Encased: A Sci-Fi Post-Apocalyptic RPG

(156 hours of play, about half in Early Access) Despite several good releases this year, Encased is one of my very few favourites. It does not have the depth and breadth of other games made by larger teams, but it has ambition, character, and it is very enjoyable. This game begs you to try different options and have fun doing it. You can try to achieve an objective by the book, or by using stealth, or by killing everyone in your way. You can do it alone or with companions. And even if you mess up, you know that the game will not punish you too hard - who knows, it may even reward you for it! It is also in great part about fun, because even though you cannot exit the Dome, even though you witnessed a cataclysm and a lunatic maelstrom is threatening to wipe everything out... well, people around you still live on, and society is depicted as a cliché that you can exploit, laugh at or be part of. The developers have pushed the outside of the envelope in some directions, trying to give choices, numerous dialogues, varied quests and exploration, but the price to pay is uneven depth in many of those elements. It feels a little bit as if they threw everything they had in the first half of the game, got worn out and couldn't keep quite the same standard until the end. The base is very strong though; even if the mechanics need tuning, the skill system is sound, and the UI, the graphics and the locations are well crafted. Dark Crystal Games is still working on Encased. The two next major patches will flesh out the content (patch #3) and tune the game mechanics (patch #4), so hopefully they will cover most of these little shortcomings. Pros: - Good balance of story, quest, exploration and combat - Variety of quests and dialogues - Multiple approaches in quests, exploration, dialogues - Design of locations, setting theme - UI and game presentation Cons - Decreased content in the 2nd half - Overall difficulty tuning (too easy) - Shallow companions - Poor AI / pathfinding

This game is really fun and well done. I love this game and have sinked over 40 hours into it and haven't completed the first act. (I redo stuff to see different outcomes and stuff). I wondered why this game only had a 3.5 as it has so much content in it and I've found it very enjoyable. I've not done much research on what the bad reviews have been but the most helpful review is missinformation. The only reason this dlc was implomented was so that people who didn't back the game could get the few things that the kickstarter backers got from backing it. These dlc are not required and have no impact real impact on the game so these purchases are ones you should make if you want to give the people who made the game more money.

I don't know how it was before, but right now it is definitely worth more than 3 star rating. Anyone who loved Atom RPG or Underrail will love this too. People complain it is being developed for so long but that only makes it better. Wait until September for full release, then it will be a wonderful experience. It is wonderful now already though, in 2021 July!

The game obviously wasn't properly balanced as with my lone wolf character on highest difficulty I ended game on level 36 with 300+ unspent skill points. An obvious reason for this is OP stealth system with many stealth/solo oriented perks, incredible solo XP gain (it was quite easy to get a full level from every random encounter with robo kids just from killing them in stealth) and very strange container looting XP system. On quests side game is ok as many, even main, quests allow to bypass the quest by stealing required item, otherwise is needed to do at least 2 subquests for each faction to get all parts for next step which after around half the game becomes repetitive. There is a good variation of side quests. Depending on factions reputation/dialogs almost all endings can be available at the end and one special ending requiring to not complete a faction main quest which is good as it allows to do a completionist run and see each faction impact on the world and the truth about it all in special ending. Game has good variation of armors/weapons/relics for specific builds but main issue is random traders inventories which is bad for upgrading weapons as each upgrade requires more rare items so is needed to constantly travel from hub to hub and save scum before opening traders to get required components. Overall it was a fun game

Great RPG experience and for the current price defo worth it. I felt it was seamless to get in to the game. You learn alot about the lore and world just by following the story and by playing the game. In some similar RPG's i feel like the game world and writing is all over the place and you need to focus alot more to grasp everything thats happening around you. Some thing to mention: + Character creation is not overcomplicated and thats a good thing. + Skill system is easy to grasp. + Love the gritty western scifi atmosphere. + Reputation system + Art style + You can go "kill everybody!" nuts in this game. + Major events/story had voiced dialogue. + Good writing. + Fallout: New Vegas type of survival elements. - Combat could be a bit smoother but it get's the job done. - Some maps are a bit bloated and devoid of life. - A few game characters don't even look close to the ones in their portraits. Example: Game model is dark haired and bronze skinned woman and portrait is a blond haired pale woman. It's just small nitpick but easy to fix. - Some typos on audio to text. Even if there are some flaws in this game ima giving it 5 stars.