UnderRail

I really want to love Underrail, but after roughly 19 hours I'm just going to stop rather than continuing to smash against the walls of this maze to try and figure out if I can continue or if I need to restart yet again. The game sells itself as being a hardcore CRPG that returns to the roots of the genre. Unfortunately, what they really made was an old school game with none of the modern aspects that made the genre playable today. Underrail's quest system is poorly tracked. The world navigation is tedious and slow. The inventory is cumbersome to navigate and sort through. In game information is poorly documented and difficult to grasp intuitively. What is perhaps most sad though is that much of that could be forgiven if the stat system wasn't so horribly rigid. A new player should not need to consult a guide so they don't have to make half a dozen characters that will sputter along for hours before hitting an insurmountable wall. But alas, I did and I still faced issues because updates over the game's development lead to mechanical discrepancies in stat requirements and builds. A system should not be so strict that missing one point in a major stat derails everything on a build. But that is what Underrail does and does so under the guise and excuse of being "hardcore." I don't buy that excuse though. Underrail is simply a deeply flawed project. There's something great buried underneath if you are willing to subject yourself to the torture of unraveling it's improperly documented systems. If that to you is what a hardcore CRPG is, then this is fully for you, but from my perspective it's just a game that doesn't properly repect the player or their time.

Disclaimer: I am a fan of CRPGs like Fallout 1&2, Arcanum and I would undoubtedly name Planescape: Torment the best CRPG of all time. I also have 500+ hours of playtime in X-COM: TFTD. I have mixed feelings for UnderRail. It is distinctive enough not to be a clone of Fallout, but it definitely borrows some ideas from it and quite a lot from the Metro 2033 setting. It pretends to be a take on oldschool CRPGs of the 90s, but fails to deliver the feeling by having bland writing, while at the same time ignoring successful features of modern CRPG genre. It feels interesting at first, but then it slowly starts to frustrate you due to some questionable design choices. E.g. it presents itself as a classless RPG, but the game just doesn't work that way and I seriously don't understand why it is being presented as such if you are clearly required to min-max your character to make your playthrough enjoyable. Combat, while engaging and fun at times (e.g. you can set enemies on fire, inducing fear and panic), is flawed and can be very frustrating. Specifically, if you have a combat-oriented character, it will work for you, but I didn't want to bloodbath my way through the game, and created an average sneaky Joe with an incline towads diplomacy and tech skills. Later I realised that I misspent a lot of points on skills that were only useful in the very beginning. I could deal with moderate threats, but diplomacy didn't work well, as it turned out you have to dump a lot of points into Persuasion in order to use the diplomatic approach. You will be told that it's your own fault and you should've spent hours on min-maxing your build and reading the game's Wiki, but really, who does that *before even playing the game*? I've seen the trailer, I liked it and I want to play the game right away without having to read walls of metagame info. Another reason is stunlocking. Why is it a big issue, you might ask? Basically, combat is either you stunlocking your enemies and using special abilities to smash them into submission, or enemies playing the same trick on you. I don't get how is this tactical, to me it's just an example of abusive gameplay, which eventually gets repetetive and boring. Also, I don't really get the fuss about tactical-ness when positioning doesn't work (see below), there is no cover system and no companions when every enemy can have the exact same feats you do, only they have numbers on their side, while you don't. Add massive amount of cooldowns to the mix, and you see where this is going. But the biggest frustration generator are line-of-fire issues. You might be standing in a perfect spot where you see the enemy and have a decent chance to hit. But when you initiate the combat it suddenly turns out that you cannot shoot that enemy from your position because there's no LoF, and you have to spend 70+ MPs to get to the tile where you do have LoF, but also end up just 4 tiles away from a pack of 4+ enemies. And they, for some reason, don't have any issues with shooting you where you stand. Oh, and also forget about lobbing a grenade over a wall or any kind of obstacle -- it doesn't work that way. Probably because it's not hardcore enough to attack your enemy from behind cover. TL;DR: avoid games developed & narrated & designed & drawn by the same single guy. I actually find it funny how the game forces you to focus on a few areas of expertise when it's creator does completely the opposite.

