Yeah, in the past, the animals all had a vaguely pokemon-ish look to them, but I swear there was a lot more variety. Now, every planet I've been on has exactly one fat bear (aggressive), one armored dog (passive), and one tan hulking lummox with Carrot Top's hair (aggressive). I had assumed that this was somehow intentional, but it's just silly.
The bigger problem, however, is the planets themselves. Gone is the feeling of "oh, what will this planet look like?" Because every single planet in this system looks exactly the fucking same. There's not even any reason to visit more than one forest planet, really, because they have the same trees, same grass, same everything. So far, they've all even had the same "place of interest" - a boring dumb o'l mine shaft.
A procedurally generated universe with billions of planets to explore, and I'm *bored* because there's no longer anything to explore. What on earth would possess Chucklefish to remove the most interesting and unique parts of the game? Did they sit around going, "I sure do hate how our players enjoy roaming around the universe, finding new and interesting planets. We should just get rid of that."?
I'm not opposed to adding anything to the game that will make it more fun or interesting for anyone. If some people want more missions, give 'em more missions. If some people want more dangerous places to explore, give 'em those dangerous places. If some people want to do a lot of mining, then by all means, put in some kind of reward for mining. But if other people want to farm, cook, build, and explore, why the hell would you take something *out* of the game that those groups of people have always enjoyed? Making the game more fun for one type of player should not at all mean making it less fun for another group. There's just no reason for it.