More than a year
since I first made the topic, but I have finally completed the quest on Normal as a psi assassin.
Incidentally, Underrail is the first (and almost certainly last) turn-based RPG I have ever played. My main intention was to see what the genre was about, but I didn't feel like digging up Fallout 1/2 with their antiquated graphics and controls. As a fan of Metro, the post-apocalyptic underground setting really appealed to me. So Styg can bask in the thought that there's at least one person whose experience of these sorts of RPGs is centered exclusively around his game.
Though it was enjoyable enough, I have zero intentions of repeating it or playing expansions (frankly I don't have the time to sink another 100 hours or two). Not because its a bad game, but because it's not my genre. However, I am sufficiently curious about aspects of this world that I'd appreciate it if anybody could give me some further insight on a few questions.
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1. Is there any chance of the Tchortists winning the battle with the Faceless at the Institute? I didn't manage to, but is it possible in principle?
Any word on what happens to them as an institution afterwards? (apart from the small garrison in Deep Caverns making it out and discarding their uniforms). They vanish, I assume?
2. What interesting things/characters/dialogues/lore about the Protectorate not on the Wiki did I miss by joining Free Drones?
(Only joined them because I was too low level/unskilled to wipe out the bandits who seized that train, not realizing that ruled out joining Protectorate. Not a fan of the Protectorate either, but I'd sooner opt for them over bandits).
3. Ergo for CoreTech and Praetorian. (I did JKK).
4. Why was it Protectorate that assaulted the (wiped out) Tchortist Institute?
5. How does the Underrail food system work? There are plenty of animals, but what are they feeding on? (If there's no canon answer to this, could we assume that plants have evolved that feed off ambient psi energies? Perhaps that's why the surface is no longer accessible. The intensity of psi energies is too high for survivability there).
6. Any particular reason why Gorsky chose precisely this moment to go off and make his own faction?
7. So Tchortlings - or at least Devourers - are humans that have been dipped in a vat of mutagen, Fallout style? (based on that one drifter you inadvertently screw over).
8. Who's the most powerful entity in the game (apart from Tchort, the Beast, and unkillable Godmen)? Gorsky? Faceless Commander? Eidein? Carnafex??
Is it possible/has anyone tried pitting them against each other in the Arena?
Whose troops are the best? Protectorate's, Tchortists, or Faceless?
9. Out of curiosity, is it possible in principle to clear out Fort Apogee? (Don't really see how one can go up against three Dreadnoughts, but I suppose there's all sorts of hacks).
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General notes:
1. I disagree with the people who say there was hardly any story, it was actually pretty interesting and immersive (with allowances for it having been mostly developed by one person, Styg; this constrained its ultimate depth and breadth, e.g. on dialogue trees, but there are many games that have done far worse on vastly bigger budgets).
2. Favorite character: Kokoschka the Tankie.
3. That said, a few questlines ended a bit too abruptly (e.g., Vivian's quiet and largely unexplained termination), and the player's motivations need to be better explained (e.g. what incentive do I have to get that Cube back to the Faceless anyway? It's their problem now).
4. Many funny little details, like the description of modern day cigarette packaging.
5. It would be nice if you could have the choice of taking a more Tchortist/bio-transhumanistic course of action. As it is, the game railroads you into doing tasks for some unfriendly alien cyborg weirdo. There's obviously a lot of things iffy about the Tchortists, but many of them seem rather nice (e.g. the radical life extension, and the cryopreservation technologies; quietly switching off those cryogenic pods almost seemed like murder.
Just like you could join the Protectorate (imperial archetype) vs. Free Drones (anarchist archetype), it would be cool if you could also side with bio-transhumanism (Tchort) vs. cyborg-transhumanism (Faceless/Six).
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