I found it much easier to learn the general flow of combat in Underrail, and the early game wall of knowing if a build works or not feels much sooner in Underrail compared to Atom where my build only really started to feel like it had issues after 10-15 hours, and starting over felt like a terrible chore.įinally on an even more subjective note, I found the setting in Underrail more interesting. Dialogue feels more vapid with 4-5 identical choices making up the majority of interactions, the maps have tons of empty space and the overworld travel is REALLY slow, UI bugged me in its design, combat is pretty bad with the AI (especially squadmates), and it doesn't have a good difficulty curve from my 20ish hours in it. I haven't played through the whole game yet but I don't think I will end up sticking with it to the end of its story. Personally, Atom has too many small design choices that take away from the enjoyment of the game for me. The developers surely knew what they were doing and they did a mighty fine job.Ītom is alright if you're really into CRPGs, but I enjoy Underrail much more.

If you remember yourself being the same with Fallout 1-2, then you're in for a treat with this one. As you can see I can talk about this game for hours. I can live with these if the other elements are so good. Nice atmopheric music, no voiced dialogue.

Overall, graphically, the game is somewhere between Fallout 1-2 and Tactics. That's not necessaril bad, but the in-game UI, that is bad without a doubt. Basiclly the game really looks like if it was made somewhere in 1999. On the negative side, graphically this might not be for everyone, the isometric game world is done well, some of the backgrounds look great, but the effects like light or fire kinda not. so challenging combat is another advantage. Tactical encounters, planning out your move in combat, hiding behind covers and restealthing etc. But even to supply yourself with disposable stuff like special bullets with acid or cryogas grenades. So there's a need for patience and dedication here.Ĭrafting in itself can be mentioned as a bonus, there's something about making your own equipment tailored to your needs and make it further align with the delicate synergies you set up with your skills and stats and feats. You should know what you want and stick to it, you can't put points into melee just because you only have a knife when you plan on using energy pistols later, because it will cripple your build. But there's a tough starting phase, the first play you'll likely restart. Here the character creation options are honestly surpassed my expectations. The encounters are tough, but it feels great to dive in, set out to a new location knowing your assets and having the feeling of whatever comes, I now what I'm good at and gonna try to make the most out of it. The increased challenge this game has gives it all meaning.

This might alienate some who doesn't have the patience or th interest to do the research, but very well be the biggest selling point for those who love these things and can spend hours playing with the character planner. There are so many directions you can go, be a ninja, a spec-ops commando, a scientist, a psionic, a barehanded untouchable monk. And it is kind of advisable to look up some guides on how skills work, what are the tresholds understand feats and study other builds in order to be able to come up with one of your own, that suits your preferences. Second, there's a huge enjoyment that's coming from thinking out your own character build, at least as much as what you might had in the Fallout games, if not more. There are some interesting dialogues and quests here too. So not just level up and distribute skills (which is what the word got degraded to nowdays). Some might have direct consequences, some only later, but because of all this, you can really, actually roleplay. Quests you can approach and finish differently according to your playstyle and skills and of course personal alignment. In order to get the most enjoyment out of the game, you have to appreciate two things, the ones that happen to be the strength of this game.įirst is the roleplaying, meaning that there are multiple paths that will shape the world, you can ally with several major factions, different oligarchs, incursive hi-tech military regime, freedom fighters labelled terrorists and they all close out each other's path. I did not play Atom, so I can only provide an opinion about UnderRail.

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