Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

UnderRail review at RPS - and it's negative!

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,228
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2017/05/22/underrail-indie-rpg-review/

Why I fell out with Fallout-inspired indie RPG Underrail
Sin Vega on May 22nd, 2017 at 9:00 pm.

underrailheader.jpg


Underrail [official site] is a game that wants to be Fallout. That’s okay! That’s a legendary game for several reasons, and some are even good. There’s definitely room for an RPG to be to Fallout what Xenonauts is to UFO: neither remake nor clone, but a new game that does all the same stuff we’ve missed, only without an interface from the Stupid Age.

Underrail, however, is not that game. It’s a bold attempt, but ultimately one that misses too many marks, and copies too many notes from the Bumper Book Of Frustrating RPG Design We Still Have To Put Up With For Some Reason.

I wanted to like it, I really did. You can ask Graham! My original pitch was all “it’s like Fallout or those old Infinity Engine RPGs, but with an interface designed for humans”, because that’s the initial impression it gives. Set in presumably the future, after, I assume, some sort of apocalypse, under probably an American city as far as I can tell, Underrail is an isometric RPG set in a drab and ugly world full of mutants, dustbins, and recklessly spiked leather jackets. It’s divided into semi-independent, mostly impoverished camps, where all sorts of shady characters offer dodgy work. There’s even a Junktown, and the murky, looping, almost ambient soundtrack could have been pilfered directly from an Interplay archive. It has the look and sound and some of the mood, and better yet, it has the sense to innovate, with a completely different interface and controls, and a similar but smartly streamlined skill and levelling system.

underrail1.jpg


The latter is particularly noteworthy, as instead of reaching enlightenment by absorbing the souls of vanquished monsters or ticking tasks off your list, levels are gained by collecting curious artifacts from around the world. These are found in bins, rubble piles, lockers and so on. They’re hidden away in electronically-locked boxes or rooms accessible only to mechanical types. Some accidentally fall out of the pockets of someone whose wallet you unintentionally bumped into, or whose big stupid face you bashed in with a sledgehammer. Each one of these ‘oddities’ adds a point, and when you have enough points, you reach the next level. Grinding doesn’t work, as each flavour of oddity can only be used so many times, the rationale being that your character has learned all that they can from, say, a bandit’s jewellery, or a copy of What Mutant? Magazine.

The idea is to encourage exploration with something less unnatural than “you need more xp, go stab rats”, and to ensure that players can advance through means other than playing Mata Piñata. You’d think, also, that it would be a great excuse to fill the world with flavour text, telling you about the beasties you’re fighting, the events that brought the world to this state, and the micro-societies whose members you’re repeatedly kicking in the nadgers. But Underrail doesn’t. It doesn’t really do anything.

underrail2.jpg


Despite the presence of skills like hacking, persuasion, and a pretty decent crafting setup, combat features heavily. The basics are sound; characters shuffle around and trade regular blows, livened up with the occasional grenade, net, or poisoned knife, and novelty weapons to be bought or built (crossbows being the most colourful thanks to their variety of bolts). Every few levels, you can take perks that grant a special stunning attack, or bonuses to homemade armour, or replenish movement points for killing. But combat becomes obnoxiously hard early on, mostly due to enemies having access to the same perks and equipment, and then some.

Even with all my perks devoted to doing damage and getting into positions to do more damage, there’s simply too much random luck involved. Status effects stacking up when you’re stabbing someone is great, but when you’re fighting three people who can also stunlock you for 2 or 3 turns, missing a single special attack or taking one bad hit spells practically guaranteed death. There are cooldown timers on everything too – stealth, medkits, even grenades for god’s sake – so while your options are arbitrarily limited, two enemies (and the very opening task has you fight several groups of – of fucking course – rats. Well, rathounds. So rats and wolves combined, because why limit yourself to one cliché? I look forward to the inevitable spidergoblin) can cycle their attacks, effortlessly immobilising, stunning and/or crippling you. Even on easy mode, too many fights come down to hoping that enemies will miss, against the odds.

underrail3.jpg


One completely unannounced monster is stealthy (you can sometimes spot stealthy enemies if stealthed yourself and standing close. If you miss them… reload. Sometimes you can see them but still not attack them. Reload. Sometimes you can see them, attack them, and miss. Reload. Sensing a pattern?), with venomous attacks that also render you helpless. Taking control from the player is always annoying. The insult of bothering to start your turn when you can do absolutely nothing stings. The fact that there’s a perk that lets you cancel status effects – but only some and with another bloody cooldown timer – twists my tendons. But all this put together is absolutely maddening. And I’d done plenty of exploring for those oddities to level up as much as possible by this point.

