Underrail gets a little too old school for its own good. The game is set in a post-apocalyptic somewhere that is an obvious throwback to the classic Fallout. Unfortunately, this is the most poorly designed RPG I've played in over 20 years, with systems that seem to be engineered more to annoy than entertain. Of particular note: Your character's move speed is slow, making it seem to take forever to get anywhere. Game speed can be adjusted, but this setting resets back to default every time you start the game. There is no fast travel outside of major towns. Given the size of most RPGs, Underrail being no exception, this makes navigating the world a true chore. Poor crafting system: crafting items literally involves collecting dozens of otherwise junk items, all of which have weight. Even if you want to ignore crafting, much of what you encounter as loot consists of crafting items, and there is no Pillars of Eternity style "stash" to route these to. Dated encumbrance system: becoming overloaded makes your already slow character move around a third normal speed, and becoming heavily encumbered slows you down further. This, combined with the lack of fast travel, means you're stuck slowly trudging across zone after zone if you pick up more than you can carry (or making multiple trips back and forth), which happens almost constantly. Naturally, using stealth makes you even slower. Poor balance: combat is difficult, which is normally a good thing. What's not good is crossing a seemingly innocuous area transition and getting killed in turn-based combat before you can do anything. This is an sadly frequent occurrence. Limited auto/quick saves: you get two of each. That's it. Zone transitions autosave the game, but since the save occurs after the transition, the slot gets wasted if you run into the above. Insufficient automapping: most interior dungeons have no map. The world map cannot be scrolled. This could be a good game with a few QoL improvements.