Five hours into the game, I was saying to myself, oh, well, this part is good, this part is kinda meh, this part may be interesting... Fifteen hours into the game I was saying to myself, more Underrail. More Underrail! MORE UNDERRAIL! It takes a bit to get rolling, but this is a really good game. This is a develop your character, explore, and solve tactical puzzles RPG. It doesn't have deep character interaction, lots of description, or intricate story. It DOES have a very effective conveyed atmosphere. Underrail feels like a real world. The systems (character building and crafting) are deep. Exploring the systems is a game in itself, and you can't do it all in one playthrough. I am sure I will play this game at least twice, maybe more. There are some warts. Walking speed is too slow (I usually think this about RPGs) and there is a lot of it. Barter is kind of clunky, and there is a lot of it, too. Barter is getting better as I get farther along. The game is hard (I'm playing on normal). Expect to quickload a lot, expect to walk away from some things to (maybe) come back later. In my book, this is a plus. All in all, if this kind of game is the kind of game you like, it is an absolute steal at $14.99.

TL;DR Unless you're a masochist who likes starting over half way through try something else like Disco Elysium or Pathfinder. There was a lot to like and admire in Underrail attempting to recreate the ambience and playstyle of games of yore, but as with all such projects there comes a point where the choice to ignore changes (and lets face it improvements) in game design since the 90's crosses a line from reverent into pigheadedness. The highly detailed crafting and combat systems were extremely interesting and satisfying to explore right up until the point where it turns out those decisions you made were the wrong ones. The complete lack of direction given towards specific character builds ultimately made the difficulty of the encounters just too unforgiving. Min/maxing is par for the course in a hardcore rpg but Underrail seems to want to pull you in every direction at once - finally unlocked that door, ah sorry you were too busy upgrading your ability to create the weapons and skills to fight robots in the previous area and now those weapons and skills are completely useless versus dog mutants. Some people will call this a desire for hand-holding, but if you're not going to hold my hand while we cross the road for the first time you could at least give me a couple warning signs. Also - one monumentally daft idea is the option to choose either a classic or "oddity" XP system. Fell into the trap of picking "oddity" thinking it'd be interesting, well yeah all those items you need to find to get XP are locked up in boxes and lockers so you'll need to invest those already precious skill points into Hacking and Lockpicking now as well (and of course Sneak to bypass all those enemies you now can't compete with). It's a shame really, because what's the point in having a good story with meaningful choices when you get so bogged down save-scumming just trying to progress through each area that you forget what the whole point of you being there in the first place was?

UnderRail is a post apocalyptic turn based RPG, similar to Fallout. However, just about the entire game takes place in an underground Metro, like... well, the Metro games. You can go with various types of shooty bang bang, PSI powers, or be unga bunga melee man. You can also specialize in traps, stealth, lockpicking, cleaning your neighbors toilet for the low low price of $4.99. The usual RPG skill affairs. This game is generally great, but it's kind of nonsensical and DIFFICULT at times, mainly towards the end of the game... especially the final area. Oh god. The final area. Nightmares for days. I still haven't beaten the game to this day. The point of no return final area consists of this ABSOLUTELY GIGANTIC, NON-LINEAR, AND WINDING series of open areas and tunnels and interiors and such. That also has respawning enemies. You have to go on a gigantic key item fetch quest to open this f*** all massive nuke proof door to get to the final boss. If you're even remotely allergic to high difficulty, START THIS GAME ON EASY. Don't worry, it's still plenty challenging on easy. If you're still having trouble, you can always do a New Game+ by starting a NG, then importing your old character. There is a level limit, though, so be careful. Pick your character build carefully. I hear the DLC / Expansion apparently fixes some stuff in the main game, dunno if that's true or not, guess I'll find out when I return to this game in 2033.