Author Topic: Finally a real review of this game.  (Read 4152 times)

slyguy65

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Finally a real review of this game.
« on: November 27, 2020, 05:50:03 pm »
https://youtu.be/lBsr7Rrfahk

No vague sseth nonsense, just straight up real talk.

INB4 sycophants REE

HulkOSaurus

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Re: Finally a real review of this game.
« Reply #1 on: November 27, 2020, 06:22:46 pm »
Indeed, a lot of Sseth's audience wouldn't ever consider trying out a game like Underrail. They'd just do it because their boi told them so. He's an entertainer and will do what an entertainer has to do to put food on the table. But he also likes creative and difficult games.

During the years I've observed people playing this game I've come to realise there's generally two types of Underrail players.

1. I have points in Guns and a gun therefore I should reasonably handle the majority of opponents I meet.

2. I discover a lot of different things and I should try to see what all of these are for. There might be some new armour, consumable, weapon, throwable that could help me in a given situation.

It seems Strat-Edgy started as type 1 and migrated to type 2 later on. I believe he himself said something to that effect.

But regardless - the biggest advice any future Underrail player should take is that they should always experiment and be open-minded. A lot more builds are viable than people think they are. I also think Strat-Edgy says something to that effect, as well.

SeasonsOD

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Re: Finally a real review of this game.
« Reply #2 on: November 30, 2020, 03:56:42 pm »
Been lurking around for a while, mainly to browse people's builds for inspiration before reruns through the game, but I figured I'd finally bite the bullet and register so I could reply to this.

Now, I won't go full Sseth-apologist and speak for the entirety of his following, mostly because I simply don't pay much attention to the Sseth tide; I find his videos very entertaining, however, that I can't deny. He might have been vague about some things, but he's also both the sole reason I found out about Underrail and the helpful push I needed to try the game out for myself. Needless to say, after 500 hours of total playtime, I haven't regretted it. I could just be an outlier, too, but, still.

Now, a couple comments on Strat-Edgy's advice and my own advice:

- Early on, before he made his heel-turn from the "bad" into the "good", he was ragging a ton on people normalizing heavy use of the forums and wiki to "build" your build before even playing the game. I can understand that perspective, but, as most people might realize after enough time playing Underail, your build can often turn into a fine balancing act from level to level. Him being upset over not having enough Agility for Blitz on one of his characters until six levels later wouldn't have happened if he'd planned ahead, for example. I don't think there's a single build I've borrowed from yet that I've followed to the letter; for a shotgun build, I ended up also taking feats that benefited sniper rifles so I could handle both short-range and long-range engagements, both groups and single targets. For a psi monk I'm now in the middle of using, I decided against Critical Power in favor of Escape Bonds, which has saved me from many, many headaches whenever someone entangles me in a net or web. In short, to any new Underrail player who might be reading this, don't be afraid to listen along to someone's guidance, but also don't be afraid to experiment.

- A major thing Strat-Edgy seemed to pick up on the later he got into his video is that combat in Underrail often entails more thinking than just running right into a room, guns blazing or fists swinging. Kind of what HulkOSaurus posted earlier. I think I had an easier time with this, inherently, because I've grown up playing other turn-based strategy RPGs like the Avernum and Geneforge. Instead of rushing, learn what the AI tries to trick you with: use chokepoints and cover whenever possible, weaken your prey with traps and mines before closing in for the kill, play as dirty as the game will let you play (and, trust me, you can be pretty dirty). Here are a couple examples that spring to mind. With my earlier mentioned shotgun build, I had enough stealth that I could make a loud noise near one of the Expedition DLC's locust nests, either with a grenade or some other explosion, and then go into stealth. Wait for all the locust to pour out of the nest, and then turn most (or all) of them into chunky salsa with a shotgun burst using 20p or 12p slugs. Meanwhile, in the earlier mentioned psi monk run, I had a rogue industrial robot spawn in the Under-passages... only, it couldn't path to me through the chain-link gate it saw me through, so it went around. As it turns out, it wasn't a fan of the Lurkers who'd set up camp around the corner, so, as they drew its anger, I was given free reign to beat on it a little before running behind cover; by the time it killed the last Lurker, it was already almost scrapped.

A tl;dr of all that would be for any new players to play smarter, not harder; it's insanely satisfying to use areas with ventilation shafts to pick off patrolling/stationary guards one by one. Instead of fighting a massive, extremely dangerous cluster of five or six people, it could just be one or two stragglers wondering where everyone else went.

