Recent reviews by Danteroth The Minionhog

Story

Underrail keeps most of its story tucked away within the wealth of journal entries, computer logs, and persuasion checks for the player to discover themselves. Some things are told to you directly, but all the juicy bits require effort on the part of the player. These efforts are rewarded by a story that complements everything within the game, and makes even mundane actions and characters more interesting as you learn more about what conflicts are happening within the South Underrail and the who and why behind them. Many questlines secondary to the main story add to your understanding of the main story, and everything feels cohesive. The DLC in particular has the best storytelling in the game, and serves as a welcome shift in tone from the main story without feeling completely out of place in the setting. Circling back to what I mentioned about WHERE the story is, this can lead to some situations where certain builds are locked out of certain bits of story because they simply don't have the stats needed to persuade the right NPC or hack the right console. There are also entire lengthy questlines that you can be locked out of due to one bad dialogue choice (looking at you, Abram). Additionally, many quests give the illusion of choice while in reality they are railroaded more than you might first think. The game requires multiple playthroughs to experience everything it has to offer in terms of story and worldbuilding.

Atmosphere

This game has exceptional atmosphere. This is probably the only part of the game I feel is without flaw. Every place you travel to feels very alive--or very much not. Every room oozes with detail, and the stations in particular really capture the feeling of a degraded humanity that has been forced to fight for scraps in an extremely hostile environment. Even the simple cave rooms have little accents placed in them to liven them up, always reminding you that the place you are is, for better or worse, where humanity now resides. Again, this is an area where the DLC outshines the basegame. The most interesting areas in the game are in the Black Sea, and the environment hosts a diversity of subareas that are a joy to experience. No two places feel quite the same, and almost every room has a little something that sets it apart.

Gameplay

Generally, gameplay falls into two categories, depending on your playstyle, build, and the situation at hand. They are, in no particular order: sneaky scavenging and extreme violence. There are a few instances where some persuasion or intimidation might be wanted, but these are nowhere near as prevalent as the big two. Most quests require a combination of the big two, erring on the side of extreme violence. As for how fun these two are, the answer is very. Scavenging feels rewarding, especially if you choose to play with Oddity XP on, which makes Oddities, the little odds and ends that you find in everything from trashcans to the heart of a living rock, give you experience. However, finding these oddities can be a nightmare. The walkspeed in this game, even when playing on permanent maximum speed (which has some cons) is too slow. Backtracking takes a long time, and you will have to backtrack. Fast travel is limited, very limited, and locked behind either money or psychedelics. Fortunately, everything you can find has a use within the crafting system, which is one of the best in any game I've played. The crafting system in Underrail is what really allows you to reap the benefits of your insatiable thirst for the contents of a freshly butchered rathound. You can make almost any weapon or armor in the game, and for the ones you can't outright make, you can create something better. This adds a lot of variety to the second of the big two, extreme violence. Extreme violence is very fun, and very hard. Enemies, barring a few weaker ones, are usually equal or superior to you. Combat encounters require planning and strategy, whether that strategy be a stealthy hit and run, a hail of grenades, or a storm of mind wizardry. I do have to mention the issues of combat here, because unfortunately they do exist and can definitely make the game very unfun very fast. Firstly, combat requires save scumming. period. Unless you have memorized every inch of the game or permanently stealth (which you don't, due to the slow walkspeed) you will get jumped and deleted within one turn every now and again. You will also sometimes randomly explode on top of a cluster of mark IV frag mines that your eyes are too pathetic to spot, or become trapped inside a blob of acid you were too stupid to comprehend. Enemies also share sight with eachother, and in some areas it isn't uncommon to have your head taken off by a sniper critting you for 3 times your health bar from the fog of war. There are no items to increase your range of vision, and your accuracy is capped at 95%, which leads to some... undesirable outcomes. Now for the good stuff about combat, because despite these issues, there is more good than bad. The variety of things at your disposal, whether is be drugs, grenades, or traps is practically uncountable. There are infinitely many ways to handle each encounter as long as you are willing to stock up on your options. The feats from leveling up allow for many unique strategies and give you a lot of fun things to do. It should be said that you can make things boring for yourself if you only ever use one set in stone method for everything, because you can do that on the lower (not Hard+) difficulties.

Character Building

Character building and leveling is one of the best and worst things about this game. It offers four different primary archetypes of character, with a lot of room for specialization. The primary archetypes are melee, guns, psionics, and crossbows. All of these archetypes have many different specializations within them, and all have a wide assortment of feats to choose from to help further specialize the character. You feel the effects of each level up, as the points make a noticeable difference in combat as well as how you interact with the other aspects of the game. Skills like mercantile and persuasion can help open up things like shops, or unearth more lore for you to discover. Hacking and lockpicking can quite literally open new doors for you, as well as give you access to more loot. Stealth is probably one of the most useful skills in the game, as you become able to end combat early, skip combat entirely, and become the best thief in the South. Unfortunately, not all skills are created equally, and some are simply not worth investing in (pickpocketing). However, you don't have enough skill points to do everything you want to. You must specialize, more than you might initially think. Without using a premade build or at least reading a bit to discover what makes a good build and what feats you need for a particular archetype, you will likely have to restart your run at some point, most likely at Depot A. The leveling system does not tell you when you are underpowered, and you will not know you are underpowered until you run into a situation that you have no way out of. This might make it sound like there isn't a diversity of builds, which isn't true. There are many builds that work exceptionally well, but they require fairly specific stat investments in order to be strong enough to complete the game.

Overall

Underrail is a great game, one of my favorites, but it has big flaws, flaws that can't be ignored. I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys a post-apocalyptic setting and high difficulty, but not to anyone else. If anything I mentioned in the review seems like it would be a major turn off for you, I suggest you do not buy this game, because to enjoy it you will come to painful terms with every flaw whether you want to or not.

Phenomenal game. Incredible atmosphere, music, and gameplay. The world is fun to explore, and there is an abundance of content. Very replayable as well, the game holds up on repeated playthroughs. The post game boss gauntlets are also all great, and an awesome challenge for those who enjoy that sort of thing. Absolutely worth the full price, and I would still say it is worth purchasing at full even if it cost $20 more than it does now.

Great game, all the monsters feel different, even the variants, most of the fights are tons of fun. The progression system is great and there is a good balance between rewards and grind. There is also a good bit of depth to the customization which is always great, and I really like that endgame fights encourage specific loadouts for each particular monster rather than one generic beatdown set for everything. Basegame aside, Iceborne is probably one of the best DLCs ever content-wise and practically doubles the content in the game, both are completely worth the full price.

If you play your cards right this shadow can die like 4-5 times in one boss attempt

Fun, but hit detection sucks big pp

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