I haven't quite finished the game yet but I'm far enough in to know my opinion of it. Planescape: Torment is my favorite RPG of all time, quite possibly my favorite game of all time, and I was always very skeptical that this new Torment could really recapture its essence. To my surprise, I feel that it does. Just like PST, Tides really gives you the sense that every nook and cranny of the world you're exploring has something unique and fascinating to discover. Every NPC you can engage with in this game is fundamentally different from all the others, has their own little story, and almost all have some kind of interesting concept behind them rather than just being a shopkeeper or whoever is needed to advance a quest. It's this sense of constantly discovering the truly fantastical that made PST so special in my mind, and I'm very happy to say that Tides does it as well. On top of its great characters, setting, and atmosphere, this game's ruleset is in my opinion a big step up over the D&D rules used in PST. I wasn't at all familiar with Monte Cook's ruleset before I played this game, but I am quite pleased with it. It's both simpler and more versatile than the rules in PST, and the turn based combat is much more enjoyable to me. Is this game *better* than its predecessor? Nah, no way. Maybe that's nostalgia talking, but to me the journey of the Castoff just doesn't feel as intriguing on a literary level as that of The Nameless One. But it's vastly superior to the storytelling quality in 99% of other games out there, and has kept me glued to my PC during every hour of free time I've had for the past few days. My congrats to the developers. You pulled off a task I didn't think could be done. This really does deserve to be called PST's spiritual sequel.
I'm about 30 hours into Underrail and it just keeps on giving. The Fallout influence here is strong, but it's not a Fallout clone by any means. Combat is much deeper and more involving than Fallout, as is dungeon exploration, which there is a ton of in this game. What it gets from Fallout is more in the flexibility of character options, but there's less emphasis on world reactivity and more on deciding how exactly you want to destroy or evade your enemies. You cannot go all diplomat in this game, that's for sure. Many character builds are possible. Obviously there's combat, and lots of it, but you can also focus on crafting, sneaking, social skills, breaking and entering and psychic powers and all of these dramatically change your game. One of the signs of a well designed RPG is when there is good reason to specialize in everything but spreading your character thin between too many skills results in a weak build. My first character wasn't specialized enough so I started over about ten hours in, and I was happy about it -- that's how good this game is. I'm already thinking about what my next build is going to be like. The Underrail world is really well crafted. There much mysterious lore to discover and the underground post-apocalyptic world you inhabit reveals itself slowly through natural conversations, rarely through forced exposition. The writing is not Torment or anything, but Underrail isn't there to tell a story -- the story is there to take you on a tour through Underrail, all of its treacherous caves, abandoned bases, underground cities and I don't even know what else yet. I'm already absolutely convinced that this game will someday stand alongside games like BG2, Fallout 1/2, and Torment as an example of the genre by which others are judged. There have been a lot of revivalist RPGs in this vein lately, and 2015 has been a killer year for them, and I've played them all. Underrail stands at the top of the heap, hands down.
I have to say, I think a lot of the five star reviews here are overrating the game, maybe because they're seeing it in relation to Shadowrun Returns. I never actually played that game because it got such middling reviews; eventually I decided to try Dragonfall because the reviews were so much better. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the game. But it's only decent. There's not a huge amount of bang for buck here. It's pretty short for an RPG, and there is no expansive world to explore, just a central hub and other maps you travel to when selecting missions to complete. What it does have going for it is a solid turn based combat system and a lot of flexibility in the type of character you want to play. However, the story is just average. I see a lot of people praising it on GOG and I think they're being really generous. It's a completely normal "ordinary adventurer stumbles upon something greater than themself and has to become leader to fight ancient evil that awakened" job like dozens of other RPGs that are out there. There is nothing particularly compelling about the characters, they all fall neatly within sci fi/fantasy archetypes like you'd expect. It's all reasonably well presented and the writing isn't bad or anything, but this is far from a truly great story. For comparison's sake, I'd argue Planescape: Torment is the pinnacle of storytelling in CRPGs to date, and this comes nowhere near it. I'd totally recommend picking up Dragonfall the next time it's on sale. It will give you a few nights of solid fun if you're a fan of classic isometric RPGs. It will not hold up as being great against the test of time.
