UnderRail

It's brutally hard at the start and it takes a while to learn the rules because the system is deep. But after the early slump, Underrail is fantastic. Some of the best TB combat ever, a great setting, and a big world. There are at least 2 ways to solve most problems, and the storylnie branches several times (as if this should even need to be said about an RPG). The weakest link is the writing, which isn't bad but won't win any awards. If you like classic RPGs, buy it. If you like tactical combat, buy it. It can be frustrating at times, but it's a huge bundle of RPG joy.

...that brings something new itself. I wanted to give this a 4 star review, but it deserves 5 because the mechanics, the music and atmosphere in this game is incredible. If you missed the sense of rediscovering old world facilities that withold various dark secrets (like Mariposa base and Clan caves) then this game will scratch the itch like nothing else. Not even stalker and metro stood this close. The gameplay is solid, the enemies and situations are vary and interesting to interact with, rpg elementh is there both in dialogues and your character building. You play a a single character with occasional teamups with allied npcs, but 99% of the time its you alone. Game follows the kill-or-steal-or-talk-or-sneak way and suits every char you might want to build, but be ware that combat characters are better suited for surviving the underrail horrors (you cant talk your way out of some monsters mouth) and stealth is THE skill you dont wanna miss unless you like it very hard. I hesitated with 4 stars at first because despite coming addon and various fixes and patches, the game still feels incomplete near the end. It leaves you with many unanswered questions and really cheap and lazy dialogue lines like "i will not explain this plot thing to you because you wouldnt understand anyway" ot "this guy did something horrible but i wont tell what because it doesnt matter" or LITERALLY "you have to do this unavoidable thing because i dont know why but feel so". The game really works once you understand the intentions of the developer, but at the same time it visibly cracks near the end because of the same reason. Still, its worth the full price and many hours of your time.

I won't comment much over the game aspects. Great post-apocalyptic lore a la Fallout, set in underground caves. Many cities, many factions, lots to explore. But I wouldn't recommend it to people who aren't very intimate and enjoy this style of game. Even for those who like classic CRPGs, the game is held down by design decisions outside the actual gameplay, what is called "the metagame". It's designed so that your character is useless unless you spend 12 hours memorizing the wiki and planning things in Microsoft Excel. So beware. I enjoy hardcore difficult RPGs, what I don't enjoy is artificial difficulty from poor interface and build mechanics. You shouldn't just follow a build guide like everyone recommends. The people writing guides already put hundreds of hours in the game, and are writing them for other veterans, not for you. So they often don't bother with silly things like "trap detection" and "constitution" because they memorized the location of every trap, know which battles are coming up, and know how to play glass cannons who never get hit. This is a game where you can ruin an entire build because you put 5 points into a stat instead of 6. There is no respec. My advice, unless you're willing to waste a hundred hours doing trial and error and reading the wiki/forums until you can make a successful meta build, is to empower yourself to do your own build in a normal game, using CheatEngine to grant yourself more skill points. It won't change anything in practice, it doesn't matter that you have 80 points invested in a skill you don't use, or 0. All this does is give you breathing room and remove hours of planning from the requirements to win the game. I realize this goes counter to how RPGs are usually played, especially as character planning and selling lot is usually a fun and addictive part of RPGs. But not in Underrail. Hopefully they greatly improve this for the sequel.

I am not a simple man... I have absurdly high expectations, especially when it comes to quality gaming experience. Living in a country, which is "economically challenged" to say the least, did not provide a lot of opportunities to satisfy my dopamine hunger... But let me tell you, dear reader, this game does not fail to provide! On the contrary, this game just keeps on giving! Not only with it's regular updates and an amazing DLC, but also with exceptional environment, storyline and soundtrack... and everything! I strongly recommend it, not only to the fans of the genre, but to everyone... everyone! Thank you Stygian Software, for developing this hidden gem, this masterpiece! Most excellent! Thank you GOG team!

The combat gets really painful later on, very easy to get burnt out because of how long it takes groups of enemies to just figure out what they want to do, For some stupid reason you cannot control the camera when enemies are making their turns, so in bigger combat rooms you can just be completely blind as to what the enemy is doing if you don't adjust the camera constantly, which is not great, feels unpolished. DLCs are a slog partially because of this, and also the pretty massive resistances trash enemies get. You are probably gonna need to reroll your character if you try to build it blind as you progress. No respec, devs "vision". Lastly, and GOG might strike me for trying to mention this but it's important and literally impacts whether you end up spending money or not: Styg, the developer, is also potentially the kind of person you may want to refuse to give money to on a moral grounds, he alone is pretty hateful supremacist kinda dude, just look at his own posts on twitter, but join the Underrail discord and see what a veritable Hate hole full of slurs that portion of the "underrail community" under Stygs shepherding is. People should be aware that they are giving their money to a bigot who may prefer they either didn't exist at all or at the very least were second class citizens in service to him and people like him.