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Author Topic: Underrail - Turn-based, isometric RPG with plently of skills and playable demo.  (Read 23783 times)

woosholay

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Surprising lack of attention on bay12, this right here might be one of the best RPGs in recent years (mechanics wise). With a very interesting take on XP system in a form of alternative (classic is also available) option called 'oddity' where you get XP only for completing quests and finding certain objects on your journey. It makes 'talkey' 'stealthy' builds viable in a combat heavy game, since you don't lag behind LVL wise compared to other more straightforward characters (melee bruiser, gunner and such).

With 20 hours in, the only thing that feels kind of meh is writing. Which is passable, but not great. Though plot took an interesting turn recently, there might be more to it than I initially thought.
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Krevsin

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I'm having fun with it so far, even though combat can get a bit difficult at times (but that has more to do with me being terrible than anything else).
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woosholay

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Yeah I went with crossbow/stealth build on my first run. Sadly I didn't take any of the crafting skills or traps or anything really, to supplement it. Certain fights took me quite some time to get through.
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Krevsin

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I'm going guns/stealth on my run because having the initiative is really bloody important in gunfights.

I am also investing in mechanical and lockpicking, the former for the crafting (which has so far not really wowed me) and the latter for obvious reasons.

Some fights the game drops you in are really difficult. Thank god for grenades tho.
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BigD145

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Surprising lack of attention on bay12

A lot of us are tired of early access.
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woosholay

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It's out though, as of last week.
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Krevsin

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What the game sorely needs is a map screen. It's easy to get lost in the sprawl and if you haven't memorised the instructions, you're pretty well boned.
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SharpKris

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What the game sorely needs is a map screen. It's easy to get lost in the sprawl and if you haven't memorised the instructions, you're pretty well boned.

Agreed, even a draw your own map/notes kind of ingame thing would be ideal in such a case i'll be a happy dorf.
Went as Psi master on my first run with heavy int tech/electric and got reckt, should have probably focused more on one school of psi instead of all three.
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BigD145

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It's out though, as of last week.

More than two years after your early access post, yes. My statement was rather loaded. Some people have played the game out to the point where playing the full game now might be a chore. It's mostly forgotten to others. It's just not excitingly new, so it won't get much attention. The new smell happened two years ago. I didn't play much then, but I've got a backlog now.
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Mephansteras

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Oh, yeah. Picked this up forever ago but never actually got around to playing it. I should give it a whirl.
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Civilization Forge Mod v2.80: Adding in new races, equipment, animals, plants, metals, etc. Now with Alchemy and Libraries! Variety to spice up DF! (For DF 0.34.10)
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Retropunch

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This looks great!!
Definitely didn't see it before, and I'm very excited now.

Is it really story driven, or more of a sort of dungeon crawler + story?

How deep is character customisation in terms of skills/weapon mods and all that?
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With enough work and polish, it could have been a forgettable flash game on Kongregate.

woosholay

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This looks great!!
Definitely didn't see it before, and I'm very excited now.

Is it really story driven, or more of a sort of dungeon crawler + story?

How deep is character customisation in terms of skills/weapon mods and all that?

Character customization is pretty great, plenty of builds available and due to alternative XP system all of them are viable. As far as mods go, crafting is pretty elaborate, I'm not sure if you can improve an existing item though (didn't bother with crafting that much). As far as gameplay goes it's a mix of both things you mentioned, overall it plays like a crawler (think ToEE) but you get access to certain areas and QoL stuff as story develops.
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a1s

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Oh, yeah. Picked this up forever ago but never actually got around to playing it. I should give it a whirl.
Heh. Same here (well, I did play through the demo twice. Only once to the end though.)
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I tried to play chess but two of my opponents were playing competitive checkers as a third person walked in with Game of Thrones in hand confused cause they thought this was the book club.

thegoatgod_pan

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I've been playing this. I like the game and like the scope of it: I always feel like the underworld is endless and I can just keep following tunnels to find something interesting. The oddity system keeps the pressure off me to kill everything, and makes stealing for a living (in xp terms) quite viable.

Last session I was trying to find a secret entrance to some plot point in one town, got lost, barely made it through some scary areas with my life intact, discovered enemies not only use stealth too, but lay serious ambushes (being a horrible cheater I cheat by reloading and throwing a grenade in the area I think they are). I ended up finding a completely different town I hadn't been to, after straying from tunnel to tunnel for a few hours, but in the process I  found a good number of oddities, so I am closer to leveling up than I was after doing a bunch of plot related quests.

I like the oddity system, I really like the character system. I am not wild about crafting: I feel like I sank some points into it and still can't make anything decent, and that I need every damn crafting skill in the game to make anything that I want. It also doesn't make any sense: e.g. to make throwing knives at first I needed 20 mechanics to use up the insanely heavy metal plates requires and 25 biology to apply cheap poisons. I raised my mechanics the 20 points (a serious investment) Now I keep finding metal plates that require 40 or 50 mechanics to make the same damn knives. I will need to invest 30 more points into mechanics before I can make my own knives again, or I could just buy the damn things (money is cheap and everywhere) How does this even make any sense?

I also (and here I realize I am being a bit unreasonable), think the weight and trade systems are trying too hard and turn out less than fun. I am always fiddling with my inventory because I have too much loot I cannot sell because the merchants only want to buy the stuff that I want to buy (and never guns, never goddamn guns. Even the weapon merchants will only buy three at a time). As a result I always have 15+ guns in my inventory, and have to keep throwing guns away to make room for other loot.

I also don't understand how you are supposed to play the game without copious rogue skills: lockpick and hacking are both mandatory for many quests and quite a few areas feel purposefully too difficult to deal with without some sneaking around. Things like tunneler murderers will kill me in one round if I don't start the combat on my terms. In early game, security bots and mines caused me a lot of frustration. Basically, reloading is necessary if you aren't built for X threat, but any threat is manageable and the autosaves are plentiful.

As a result my build is turning into pirate-ninja-zombie robot, even though I am trying to keep my main skills (sneak, throwing, mind control, psychokinesis) maximized. The feat system is especially good, since with my current feats I can toss of a pile of psychic damage without using AP and then finish everyone off with my throwing knives, getting ap back everytime I score a kill. Functionally this means I either win in the first round, or have to run away, but I still appreciate that my weird little build is viable for me.

I think next time I will be a pure psychokinetic adept monk with electric gloves and psychic punching. Punch everything for a million damage, use all other skill points to become master thief.
« Last Edit: January 09, 2016, 11:26:30 pm by thegoatgod_pan »
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More ridiculous than reindeer?  Where you think you supercool and is you things the girls where I honestly like I is then why are humans on their as my people or what would you?
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