The original Fallout is absolutely worth playing through and I greatly enjoyed my time with it. It does atmosphere better than any other Fallout game I've played (3, New Vegas, 4 and 76). This is truly a post-apocalyptic game. This game takes place long before any of the other titles besides 76, it feels like humanity is just starting to rebuild at this point. I like that the vast majority of the locations you visit aren't irradiated, the ~85 years since the bombs dropped has brought radiation back to normal levels for most of the world besides one location, which may have been heavily bombed or may have been a nuclear facility itself. I'm not entirely sure from what I read in the game. It always seemed strange to me that Fallout 3 has random patches of intense radiation and is still a nuclear desert after something like 200 years.
The soundtrack is barely music in most cases, instead it is dreadful ambience. The old-timey, anachronistic music is used very sparingly, only in the intro and concluding cutscenes. I like this approach and I think the later Bethesda games suffer by having the option to blare upbeat music constantly in the post-apocalypse. I know you don't NEED to use that feature, but basically everyone I've ever spoken to (including myself) essentially has the radio on constantly.
I can also appreciate that the game takes itself a bit more seriously than titles further in the series. There is certainly some dark humor in this game, but it isn't obnoxious. They build a world here with interesting factions and none of it is really treated like a joke.
The condensed length of this game also means every hour spent playing has many interesting things happening, and every upgrade feels like a huge bonus. Getting power armor in this game feels like a huge reward.
Overall, I can see why this game was so influential and why Bethesda was so interested in purchasing the IP. I'm excited to play the sequel.