Even stealth lends itself to fighting better than to evasion, because dodging between multiple enemies randomly wandering in a very small space leads to yet more quicksave roulette. No game has ever paired real-time wandering with turn-based combat without causing severe friction. Here it’s at least non-binary, as enemies become gradually more aware of you rather than toggling between oblivious and aggressive. But that’s no help if your pathing takes you blundering into them, or if they follow you as you try to creep away. Oh, and speaking of pathing and controls, for the love of god, if you’re making a turn based game, give us the option to confirm our orders. Underrail has a nasty habit of misinterpreting clicks in combat, adding more chances to instantly doom yourself. A simple double click order system would remove this entirely. Even OpenXcom has this feature.

underrail4.jpg


Movement brings me to another bugbear, one that it’s really unfair to single Underrail out for: the trudging. Oh god, the trudging. More than almost any of the litany of ancient irritants sprinkled into every RPG since Hammurabi first whalloped his brother with a +2 Axe of Nerding, I am tired of RPGs that make me trudge. Here we have a world whose difficulty demands levelling, which in turn demands exploration of all the side tunnels you can find (standard encounter rules apply: the only way to gauge a fight is to save the game, then let them kill you). All areas are interconnected with other screens; there’s no overworld map at all. There is a fast travel option between settlements, but you still need to explore, and still need to get across the settlements.

This adds up to endless plodding from one end of an empty screen to another, even more slowly if you’re stealthed, and if you’re not, you’ll get killed before long and have to do it all over again anyway. You can’t even bloody run. The opening settlement has nine floors, with taskmasters and merchants spread across most of them. I have to talk to Ben? Okay, which one was Ben? I think he was on Floor 4. Trudge trudge trudge. No wait, I need to get my stuff from my locker to sell to him as he’s the only person who buys clothes. Trudge trudge trudge. Oh wait, that’s not Ben. I’d best check all the other floors. Trudge trudge bloody trudge. It’s so slow.

underrail5.jpg


I started playing it in a window so I could do something else while waiting for my character to stroll home. This isn’t a good sign, y’know? Oblivion’s looping dungeons might have been silly, but they saved some of us from days of pointlessly clomping about.

All this might not be fatal. However difficult, slow, or arbitrary it got, Underrail might have recovered. None of these faults, as I’ve said, is all that uncommon. But the real problem with Underrail is a question that throws all of its shortcomings into focus:

What the hell am I doing here?

underrail6.jpg


I’ve played for dozens of hours according to in-game timers (which don’t account for time lost to undone dead ends and the many, many reloads), and I still have very little idea what the plot is. I’m a new person joining a settlement, presumably for reasons. I’m taken to a private room and… kind of blunder aimlessly about the place until I meet the right NPC, then do a few chores because he says so. At no point is there any way to find out much about the world, its past, the people in it, what to expect from the game, or to care in the slightest about anything at all. Oh, several characters can be interrogated about three or four factions who… exist. Except that they don’t really, so help me out here, game! Have them do something. Have a representative in the starter town! Have polarised arguments about them in the canteen. Don’t just rattle off their boring names and some lukewarm politics.

By the time a likely overarching force of villains arrived I was past caring (not helped by their total invulnerability – more trudging to get there and find that out and then return, thanks game), and I can only remember one NPC by name because it reminds me of Gorky-17, a mediocrity I’m suddenly looking back on fondly for having far more personality.

underrail7.jpg


I’ll give you an example. One early scene has an NPC, Soldier Guy, struggle to open a vault, only to quickly close it again with horror as he sees something inside. He refuses to let anyone in, so surely this is foreshadowing some terrible evil about to be unleashed? Nope. I trudge all the way back to HQ, talk to Science Guy, trudge back to Soldier Guy, and then trudge all the way back to the vault again, then go in and stab the monsters inside. I’ve already fought things like them in another cave anyway. What a waste.

Even at their worst, the games Underrail is inspired by had strong narrative hooks to contextualise a player’s decisions, and give incentive to go on through stickier patches. Fallout had the water chip (followed by the bigger threat you inevitably stumble across one way or the other by pursuing that goal), Planescape had Nameless One’s identity and the tragic fate of Mrs One, Baldur’s Gate had the cliché but reliable “why’d this sumbitch kill everyone?”. Without that, all of those games would have stumbled badly (don’t tell me you played Planescape for the combat), and it’d probably be their undeniable flaws that we talk about today, rather than their strengths.

underrail8.jpg


There are people who enjoy Underrail, and I honestly envy them. I can’t call them wrong, because I can see the germ of something great in it. It’s as close as anything has come to recreating that world we lost to a sea of ironic trilbies and Pipboy bobbleheads, and it clearly aimed to innovate rather than merely imitate. But while its tone and aesthetic goes beyond the shallow iconography of Bethesda’s sequels, it gives me too few reasons to follow, and too many to stay inside the Vault.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Zarniwoop

TESTOSTERONIC As Fuck™
Patron
Joined
Nov 29, 2010
Messages
18,646
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
That’s a legendary game for several reasons, and some are even good.

Stopped reading right there. :edgy:

Name one reason Fallout is legendary, which is not good, I dare you. I double dare you motherfucker.

Goddamn millennial edgelord writers trying to seem smart but don't know wtf they're talking about.
 

Jazz_

Arcane
Joined
Jun 13, 2016
Messages
1,069
Location
Sea of Ubiquity
''Even with all my perks devoted to doing damage and getting into positions to do more damage, there’s simply too much random luck involved. Status effects stacking up when you’re stabbing someone is great, but when you’re fighting three people who can also stunlock you for 2 or 3 turns, missing a single special attack or taking one bad hit spells practically guaranteed death. There are cooldown timers on everything too – stealth, medkits, even grenades for god’s sake – so while your options are arbitrarily limited, two enemies (and the very opening task has you fight several groups of – of fucking course – rats. Well, rathounds. So rats and wolves combined, because why limit yourself to one cliché? I look forward to the inevitable spidergoblin) can cycle their attacks, effortlessly immobilising, stunning and/or crippling you. Even on easy mode, too many fights come down to hoping that enemies will miss, against the odds.''


:abyssgazer:

basicly casul who cannot into combat writes butthurt review.
How about coming up with a different approach instead of hoping they ''miss against the odds'' next time? what a braindead doofus.
 

IHaveHugeNick

Arcane
Joined
Apr 5, 2015
Messages
1,870,123
Pretty accurate review. Underrail had potential to be a modern age classic as it does a lot of things extraordinarily well, but the staggering amount of bad shit outweights the good shit.
 

Parabalus

Arcane
Joined
Mar 23, 2015
Messages
17,432
The guy just rants about the game being too difficult and him being too retarded to handle it. A roaring endorsement I'd say.

576E6364D09F92E98A2CDA8D7138FCF8429928BA


He has a few good points later on, about the OoC move speed for instance.

Don't really agree that the narrative lacks focus or motivation, all of that was present for me. You can tell he rage quit because he doesn't mention the cube as a central plot device and complains there isn't one.

Dunno why everybody insists on comparing UR to Fallout, the games have very little in common (inside the tbRPG genre).
 
Joined
Jan 7, 2017
Messages
1,370
That fucking heretic noob is shit at playing the game and gives it a bad review because of that? Typical of RPS reviews, I swear. It's either that or "I thought game X was genre A, but it's B instead, so I'll review it as genre A and give it bad reviews for not living up to my expectations". And they write articles like bloody fairies or as if they were explaining something to a retard or a profane (either of which apply to 90% of people still using RPS as some sort of reference).

Edit: a single failed roll spelling doom? "Even on easy"? Where do they hire these mongs? Do they work for free? For AIDS-infested bukkake?

Go play and review Farmville, motherfuckers!
 

Roguey

Codex Staff
Staff Member
Sawyerite
Joined
May 29, 2010
Messages
35,653
Who the hell is Sin Vega?

Oh, some bint.
 

Tigranes

Arcane
Joined
Jan 8, 2009
Messages
10,350
"“it’s like Fallout or those old Infinity Engine RPGs, but with an interface designed for humans”"

Retard
 

toro

Arcane
Vatnik
Joined
Apr 14, 2009
Messages
14,023
He liked the combat, stealth. Found leveling mechanic to be unique, but hated the slow movement speed, empty maps, lackluster NPC interactions.

Pretty standard view on Underrail tbh.

Slow movement speed sucks. The issue could be easily fixed with some in-game toggle.

The somewhat empty maps make sense in the UR game world. I honestly did not think about this until now and I enjoyed the feeling of solitude.

Lackluster NPC interactions ... this is a good point but also dishonest: this kind of complain can be made about every RPG released after F3:NV (including CYOAs like AoD).

However his complain about randomness in combat is retarded. The combat is definitely not characterized by randomness (with the exception of Initiative on Carnifex).

The game hits some good points like unique skill system, excellent combat, great exploration, good atmosphere and I would say interesting background lore. The difference between UR and the standard approach is that the game doesn't feed you the backstory and you have to make some effort to learn about it. Although I understand complains about the Cube being a stupid MacGuffin.

Overall his arguments are poor and he draws the wrong conclusion: Underrail is flawed but it stands on his own two feet. This is the reason why the game is already a classic in a world drowning in shit.
 
Last edited:

Goral

Arcane
Patron
The Real Fanboy
Joined
May 4, 2008
Messages
3,552
Location
Poland
He's right about slow movement, empty maps (even cities where there are usually 3 or less noteworthy NPCs in each section and you have to trudge through a lot of empty space to reach them) and characters that serve only as quest givers or quest targets and don't have much of personality. He's also right about what NMA admin wrote:

SuAside said:
Fallout gives you a purpose & then kicks you off into the world. If you actually give a fuck about the purpose, is up to the player. In the first one, you're just a disposable asset and you're not the only one they send out. In the second one, you're the chose one because you come from a tribe of morons and have the same blood as the savior in the first game.

However, with Underrail, you've got no purpose. "Welcome to the SGS", now would you kindly run our insanely dangerous missions for no other reason than us asking nicely?
Your fellow inhabitants clearly do not get such over the top dangerous tasks and if they do, then there are a fuckton of them deployed with heavy guns and armor wherever they go. It's more or less made clear that you could stay even if you don't carry out the suicide missions, since you meet plenty of people who don't.
So what drives my character here? And what drives the SGS? "Oh, we've got a guy that did pretty OK on our tests, so let's see if we can get him killed by sending him off alone against threats that have absolutely murdered the shit out of dozens of others before him"?
Painted like that, I don't really feel like helping out the SGS much. The problem isn't the fetch quest, nor the danger. It's the writing. The feeling you're doing something good for the community you feel a part of (if your char is a good guy at least). SGS has no appeal. It's a good base to be in this world, but none of the writing give you a sufficient motivation to offset the dangers you encounter. You could live out a safe & happy life without risking your life for drilling parts.

He's also right about GMS expedition quest, Styg knew how to rise the tension, unfortunately it quickly became clear that he overhyped the situation and once I got back there only disappointment was waiting. It's especially annoying once you learn about Gorsky's past who was supposed to be badass but was too afraid of a couple of burrowers that one man could handle easily (so not to mention Gorsky + more men).

But it's obvious that the main reason he wrote a negative review was because he was too incompetent and couldn't even finish it and the game was too hard for him. I can bet that if he could just click-kill enemies suddenly some of the negative points he wrote would either disappear or had much lesser weight. And since he's a SJW retard and a Fallout 3 lover you just can't take him seriously.
 

Sykar

Arcane
Joined
Dec 2, 2014
Messages
11,297
Location
Turn right after Alpha Centauri
He's right about slow movement, empty maps (even cities where there are usually 3 or less noteworthy NPCs in each section and you have to trudge through a lot of empty space to reach them) and characters that serve only as quest givers or quest targets and don't have much of personality. He's also right about what NMA admin wrote:

SuAside said:
Fallout gives you a purpose & then kicks you off into the world. If you actually give a fuck about the purpose, is up to the player. In the first one, you're just a disposable asset and you're not the only one they send out. In the second one, you're the chose one because you come from a tribe of morons and have the same blood as the savior in the first game.

However, with Underrail, you've got no purpose. "Welcome to the SGS", now would you kindly run our insanely dangerous missions for no other reason than us asking nicely?
Your fellow inhabitants clearly do not get such over the top dangerous tasks and if they do, then there are a fuckton of them deployed with heavy guns and armor wherever they go. It's more or less made clear that you could stay even if you don't carry out the suicide missions, since you meet plenty of people who don't.
So what drives my character here? And what drives the SGS? "Oh, we've got a guy that did pretty OK on our tests, so let's see if we can get him killed by sending him off alone against threats that have absolutely murdered the shit out of dozens of others before him"?
Painted like that, I don't really feel like helping out the SGS much. The problem isn't the fetch quest, nor the danger. It's the writing. The feeling you're doing something good for the community you feel a part of (if your char is a good guy at least). SGS has no appeal. It's a good base to be in this world, but none of the writing give you a sufficient motivation to offset the dangers you encounter. You could live out a safe & happy life without risking your life for drilling parts.

He's also right about GMS expedition quest, Styg knew how to rise the tension, unfortunately it quickly became clear that he overhyped the situation and once I got back there only disappointment was waiting. It's especially annoying once you learn about Gorsky's past who was supposed to be badass but was too afraid of a couple of burrowers that one man could handle easily (so not to mention Gorsky + more men).

But it's obvious that the main reason he wrote a negative review was because he was too incompetent and couldn't even finish it and the game was too hard for him. I can bet that if he could just click-kill enemies suddenly some of the negative points he wrote would either disappear or had much lesser weight. And since he's a SJW retard and a Fallout 3 lover you just can't take him seriously.

What a load of bull. Empty maps are there for a purpose and they are sprinkled with maps which are full of things. FO had the world map together with the time wheel to give you a sense of isolation. UR does not have this and therefore Styg decided to have some more or less empty maps to give you the same sense when you are traveling around.

As to purpose, you have a clear cut goals/missions from start to finish, even though they change once or twice. You are free to follow the overarching story but you can get off the rails and explore elsewhere which will even get improved with the upcoming expansion.

As for NPCs, how is that different from FO? For the main quest you have a handfull of important NPCs, the rest are either fluff or for side quests.
Also, define "important".

As to the Borrowers in GMS, that is highly dependant on your build and level and since you did not mention these I have to guess that you came back when you were severely overleveled for now. It is not just Gorsky who fears Borrowers but basically everyone else and if they get the jump on you and you have no antidotes you are basically fucked.
 

ciox

Liturgist
Joined
Feb 9, 2016
Messages
1,277
RPS review probably would have been shit no matter who wrote it.
 

MRY

Wormwood Studios
Developer
Joined
Aug 15, 2012
Messages
5,703
Location
California
"“it’s like Fallout or those old Infinity Engine RPGs, but with an interface designed for humans”"

Retard
Yeah, what was wrong with Fallout's UI? The inventory was a little bit of a drag, but otherwise I seem to recall its being extraordinarily approachable.
 

Ezeekiel

Liturgist
Joined
Dec 19, 2016
Messages
1,783
"“it’s like Fallout or those old Infinity Engine RPGs, but with an interface designed for humans”"

Retard
Yeah, what was wrong with Fallout's UI? The inventory was a little bit of a drag, but otherwise I seem to recall its being extraordinarily approachable.

Yeah, inventory was a bit annoying but that's basically it as far as real genuine U.I. negatives go.
 

Urthor

Prophet
Patron
Joined
Mar 22, 2015
Messages
1,872
Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
I still feel like the walk speed in that game still not being fixed comes down to "we'll fix it for the expansion," and is by far the biggest reason I can't really recommend it. I don't know how you can't just double the animation frames on the legs and have the little fucker scuttle round like he's on ice, if I can speedhack the game for 4x move speed the game developer should enable that natively.
 

Severian Silk

Guest
Some games have a few empty maps (Underrail). Other games have an encounter spaced every 10 meters (D:OS). I prefer the former.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom