Encased: A Sci-Fi Post-Apocalyptic RPG

eh

Initial take (roughly 45 hours and still in act 1) 8/10. Brief review: The starting story is thin, you barely get any explanation of what is going on at beginning of prologue. Given that you're supposed to be an employee being onboarded into a corporate run equivalent of the Roswell Crash site, but the vessel is the size of Independence Day saucers that blew up cities, there should've been more handling of character back story/knowledge to at least help the player settle into the role they're playing. That complaint fades as the game progresses, more lore about the nature of the corporation and the world at large under the Dome gets filled in well enough. Encased is a solid CRPG with fun survival and crafting mechanics added to the mix. Game plays similar to fallout 2 with modern details, everything is 3D, rotate camera and zoom to view spaces: standard modern CRPG additions. There are narrative sequences where it shows you hand drawn images and narrated descriptive text, with various options (there are a lot of branching conversation options based on your skills and choices). It handles power armor like fallout 4 (rig your character steps into, special crafting stations for it to park in) The crafting system is big for this genre of games, you get a lot of components and there's a lot you can make with them depending on skills you have. The level of crafting association with the skills is nearly as complex as NEO Scavenger. As are the survival mechanics (rad levels, hunger, thirst, fatigue). The crafting and survival mechanics are great for a CRPG. The skills have tiers, and upon reaching the next tier the character has 4 new potential abilities. Some of the abilities will only become available when another skill or ability is at a requisite level. The survival mechanics add a fun element as different qualities of food and hydration can have both positive and/or negative effects. Firearms have jam chances, and require action points to clear. Weapon repair kits (which can be purchased, or crafted) enable you to upgrade as well as maintain your weapons. Turn based combat. The skill/perk system is very fallout 2, but better organized. Separated into 2 categories based on being combat or non-combat. Skills are broad categories, examples: 'science' and 'survival' for non-combat, and nature of weapons (light weapons skill includes pistols, SMGs, shotguns, light rifles). Every few levels you get to select a perk which can have wide range of positives, and potentially negatives to balance out potent benefits. With the perks and pre-requisite skill systems you can make a wide range of characters with different synergyzing areas of expertise. Recommend for people who aren't put off by older style of CRPG.

This game definitely had potential to be even better, especially with expanding on the NPCs to make them more interesting. Fox, a possible companion, was my only favorite. Despite the relative blandness (it doesn't have the same charisma Underrail or Wasteland 3 do), I really enjoyed the exploration and random encounters. Some of them should have really been instances but they're definitely inspired (running pants, the whale with the fireflies, the doppelganger pit, to name the ones that were very memorable). Collecting the artefacts was also fun just for that dopamine hit of hoarding a bunch of shiny colorful wacky-looking objects in your personal stash. They were the one thing that didn't feel too overpowered as most of them had significant drawbacks, so finding the really good ones felt satisfying. The way I specced my character (white wing, 1 charisma, 10 intelligence), about a third of the way in and playing on Tactics with Fox and Sparrow as my companions, I felt overpowered and swimming in skill points. By the end I was throwing points into 3 or so skill trees I wasn't even using and had no use for more perks. Speaking of perks, the one that gives you guaranteed crits on the first round is busted, and so is stealth for picking off enemies. I don't know how much of a flex it is that I found the game too easy, considering that Underrail on Oddity XP forever changed my perception of difficulty in games (in a good way), but I felt like the encounters could have been ramped up to encourage me to use more of my utilities other than the Decoy (which is also busted for being immune to damage for a while). There's also a huge amount of lootable objects for crafting materials and by the end of the game I had enough supplies to rebuild the Concord 10 times over. Despite its flaws I kinda see myself replaying this in a couple years' time with a self-imposed challenge or two.

As a fan of the first two Fallout games and similar titles, I enjoyed this one. The game is far from being perfect in almost every aspect -- the combat lacks any depth to be engaging on its own, and the story and the characters are good, but nothing impressive. Most of your decisions do not carry significant long-term consequences. The UI sometimes makes you fight it rather than help you control the game. But still, if you are a fan of the genre, you'll enjoy getting through the story looting every trashcan.

Crap. Might have been alright if they'd bothered to fix things that clearly don't work. Combat is really bad, you miss 100% to-hit shots all the time (you seem to get rather a lot of them, but then you do miss a lot of them). Let me be clear: I know that 100% displayed over the enemy targets comes up a lot as you are moving your mouse near them as it gives the to-hit chance from any position your pointer is over to show your accuracy at that position. I'm missing shots are supposed to be hits when the cursor is over the target and changes to the red gunsight icon to show that the displayed to-hit value is for the shot you are about to make, or miss. Then there's the problem of the target being 'not in the firing line' when it clearly is, even before you get the confirmation of the enemy then firing back from the same position it was in that was 'not in the firing line' and it hits you. This happens mostly when you are trying to shoot from a height advantage. It's made worse by the fact that you cannot advance right up to the edge of your high point because of railings, for example, when clearly this is ridiculous. It also happens with grenades with your targets inside the area of effect marker and a clear line of trajectory. There are all sorts of really stupid ideas like your companions only having one weapon slot because they won't relinquish their personal weapon they were packing when they joined you even if it's absolutely useless for a particular fight with several different enemies who all have different weaknesses and resistances meaning that your companions can't harm some of them as their own weapon is totally unsuitable for fighting any of them and the alternate you've equipped them with is only good for damaging some. You can't level them up as you want either, they pick the skills they develop. Why are they under your control at all in that case? Why don't they just fight automatically? Because it would be crap, or crapper to be exact as this design decision, one of the stupidest I have ever encountered in a game, makes it plenty crap already.

Пикник на обочине здорового человека. Первая половина игры отличная, в нее явно разрабы все ресурсы вложили, много интересных побочный квестов. Приятно впечатлила озвучка диалогов в инди-рпг. Ко второй половине, к сожалению, игра становится линейной, локи пустыми. Тем не менее это хорошая и атмосферная игра, разновидность концовок впечатляет. Не вижу причин, чтоб не поддержать русских разрабов.

A competent role-play game that stretches your ability and gives you freedom to travel the world. Look everywhere for bonus nuggets of fun that depending on how you build your character, may or may not be available to you right away.

This game is "Fallout For the Modern Ages". I've never played a game that felt more like Fallout 1/2. No hand holding, a little "what do I do?" and the game trusts the player to figure things out, so far, 10hrs in, I'm loving this game!

In my opinion this is an above average game that had the potential to be a grand slam but falls short. The idea behind it is really cool and then having the pivitol moment in the prologue where everything changes is very cool. I really like the charecter's stats but they look absolutly terrible. The combat is standard turn based and the crafting is very simple, charecter progression seems good, feats are a bit overpowered but it's fine. Overall it just needed more time in the oven and it could have been a smash hit, the movement feels funny and whoever thought it would be a good idea to put everything you pick up onto your hotbar is crazy. Still it's fun, il beat it eventually.