So, I played Fallout. I should be playing the games I've borrowed before anything else, but JRPGness wasn't sounding very attractive this week and I wanted something different. Hence, twelve-year-old PCRPG.
First, the bad: polish, it is not there. Item management is a major hassle and combat never rises above tediousness. And there are some minor issues like NPCs just getting in the damn way all the time (there were a couple instances where I actually had to reload a game because the mooks had me stuck in the corner of a small room and wouldn't move; I suppose I could've just killed the NPCs, but they're useful as pack mules). Balance isn't great, either. I had a couple false starts due to investing points in skills that turned out to be just not useful. Seems like there are a very few important skills and the rest can go hang. Battle difficulty is based almost entirely on whether or not you get power armor; if you do, even swarms of super mutants can't really touch you. Though I guess making Fallout combat easier isn't necessarily a bad thing. Stealth/diplomacy was the most attractive option just for being gameplay skip, but it seemed like doing anything like a pacifist run requires prior knowledge of the game. It's easy enough just to march around in your suit of powered armor and cut everything to shreds with the plasma rifle.
For the record, because I'm sure Grefter at least is curious, Small Guns seemed to me like the no-brainer option for pumping skill points. They're the only firearms you find early on in the game and the .223 even outclasses quite a few of the energy weapons. I didn't use those much until I hit level 12 and got the Tag perk--which I promptly applied to energy weapons, followed by dumping all of that level's skill points into energy weapons, boosting it from around 50% to 150% in one level. I never used anything but the plasma rifle again. In conjunction with the perk that lowers your AP costs for firearms by one point, I could get three shots off in one round. Not much lived through that. Other perks chosen were the EXP and SP boosters at the early levels, and...I don't remember what at level 15, but that hardly mattered since it only happened in the Cathedral. Other top-tier skill is probably speech since more dialogue options is always a good thing.
Anyway, game mostly scores points for setting. I'm a sucker for post-apocalypse scenarios, so that's an automatic plus. Mutant hideouts were suitably eerie, though any place that throws files at you and lets you piece together the backstory is best (I enjoyed The Glow for this). Wouldn't say the game is stellar at worldbuilding, but it's competent and this is clearly its selling point. Fallout as a whole probably pulls something like an average rating from me. I will play Fallout 2 at some point, but likely not for a while.
Reloaded my Cathedral save a couple times to deal with the end in different ways--talking the Master to death, outright attacking him, skipping him and just blowing up the bomb. Pretty sure I'm not interested in coming back to this game, so I figured I'd see everything in the first go. Took all the NPCs with me to the Cathedral for old time's sake. Didn't expect them to live, and indeed the mutants eliminated them all with extreme prejudice (I was quite surprised to see one of the Follower goons make it to the second basement level there; Ian made it farthest, finally charging into the lower-floor robot swarm like an idiot).
