Tl;dr: great homage to Fallout 1&2 and you should definitely buy and play this game instead of yet another (how many years ago you stopped counting?) F1&2 replay. But it has flaws...
1. Overall underdevelopment and quality inconsistency.
At once you have decent quests with variety of options and in another moment - like railway ending to the story of main NPC. Doesn't matter what isTl;dr: great homage to Fallout 1&2 and you should definitely buy and play this game instead of yet another (how many years ago you stopped counting?) F1&2 replay. But it has flaws...
1. Overall underdevelopment and quality inconsistency.
At once you have decent quests with variety of options and in another moment - like railway ending to the story of main NPC. Doesn't matter what is your character build, your previous choices - nothing.
In soviet wasteland you can have some NATO weapons, but another, that you can add in your inventory by console will have lines like "...and how this %weapon% got onto soviet soil is a big mystery...". Mayhap, there were some plans to add exNATO settlement of surviving paratroopers? Perhaps, idk, and it's just one of examples.
Some top-weapons requires 70 of their respecting skill (for example, throwing), another 110. Not all builds are equal.
And game consists from 3 main areas. Wastes — the main ones and pretty good, but inconsistent. Dead City — I played after 1.1. and it's rather solid piece, however underground (subway) travel is frustrating. Mountain pass of something is delivered straight from Early Access. Boring as hell.
And nothing will be changed, devs are making new stand-alone DLC instead patches and free ones. Wise financial decision, but, well, gotta to subtract 1 out of 10. It's ok, nobody starts perfect.
2. Is it really a RPG or they just stole F1 title?
Hard to answer. Skills are real pain, they are scarce, good ones are only combat-oriented and limits your character build imagination. For example, you can't make weak your sniper/hunter/very decent person with a shotgun pass checks for strength of weapon because it's in automatic weapons tree and in the end. And speaking about checks: conversations mostly consist from them. Checking your strength, your dexterity, your luck, checking on your mother, checking on your sister... Oh, well, sorry. And your character phrase choices in conversation are always like [SARCASM]. Even in that game-not-to-mention it was only one of the options. 8/10 now.
3. They took things from F1&2 and made them worse.
For example, do you remember JHP and AP bullets in those masterpieces? First make more damage, second has +50%, well, armor piercing and half of damage, but overall game system lead that there were some enemies that can be only damaged by APs, because they are heavily armored. Here system is much simpler, I must say casual, and APs (except special experimental weapons, btw, that are nothing but junk without original cartridges) just add 10% to, well, armor piercing. Guns does not have own armor piercing capability, so in Soviet Wasterussia cartridge shoots the gun. And btw, shotguns are lame. Remember combat shotgun burst and you, savescumming? Relax.
Some another examples: stupider AI than 20 years ago (really, an anti-achievement, guys), trade system (the best place to trade is caravan, not an actual shops in the cities), repeating quests to get money are really frustrating, money doesn't matter much from some point anyway, game ending includes only fate of the settlements, companions and yourself, not the people you've met and changed their lives for better or worse, map is really flat (only one floor everywhere), no gun modifications (although there is primitive crafting system that allows you, for example home-make a sniper rifle with optical sight, you can't make an optical sight and place it on any other weapon, nor can other NPCs) and so on.
7/10.
4. They took things from F1&2 and didn't make them better.
For example, sex and relations in game. In 1997 and 1998 you couldn't have had the latter, but you was allowed to hire a companion for a night. Same here. Remember things, that evolved in games for last twenty years, remember Mass Effect? Nothing here.
Games did progress. Copying the classics in everything is not a wise decision.
6/10.
Well, I've add some words about only 2-3 replayability (first, another gender with another choices, burning the wastes for bloody ending, you, murderer of millions), intoxication with way too much easter eggs and nostalgie, but, I'll scare you off. Go and play, fellow fallouter. You have like 20 minutes to get to the steam, while fuze is still burning ;)… Expand
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