Encased: A Sci-Fi Post-Apocalyptic RPG

Pros: First act had a creepy vibe reminiscent of Event Horizon. Some standouts on Voice Acting. Lots to do. Ursula. Cons: After the 1st act, things quickly get unfocused and devolve into the mediocre. Odd lag in certain areas. Cop-out ending. Mostly dead discord/community. Pretty decent for a first release. This is the only Unity game that has never crashed on me, so kudos for that. Willing to give another installment a try, provided the mistakes are corrected.

In many ways this is what I wished Fallout 3 was. Alas, many elements sucked enjoyment out of it. Sneaking and lock picking skills are overpowered. Every combat can be reduced to repeatedly shooting while sneaking until enemy is dead. Many items can be stolen just from under NPC’s nose since they won’t notice you even if stand right next to them. Speaking of combat, weapons deal relatively small damage which means killing enemies takes longer. This isn’t necessarily wrong, but it means a melee combat is favoured. Trying to play a solo sniper isn’t as fun as it could be. Not that it’s necessarily difficult; just not as fun. If you’re looking for interesting combat, I wouldn’t recommend Encased. The game includes elements which are only there to annoy. For instance hunger, thirst and fatigue. You’ll never run out of resources other than your own patience for clicking through the UI to eat, drink and rest. Another somewhat silly example is that NPCs won’t talk to you unless you have guns holstered. This doesn’t add anything to the gameplay but only adds unnecessary UI interactions. The UI has various rough edges as well. Inventory uses a grid with items of different size which means that sorting doesn’t really work that well. The game is also too dumb to choose appropriate action for an object. E.g. where other CRPGs will default to ‘unlock’ when container is locked, Encased will stick to ‘open’ forcing you to manually go through list of available actions. For similar reason, after a few times I stopped ‘disarming’ anomalies because of how dull doing it was. Taking damage was a preferable option. On the other side, setting was good even if some elements felt contrived. It’s certainly a setting where many good stories could be told. If it wasn’t for all the annoyances it certainly would be a 4/5 game. If you’re looking for something SF and you’re already done with Fallout 1 through Tactics, Shadowrun and Wasteland games you might give this one a try.

I played a lot of hours in this game, and overall it is a great time waster for me. However, this is a strange game. About half way through the story, it seems like the game will open up and be very interesting story wise. The story never develops the plot does not develop. The game it just flat, and get slightly better at the end game. Randomness is a major detriment to this game. As the game progresses, players want better equipment, but there is no guarantee that better equipment can be found, or vendor can be found, both are random. This is incredibly frustrating in game. I am a particular fan of this type of game, but the plot is not developed, the story goes no where. Unless you really enjoy this game engine and the annoying quests, this is not for you. This game really could have been phenomenal, but the game just stops developing.

But now I don't think I will ever consider this. https://www.gog.com/game/encased_rpg_run_and_gun_kit I can't believe DLC is already being sold on a game that hasn't even left development yet. it's march 18th 2020 and the main game is still in development. I just can't believe it. https://www.gog.com/game/encased_a_scifi_postapocalyptic_rpg When there is a game I want, I always search for DLC. If the DLC is overpriced, I just simply don't buy the game and forget it exists. However, this is different. I have never found a game that is still in development and then try to sell me DLC. If the game is in development, then shouldn't this DLC be a part of that development, and not a DLC at all in the first place? I just can't. this is insanity.

This game is in early access and lots of things will change. It plays just like the original fallout games, so if you like fallout you may like this, a few things, theres more reading, when doing quests in fallout you get to watch how it plays out, whether it be NPC's taking action and shooting someone etc this game plays it out in text so you read how it ends and then the screen fades out and then you are standing there, i feel this takes away the interaction of the game and leaves the player feeling left out. Hopefully this changes with future updates, yet if it doesnt it still not bad, but i hope it does evolve. [the interaction of this really would set the bar so much higher in this game] Combat is a little clunky and not really balanced, [Enemies evade alot], sound effects seem missing or overpowered by music, searching can take forever etc. Theres alot of people to talk to and you can pretty much help everyone which is nice, most games have npc's which have no impact on the game but with interacting with most people it feels like you can help or ruin most npc's days. Some bugs here and there yet i give this game 3 - 4 stars based on its current 'EARLY ACCESS STATE', if they address the interaction cut scenes better instead of just reading and having a fade out and this just magically change the setting it would set this game so much higher. Will edit reviews as the game goes on.