Looking for something like Fallout 1 but more dialogue

I just finished my first playthrough of Fallout 1 and I really enjoyed it. However, I think it started to lose its steam close to the end. I was hoping for more dialogue with the Master and with Morpheus. I think the game has a very strong start with Shady Sands and Junktown. I want more of that. I want more grey morality and more dialogue. I enjoyed the combat, but I want more crazy people to talk to. Obviously Planescape has this in spades, but I’ve already played that. I haven’t played Fallout 2 yet, but I usually try to space out games in a series so I don’t get burned out. Any ideas?

 

Arcanum?

 

Yeah? Lots of good dialogue there?

My favorite part of Fallout 1 was talking to Old Harold. He was my favorite character.

 

Atom RPG.

 

Lot's of dialogue and the game was made by some of Fallout devs. It's bigger than Fallout but also less polished.

 

Arcanum is like Fallout³, just bigger and better in every way.

ATOM RPG is also bigger, with tons of dialogue if you like that, but it's made by Russkis and you'll enjoy it more if you have some knowledge of Russian/Soviet culture.

 

Underrail. The Expedition Expansion in particular.

 

You want dialog eh. Sit down buddy we're gonna talk. First of all, I will hit you in the gut. When this is done, you will tell me extensively about your feelings, until I hit you again.

 

Well if you want dialogue-heavy, obvious options are:

Torment: Tides of Numenera
Disco Elysium

And many others, but those two are the heaviest (apart from PST which you already mentioned).

 

Oh, and it's not the closest to Fallout on the RPG Spectrum, but in terms of raw appeal vested in quality dialogue KOTOR 2 still reigns amongst the best.

 

It does, of all the RPGs I’ve played, KOTOR 2 and PST have the best dialogue. I haven’t played all of the greats yet, though.

 

Fallout 2

 

Other than combat mechanics. And graphics. And location design...
I'd really love to love Arcanum.

 

Age of Decadence

 

I am on cellphone, now, but ATOM is the best rpg of the last years, at least for me. And it's fallout 2.0 in a russian setting. Lots of dialogues options.

 

Get ready to read.

 

Shadowrun: Dragonfall of course

 

Shadowrun DragonFall (or any of the three, but the other two are just « good » while DragonFall is exceptional)

Arcanum, but combat are really bad. I did not have issue with location issue, unlike DraQ

Disco Elysium is only dialog, but best writing I know.

I did not find Age of Decadence dialogs to be any good though yes it is a Late Roman Era fallout.

 

You wouldn't know what location design IS in Arcanum (apart from Tarant) - You admitted to not playing it IIRC. If I'm wrong then accept my sincere apologies.

Some minor criticism of Fallout 1 incoming. I know on the Codex there are people allergic to it. Be warned.

In Fallout 1 you have some bad locations as well and considering the relatively small size of the game, it's telling something. Vault 15 might work from story perspective - though even then it fails at shoving as how an empty ex-vault could look like. OTOH from gameplay perspective as sort of a dungeon it's bad. Three tiny levels or corridors and rooms with almost nothing (+ some rats).
The other thing to mention is that there is no location as big and ambitious, with so much content, as Tarant - in Fallout. You might not like it from graphic perspective but from gameplay one - it is not bad at all. As much as "big" cities in CRPGs go, it is good. Granted the bar is very low, but what can you do.

As to graphics, Fallout is much more consistent and makes better use of its assets and is simply more stylish, that's for sure. On the other hand, the graphics in Fallout are IMO less varied, a bit simpler, there is less variation of graphic assets. The characters animations are nice in Fallout though.
What is also worth considering is that creating a location with some huts, some simple houses and similar stuff is easier than "showing" a supposedly big, civilised city. Overall Fallout wins in graphic department but Arcanum isn't terrible. Its disadvantages come more from the design, not the technical or aesthetic quality of the graphics themselves.
In short if you are not affected with a case of graphic whore-ism then there shouldn't be a problem in accepting Arcanum from graphic perspective. There are good thins about it alongside the bad one. The look of items and inventory or portraits - not only pretty good but adds to the atmosphere. There is some nice variation in characters look in iso perspective. A few nice done locations, etc...

Having said that, it is true about combat mechanics. In Fallout as simple as they are, they actually work and the combat itself is enjoyable. Not so much in Arcanum. I guess this is the same problem as with the graphics. In Arcanum they tried to be more ambitious than in Fallout where it comes to combat (magic, the RT/TB hybrid,...). Despite aiming for more and putting some additional work towards that goal - the end result was the opposite. Overall Fallout 1 (and 2, yes !) win by far with Arcanum.

 

Fallout1.5 Resurrection. It's pretty compact like Fallout 1

 

I have played it to the point where I reached Tarant, derped around it a bit, IIRC was hit by a quest bug of some sort and visited some other location.

I would still like to play it through some day, but when I think about it, I immediately see blocky, soulless Tarant (and no, not in a "its soulless by design, hurr...." kind of way), garbage combat, especially gun mechanics, and shit tier filler enemies that only dilute worldbuilding.
If you cannot into mechanics make a fucking visual novel or something.

Haven't noticed significant problems with V15 other than it not having the kind of size and living space needed for its population, but that's easy to dismiss as videogame scaling and if criticized the critique should start at V13.

Quantity != quality.
And I don't give a fuck about content if location feeling profoundly wrong prevents me from enjoying it.

True, but there have been contemporary and earlier games doing much better job at that. And "gamedev is teh hard" is not a valid excuse.

It kind of is because it tries to improve on Fallout's graphics, uses more advanced tech and more resources, yet ends up looking worse.

True, but I'm probably going to spend more time looking at the world graphics than in my inventory (if not, there are some BIG issues with inventory system).

Which you won't see if you quit around Tarant.

Fallout actually has pretty bad combat (even though it uses some very valuable concepts), but it can still be fun and feels right - firearms are fired and reloaded, enemies get Swiss-cheesed etc.

RT/TB hybrid was a ludicrously misguided idea from the start, combat UI is much worse (try performing called shots without consulting the manual), failing to carry over or replicate capacity and reload mechanics from Fallout was... I don't know what, TBH - maybe evidence of entire team suffering simultaneous stroke?

 

Since creating this thread, I have tried to play Arcanum, to no avail, unfortunately. The misses, reloading, called shots, etc. probably would bother me more, if I wasn't so bothered by the actual combat piece itself. I don't even really care so much about the TB/RTwP. As a comparison to Fallout, you know when you miss because there is some meat and weight to the combat animations and sound. If you miss with any weapon, the enemy dodges and you hear a distinct "miss" sound effect. Arcanum may have a higher graphic fidelity, but they really missed the mark with combat animations. Not to mention, Fallout has the text combat log on the side that tells you everything that happened. Arcanum is much more cryptic. Similarly, when you make a hit in Fallout, you know, because of the animations and the sound effects. In Arcanum, the only reason that I knew someone was successfully hit was from the health bar going down. Once an enemy was knocked to the ground, it became clearer when I would hit or miss, but I was honestly disappointed in how they handled the combat. Say whatever you will about the rules or anything else, the combat is not clear enough for a player to have a good understanding of what is happening.

 

Titan Outpost. Unique setting, memorable characters, lots of choices, and you don't have to worry about shitty combat because there isn't any.

 

Atom RPG is exactly what you want, Soviet post-apocalypse with a lot of text that is sometimes really sad and then incredibly funny. Combat is also better but you can get pretty far without firing a bullet by choosing the right dialogue options.

 

Choosing the right options, or having the right skills?
I want to believe.