is how things go together and how cumbersome terrain leveling is. I hardly even bother with the levelling tool anymore I just use the pickaxe. Quicker and easier. Snapping building parts is a chore too, and often you have to build ladders and shelves (to be fair not unique to Valheim) and then tear them down when you're done to make it look pretty. It can take an hour to do something that should with just a little better UI would take 30 minutes.
Luckily when building you're encouraged to try things as you can destroy pretty much any item in the game at any time for full resource recovery. That is nice. Repair is also free. So once something is made, it's yours forever without additional grind, provided you don't die and can't get the body. But there is a huge buff called "corpse run" that will help you get your shit back. You do take a skill penalty at death, that is fairly substantial if you keep dying.
There's also the sailing system and the water and wind physics. They are incredible. Maybe the best in any game with sailing. The feeling off riding waves and the margins sometimes when you're sailing between disaster and success hits hard and sucks you into the moments. In general the physics in this game are excellent. Trees tumble into each other and roll when cut and trolls will destroy three or four trees with one swing of their mighty club.
In sum, atmosphere, gameplay, imo graphics are all A+, building is like a B-, and combat is a B (it gets repetitive quick and some monsters seem smarter than others). Overall A game, obviously I'm a huge pumper of it. Swear I'm not getting paid. It's grindy, but in the best way.
My humble home: