After playing through isometric Fallouts first time in 2020 I must shyly say this was maybe my favorite. While I enjoyed world and story of F1 and was impressed by huge scale and complexity of F2, there always were some gameplay or technical quirks that annoyed me. For FT I had no expectations but decided to try it as well and don't regret. It's for Fallout sort of what Icewind Dale is for Baldur's Gate (only with even less roleplaying) which for me isn't bad thing at all. RPG aspect in FT is shrunk to minimum and pretty much limited to character development which is the same as in previous games. Only here we can develop up to 6 characters which is one of the best things about it. Firstly, as they're fully controllable, there's no dealing with idiotic AI like in F1/2 which finally makes the battles actually enjoyable. Secondly, our main character doesn't need to be jack of all trades as important skills can be distributed among the whole squad. Combat system is similar and different as before at the same time. Difference makes possibility to switch between real time and turn based mode instantly at any time which makes game faster and more dynamic but still with chance to slow down when things get too hot. Mission design is above average I'd say with different goals and basically no typically frustrating moments such as time limited objectives, infinite enemies spawn or defending npc's. Maps are really quite big and missions are long with lots of fighting which might be tedious at times. Designers did what they could to make maps as diverse as FO universe allows. Outside of typical deserts and junktowns there are underground labs and caves, futuristic structures and even snowy landscapes. There's a lot of weapons and equipment to use, mostly taken from F2, but with few additions as well as usable vehicles. For tactical game it'd be neat to have destructible environment and if our troops mobility wasn't so limited to predefined paths but it's still enjoyable enough.
At first glance GM might look like simple tactical strategy where player has to scare the s*** out of everyone on the level by using squad of ghosts but there is more to it. Later levels often add more diverse objectives which might require luring mortals to do something or using specific powers of specific ghosts to achieve some goal. It can be both fun and annoying. There is a fair bit of randomness in this game and possibilities of controlling mortals are very limited which means that, depending on luck, some missions might be completed very quickly, even by coincidence, or be a real pain and take ages or many tries to finish. While most scenarios are rather easy and straightforward enough to win, few of them (e.g. final two) can be very tricky. For completionists there are also bonus ghosts to unlock hidden on most levels which require using ghost's powers (sometimes of more than one ghost) to be released. Hints on how to do that are usually vague or obscure and in some cases only very specific powers work while similar one or, one would think, logically correct won't which makes it serious but not necessarily fun challenge. As for ghosts there is quite a lot of them of different types and new powers can be unlocked between scenarios. Squad of maximum 6 can be used on mission which means sometimes restarts might be necessary in case of lack of ability needed to do something crucial. Fortunately game isn't overly linear and gives some freedom in sense that there often are multiple solutions to do the task, sometimes including very creative and unorthodox ones. It's certainly unique title, hard to classify as any genre and hard to compare with something similar. At least I don't know of such game. This uniqueness is probably the reason why it did poorly but at the same time is cult classic for many people. For expecting hardcore strategy it'll be too simplistic and lacking tactical depth. The puzzle aspect could be better thought. But overall this mix kinda works.
