Underrail [PC Steam Early Access]

[jztemple2]

Underrail was just released on Steam Early Access. Kudos for picking a pretty unique name. Anyone give this one a look yet?

Underrail is an old school turn-based isometric indie role playing game that focuses on exploration and combat.

The game is set in a distant future, when the life on the Earth’s surface has long since been made impossible and the remnants of humanity now dwell in the Underrail, a vast system of metro station-states that, it seems, are the last bastions of a fading race.

The player takes control of one of the denizens of such a station-state whose life is about to become all that much more interesting and dangerous, as our protagonist is caught midst the conflicting factions of the Underrail as the violently struggle to survive in the harsh underground environment.

[Turtle]

So, Metro 2033 but in an isometric view? Sounds good.

[D.A.Lewis]

Thanks. I've been following this game. But I have no time to be a testor. So it'll go on the Wish list.

[RMC]

I picked this up, but most likely will not play until it is 'released'. I did log in, and the character creation is fairly easy, very Fallout ish.

Stats, skills, and feats. No races, as I am guessing everyone is human. But your stats and skills define what 'class' you will have. Also, I walked around the starting area, and it was very responsive, and I enjoyed it.

I think this is a good shadowrun/fallout clone. I did not have any combat during my brief time with it, but it looks very promising, and they have my money now, so I hope it gets better.

[ColdSteel]

Somehow I missed this thread and have been paying no attention at all to this game. Then I noticed in a poll of most anticipated RPGs that it had a very high percentage of votes. And then I found this recent, well written, and detailed review/preview over on RPG Codex and now I'm super hyped about it. It sounds fantastic.

The EA Steam price also seems ridiculously good for this. Guess I'll need to pick it up pronto. http://store.steampowered.com/app/250520/

Edit: Apparently the game has a ton of content at this point and is very playable in it's current state. The reviewer above had about 70 hours in it.

[jztemple2]

I'm busy right now with Civ:BE, but I'll be looking forward to your impressions ColdSteel. It does look intriguing.

[ColdSteel]

This game was finally released on Steam yesterday. I actually picked it up about a year ago and played it in EA about halfway though with a sniper build before setting it aside to wait for release. It's fantastic and I highly recommend it to those that like the original fallout 1 & 2 type games. Be warned it's not a short game. Also, this was done by a very small indie team so it's nowhere near an AAA experience but they've done an incredible job of making a really fun game.

Release Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-kefd0cFWs

[GreenGoo]

I watched the video steam threw at me. I was like "this looks terrible. I wonder if there's a good game hidden in there".

We'll see.

[ColdSteel]

I was like "this looks terrible. I wonder if there's a good game hidden in there".

This is now also on Gog as well as Steam so you can look at the reviews and comments on both sites to decide, I guess. It has a 93% (436 reviews) positive rating on Steam and 4.5 stars (78 votes) on Gog. It's a very good game if you like tactical turn based rpgs like the original fallout games with the addition of crafting. There's a ton of replay value because of all the viable builds. Some people had several hundred hours in the EA version alone. I think graphics like that look just fine but ymmv.

[TiLT]

Tactics are one thing (and they weren't even close to being the focus of Fallout 1 and 2), but what about the story and writing? Is the writing good? Does it feel like it was written by people who actually know English?

[ColdSteel]

but what about the story and writing? Is the writing good? Does it feel like it was written by people who actually know English?

Yes. The writing style is direct but effective, IMO. There's been some discussion of it by Bateau on Q2three forums.

Writing is short and to the point, function over form, which is a mantra that permeates the entire game. If you want to read purple prose, play any of the generic western fantasy rpgs instead.

No, it's about two different styles of writing. One is short and to the point, much like an actual conversation with a purpose, the other is like reading a fantasy novel. Personally I can't stand the latter so the style that UR uses sits well with me.

As for the story, what I've seen of it is interesting and good. I haven't played though the entire game yet though. There are tons of EA let's play vids on youtube so people can draw their own conclusions about the game by checking some of those out.

[RMC]

I am enjoying it. It is a lot like the Shadowrun games that just came out. I have not gotten into it enough to say if the story is great or not, but the writing is strong enough to not make me stop playing, and the amount of skills and ability scores really fits with what I want from a RPG.

I have not really enjoyed Fallout 4 or the last Dragon Age game because I feel that they put more into the Action than the RPG portions of the game. But maybe I am just an old fuddy duddy.

[Cylus Maxii]

No longer in Early Access

This is on GOG Fall Sale for 1/2 price. Sounds like a bargain at $7.49, so I picked it up. Looks good so far. Will have more time to fiddle with it tonight. If you have any advice, we should start a tips and tricks thread for it.

[Lordnine]

I think everyone who backed Wasteland 3 will be getting this game for free.

[Cylus Maxii]

I guess I'll be getting a free copy too...

