UnderRail

It's a nice game with a great atmosphere, loads of decisions and character building like the so often mentioned Fallout. Nice post apocalyptic setting in an underground railroad/subway setting. But it tries so hard to be old school that it misses its turn and went down the wrong tunnel, sadly. Absolutely no map, if you don't use a wiki or other pointers you are stumbling from area to next wondering if you are in the right place, forgot something or shouldn't be there at all. And with all the choices, with skills, stats and talents I haven't seen any non violent approach viable. Skilling intimidation, mercantile and persuasion won't help you against those bandits or cave ratdogs. The quest log is not helpful either, there is no adequate log or helpful journal that keeps track of important conversations. And obviously, no pointer where to go or what to do next. You can't safe during combat and are at the mercy of the RNG generator. Which means a lot of save scumming for me. Maybe you fare better. Good for you... Hard Level Cap. to create a an artificial difficulty. The game is already difficult, additionally it doesn't limit the places where you can explore making some encounters nigh unbeatable and if you manage to beat them against all odds and you get the XP you hit a hard level cap at some point. Lastly the walking speed is a chore, especially since they aren't many fast travel options and backtracking is a constant hallmark. Unfortunately, the game forgoes all the little streamlining advances we made over the years for the sake of old school feeling and sacrifices comfort and accessibility for it. Alas, it's too much chore to be entertaining, so sadly I can't recommend.

I've played fallout 1 and 2 the games this is compared to and this doesn't hold a candle to them. The game seems to try to cater to the same audience but lacks any real story. Fallout 1 and 2 had clear goals from the get-go, this has what? You're part of a station and have to do stuff? Why? The quests are just dull, walk here, go through 5 empty areas and then die because early on its very luck dependent, you've really got to "cheese" encounters, which imho is a sign of a poorly designed/improperly balanced game. At the start you've given basically no equipment and expected to do quite a bit, this station goes to all this trouble to test you only to send you on border line suicide missions while it’s will armed and equipped men do nothing (the omega vault quest for one). Some may say "that’s like the brotherhood", except you're not part of the brotherhood when that happens and they want you to die, the station supposedly wants useful members to contribute, having you die because they've sent 1 guy with low tier crap to clear out a cave full of psi beetles seems kind of dumb. Its also a "where the fuck do I go" kind of game, you will get lost, directions are not saved in the journal so god forbid you don't remember 3 weeks in advance, and no I shouldn't have to write it down, morrowind could do it, this should be able to do it. The barter system is just terrible, people not buying the sorts of items their selling is probably the worst bit, you'll end up having an inventory full of stuff you cannot use or sell. It’s not a successor to fallout 1 or 2, I really question how much of the original games those claiming it is have played.

After putting 10 hours into it I have to give up. It fails on combat and inventory management, and the world isn't engaging enough to care. The game lacks polish in many areas and there isn't much reason to look past it. The combat is full of compounding attacks which kill you flat when facing 2 or 3 strong enemies at a time. Long cool-downs on both items and abilities and a lack of friendly companions fails to even the score. Cheesing the AI, retreating past level boundaries and save scumming your way through is a regular occurrence. The crafting and merchant system work against each other. You don't have a stash, you can't sell most of your excess, and some essential ingredients weigh tons (e.g. metal for bullets). The skill checks on recipes aren't advertised until you try them, which means you end up with lots of unusable junk.

I bought Underrail (with DLC) based on the reviews here and my love of Fallout 1 & 2, thinking this looked like a worthy successor. Suffice to say, it is not. I'm around 14 hours in and have had to save scum every step of the way. Combat encounters are punishing (not in a good way) and largely unavoidable. I've had very few opportunities to talk or sneak my way out of trouble, and these opportunities require the right build in order to succeed; figuring out that build is impossible for a new player since you're offered no real indication as to which skills are most useful early on. Skills, feats, and crafting all seem potentially interesting, as does oddity-based levelling. Sadly the un-fun nature of the game prevents me from making enough progress to really explore those mechanics; Underrail is likely to collect proverbial dust in my GoG library unless I become masochistic in my old age and decide to explore if further.

The writing in the game is good, and the mechanics are almost perfect. Unfortunately, this game was designed to be savescummed. That would normally not be an issue, but there are certain parts that need to savescummed differently than usual. If you're in the habit of hitting F5 before heading into something fairly nasty, you might to surprised to find that choosing to do so may brick your game, as it did mine. The game has spikes in difficulty, where you will feel comfortable about how you're handling things, then suddenly you can't even kill a simple mugger on the street. You'll get frustrated, go to the internet to find what you're doing wrong, and if you're lucky, you'll find an answer. Some of these spikes, however, are not due to anything you control. Certain parts of this game seem like they were designed with one specific build in mind, and if you aren't that build, good freaking luck. The Arena and Gauntlet come to mind. Earlier when I mentioned that you might brick your game by choosing to do what you always do when saving; I'm sure everyone who has played it will realize I'm talking about the Gauntlet. The Gauntlet is designed in a way that has no business being in this type of game. You are racing against AI in a time-based challenge (yes, a time-based challenge in a turn-based game). I want to touch on this part specifically, because there is where my 46 hour playthrough came to a screeching halt. Once I realized my options are to throw away about 15 hours of play (my last non-quicksave), or to finish this challenge (I've already realized this is impossible in my case), I am uninstalling the game and letting everyone know that I cannot recommend it to anyone at this point. Save your time and money, and go play Fallout 2 instead.