Modron
No, I mean, dude. Sometimes, that's the crux of the matter. Take
The Outer Worlds for example. The hype was 'Obsidian’s going to deliver their magnum opus: Fallout: New Vegas, but bigger, better, and in space.' What a promise!
...And what we got was a subpar FPS with questionable RPG-lite mechanics—less complex than what it actually tried to imitate so shamelessly:
Borderlands. If we’d known that upfront, we could’ve approached it differently. Probably much more people would’ve played it for what it was—a light, casual experience with some questing before diving into something meatier. Heck, we might’ve chuckled at some of those quirky quests or gotten a warm fuzzy feeling from spotting love-letter Easter eggs to
Fallout. But no, the assumption was that it’d be a deep, complex RPG in first-person. And that’s where the disconnect, backlash, and even hate came from.
No to say that Sonora is the same convoluted, conflicted thing. No, but the similar meaning of expectations based on the 'word out on the streets' vs what it actually was.
Anyway, I’m about to take on the slavers, I am around level six. After about five hours of gameplay, I would've still said that the NPCs, situations, lore, and their interconnections feel rather simple where they shouldn't, and, on the other hand, can be pretty extensive in similar situations with but lesser impact. What’s worse, some major conversations still drop twists out of nowhere, like, “Oh hey, it was X 5 seconds before, but now it’s Y. Trust me, bro.” No buildup, no alternative discussions, just, “Here’s your twist, BAM.” That’s not great storytelling—RPG or otherwise (e.g. the said Lucas -vs- Kogan situation, part of the main plot).
That 'other hand' being, for example, the Priest Hiram and Festus' sick sone quest. It's a side quest but it is rather extensive—for its scope—and is actually of top notch Fallout quality. Classy gesture in
having to wait at a specific time and place for it to unfold. All things make sense, characters gradually come to realizations, they have their motives and are not easilly swayed aside, it takes effort in one way or another to bring some solutions, and even then the characters talk around those and elaborate on them (believably so, at that).
All that said, I’m still enjoying
Sonora. It has charm. The quests aren't generic or fetch quests; there are various approaches and some thinking on your feet. I especially love the new NPC faces—they look like they came straight out of the original
Fallout. Fantastic work there. The world-building and moral standpoints hold up, too. Slavers, savages, profit-hungry factions, science-driven cliques, and those obsessed with order at the cost of humanity—it all feels right at home in a
Fallout setting. And the game seems big, which is definitely a plus.
So, just to be clear, my intent wasn't to needlessly criticize this total conversion.