[GreenGoo]

If anyone wants a nice adoptive home for their free copy, give me a shout.

Just putting that out there.

[Paingod]

A bit of a thread necro, but I picked this up during the last sale and have been enjoying it-ish. When I get tired of stomping around in Battletech for the night, I fire this up for an hour or so. I'm not entirely sold on it, but it's not making me crazy or bored yet either.

I watched the video steam threw at me. I was like "this looks terrible. I wonder if there's a good game hidden in there".

Don't know if you ever got your free copy, but so far there seems to be. It's a workable post-apocalyptic RPG with better writing than ATOM RPG, but not as good as Fallout 1 or 2. I haven't delved too far into the story yet. I'm still the new guy in town, being sent on various fetch and kill quests to prove my worth to the community. I'm only level 7 and just barely scratched into the game, so my opinions are pretty light right now. Take what I say, too, knowing I have a higher tolerance than most for some lameness in games; I sometimes dip into games rated 6/10 because they have individual elements I like and I willingly endure the other parts to enjoy that.

Pros:

• Moderate-to-good story writing so far. Someone above stated that it's "direct" and this is true. They attempt some background fluff and it's not off-putting, but neither is it as cool as Fallout 1/2. I'd say it's more in line with Wasteland.
• There's a large selection of skills, and absolutely no way to be good at even half of them. Plan your character carefully. I get the feeling that a jack of all trades in this game becomes a recipe for failure later.
• Combat isn't pathetically easy and, so far, has been hard enough to make me need to load and rethink my choices more than once.
• There are stealth mechanics. A little janky but workable. Enemies let you know if they're spotting you via the old "Colored Eye Over The Head" trick. As it turns from clear to green to yellow to red, you know if you're in danger of being spotted.
• Spellcasting (Psi) and guns. Any game that gives you 3 skills dedicated to learn how to kill things with your mind and/or with four different classes of weapons can't be all bad, right?
• Some combat complexity. You can't just mash the same thing for every fight. You need to approach things logically. Use the right ammo (yes, you can load your gun or crossbow with different kinds of ammo). Regular bullets might bounce off a robot, but hit it with an EMP grenade first and them smash it with a sledgehammer ... that works. Maybe you're outnumbered by rats ... and an NPC said you should use a flare to scare them... well, that worked; they hate fire! Hm... oh, cool - my fireball attack also makes them run in terror!
• Multiple Ways. Some games just give you an objective and you've got to plow through the front door and deal with the consequences. This game has given me a second way a few times, which has proven very useful as I've dedicated myself to the Psi Arts and my physical confrontational abilities are nil; I get slaughtered in a stand-up fight. The situations that would normally be impossible for me to overcome are possible with some effort - like using vents to climb around a turret, set it to attack everyone, and then luring the hostiles into it while I hightail it out of there.
• Respawning. In some RPG's, once you clear an area, it stays clear. Just once so far I've had enemies logically re-appear in an unpopulated area that I had previously cleared. It's possible I missed them, but I don't think so. This gives me some hope that there's a chance for a little interesting tussle now and then that I wasn't expecting. I tend to like a degree of random encounters in my RPG's.

Cons:

• Animation. The visuals and sprites themselves aren't bad (nor are they great) but the animation is very stiff and robotic. This game would be better if they skipped animation almost entirely and just used a quirky pawn system like Battle Brothers did. If you have the art assets but can't animate for beans... Then. Don't. Animate.
• Speed. The game's default speed is really slow. You can jack the speed up to max and it feels like you're moving more fluidly, but I still wish it could go higher for the times when I'm just walking back through safe areas to get back to my room to drop off loot and then hit the medbay for a free healing. When you're stealthed, speed is greatly diminished, which is understandable - but slow on top of slow hurts.
• Navigation. The map is barely helpful. A complex room with multiple exits and a side-tunnel that you need to use to go from A to B in the same area is simply represented as a block. Blocks link to blocks. The most you get out of this is a general sense of where to go to try and find something. NPC's can give helpful directions for quests, but if you forget them (for example, because you couldn't stay awake and took two days to get back to the game) it's not in your quest log and you need to go back to the NPC. To get the NPC's directions to work for you, too, you've got to start learning all the areas and what they call them. They don't just say "Head South" - they say "Head to the hub of this area, then go south until you find this area. From there go west until you get to that area." ... and I think I've seen exactly one signpost that actually pointed out where the areas were or what they were called.
• Size. For a game with no voice acting and minimalistic visuals, the install is a staggering 3.6GB. Either the world in this game is vast beyond measure, or it's remarkably poorly optimized. For what I've seen so far, I was expecting a 250-500MB install. I've got a pretty good PC using SSD's and it takes a while to load. Longer than Battletech does. Loading between areas isn't bad, though.