UnderRail

Played this once to around level 20 a few years ago and quit due to boredom. Decided recently that I was gonna restart and beat it. 70 hours in, level 25, had just done the 'get the tunneler for Gorsky' thing, had explored most of the main map and completed most of the game's quests. Went into Foundry prison to rescue prisoner for Quicksilver, realize it's in lockdown cause I had explored it once before, want to do it without killing anyone. Sneak into the prison, destroy camera (it allegedly spotted me here even tho in stealth and with distortion shield up), chat w/ prisoner, find hole that leads out, go out hole and blow it open to see where it leads. Went out hole, not realize I've left compound, come back in (side note: why do I need to use c4/explosives to create a distraction? why can I not make like, firecrackers? on top of that turning power off doesn't even turn the cameras off LIKE YOU'D EXPECT, neither does it buy you enough time to hack the console, delete footage, and re-stealth) delete footage, sneak out of compound, notice Foundry is hostile b/c I left out hole. No recent backup saves because I'm thinking, this is a STEALTH mission and a relatively simple one at that. Go back to save before leaving, kill witnesses, Foundry still hostile. So here's what gets me: I've read that the person who makes the game tries to make it as difficult as possible for people to make save editors for the game and that it's basically impossible to recover from this. My question: why? So players are forced to adhere to your unintuitive game systems? What is the point of this? It's UNFUN. Why would you rely on players to be doing advanced save scumming time manipulation to not screw their game up? Why can't you give your players a console to edit variables (if the need arises)? Coming from a guy who has hundreds of hours in dungeon crawl stone soup, this is just unfun. Leaving a negative review and will not be recommending this game.

Game had alot of potential, sadly however unless you are willing to play the exact meta intended by the developer you will find little fun within the game. Sadly this appears mostly intentional by the developer, you only need to look at the multiple forms of stunlocking or the possible bricking of playthroughs by running away from a fight (resulting in enemies permantly camping the entrance to the left area and negative 1000 to intiative meaning instant death in most cases upon return if not overleveled) played alot of games that become fun after "getting gud" but sadly its not a case of skill in this one, just learning what the meta is and stick to the rails.

This game comes closer to the greatness of some of the classic cRPGs, but isn't quite there. Those saying it's on the level of Fallout 2 are absolutely delusional; while it offers more from a combat perspective, the world building is extremely shallow in comparison as Underrail only has the bare minimum here, and the role-playing potential is not even in the same galaxy as Fallout 2. It's obvious once you get going; this is a game about punishing combat and multiple character builds, while Fallout is about satire and role-playing. Therefore, Underrail is not very well rounded, and while it succeeds at character build diversity, its gameplay remains very flawed. The difficulty is not a problem, that aspect is refreshing. It has flawed ruleset logic, having both Dexterity and Ability which are conceptually redundant, Dodge and Evasion are also conceptually redundant, so there's both ability score bloat and skill bloat. Having Crossbows be its own skill is questionable as well. The 4 turn limitation on combat utilities is unbalanced. The balance of the game also just blatantly favors stealth builds. You can't target mines with guns. Throwing combat utilities has inadequate visual cues to help guide your throw. AI is broken, which can result in very long AI turns and PC pathfinding is also broken. Weapon balance isn't great, some guns are completely useless. Underrail also really lacks polish. It uses 1990s technology and looks like it, and even runs like unpatched 90s cRPGs! Every patch version of the game crashes on different clean Windows 10 installations I've tried it on. Does this game expect you to be using Windows XP? Many modern day cRPG developers copy the bad things about classic cRPGs (technology and in this case stability...) rather than only copying the good (quest design, writing, role-playing, gameplay design) while benefitting from modern technology. Underrail is the former.

Just writing down things as they come to mind. It's not as hard as some might say once you dispell the desire to have a master-of-all-types character. Class archetypes (with lock-picking and hacking high on every char) is what gets you through the game. And depending on which route you take in that regard, the game might be quite different. Coupling this with a few different endings, it has replayability. The worldbuilding is great, the setting tone and humor consistent. This offsets the somewhat basic and at times annoying combat. It has game-speed controls (so long as you're not encumbered) to speed up traversing maps, which is nice. The game is a lot longer than I first anticipated. I thought it'd just be a small hard Fallout 1-2-like, but it's quite it's own game and it unfolds pretty well - nothing spectacularly original, but it doesn't have to be. Why make a table of moss or hard cheese because it hasn't been done before, when you know good old fashioned wood is the tried and true material that works. Anyway, good game. One of the best I've played in a handful of years.

I've had to restart my playthrough 4 times before finally deciding this game wasn't for me. I suppose it's for very hardcore Fallout fans, as it's ridiculously brutal and demands save-scumming as you can't possible predict some of the dangers that get thrown at you unexpectedly in this game. It looks great, sounds great, has good writing, that's why it's so frustrating that the difficulty is so brutal. It often feels like my build is just unplayable, which is why I restarted multiple time, but by now I'm just assuming this is the Kaizo-Fallout for people who love a challenge. It really is quality as far as I can tell, and I wish I was good enough to enjoy it.