Ploluap

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Re: Finally a real review of this game.
« Reply #3 on: December 28, 2020, 03:28:56 pm »
i laughed at the 0 point in trap skill comment, that was exactly my reaction when i started looking at 3 per 0 trap skill builds in this forum.

Interesting review in general, as for the respec option, i like that there is none because i like the tension of choice and consequences, even when i make bad choices.
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Sykar

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Re: Finally a real review of this game.
« Reply #4 on: February 05, 2021, 03:39:49 am »
i laughed at the 0 point in trap skill comment, that was exactly my reaction when i started looking at 3 per 0 trap skill builds in this forum.

Interesting review in general, as for the respec option, i like that there is none because i like the tension of choice and consequences, even when i make bad choices.

Paranoia
Stuffed Bat
Detrection goggles

With those you will not have many problems finding traps when you have 3 perception.

Highwayman667

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Re: Finally a real review of this game.
« Reply #5 on: February 05, 2021, 02:44:39 pm »
Paranoia
Stuffed Bat
Detrection goggles

With those you will not have many problems finding traps when you have 3 perception.

Yeah dude but that's something you learn to combo after probably 100 hours in-game. That's not something anyone's going to use when they first play the game because they don't know how food, goggles and feats even work. I would've never thought about picking paranoia for my first playthrough because I had no idea whatsoever this game had giant venomous scorpions that are invisible and neuter your ability to heal as soon as they attack... if they didn't manage to kill you once they come out of stealth.

This game is no fucking joke. It is still brilliant though, and I think creative, independent games should be supported in an environment of micro-transactions, season passes and labor abuse that is plaguing the videogame industry right now.

For Underrail: Infusion, however, the developers should think about ways to... smoothen... the difficulty of the game, or perhaps the learning curve. Perhaps characters can give you clearer advice. Perhaps you can learn easy or great strategies that everyone can do while playing a quest. Not everything has to be figured out after dying ten times in a single encounter.
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KnifegaF

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Re: Finally a real review of this game.
« Reply #6 on: February 07, 2021, 09:40:32 pm »
Paranoia
Stuffed Bat
Detrection goggles

With those you will not have many problems finding traps when you have 3 perception.

Yeah dude but that's something you learn to combo after probably 100 hours in-game. That's not something anyone's going to use when they first play the game because they don't know how food, goggles and feats even work. I would've never thought about picking paranoia for my first playthrough because I had no idea whatsoever this game had giant venomous scorpions that are invisible and neuter your ability to heal as soon as they attack... if they didn't manage to kill you once they come out of stealth.

This game is no fucking joke. It is still brilliant though, and I think creative, independent games should be supported in an environment of micro-transactions, season passes and labor abuse that is plaguing the videogame industry right now.

For Underrail: Infusion, however, the developers should think about ways to... smoothen... the difficulty of the game, or perhaps the learning curve. Perhaps characters can give you clearer advice. Perhaps you can learn easy or great strategies that everyone can do while playing a quest. Not everything has to be figured out after dying ten times in a single encounter.

There’s already an easy mode. If it’s that bad there’s always that option, the player just has to drop the dumb pride.

cypherusuh

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Re: Finally a real review of this game.
« Reply #7 on: February 13, 2021, 02:27:46 pm »
Indeed, a lot of Sseth's audience wouldn't ever consider trying out a game like Underrail. They'd just do it because their boi told them so. He's an entertainer and will do what an entertainer has to do to put food on the table. But he also likes creative and difficult games.

I reckon sseth did an amazing job on promoting underrail tbh. It's a VERY hard game to present it as fun game, due to the nature of its gameplay and graphics. If you have 0 idea about underrail, it looks really lame, just old-looking RPG made in 1990s. His strength is to make seemingly boring looking game but with really good depth, to looks fun. And most of his review is pretty niche game that I never knew such genre exists.

Juri

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Re: Finally a real review of this game.
« Reply #8 on: March 06, 2021, 02:34:33 am »
A fair few of the complaints he has are explained to the player in the game or him disliking the combat difficulty and not planning his build properly. The core quest line is pretty clearly explained to the player by Tanner, so him mistaking Gorskys quest line as the main quest line sorta sums up his negative points.

Paradoxpanic

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Re: Finally a real review of this game.
« Reply #9 on: March 07, 2021, 09:21:39 pm »
I honestly made an account just to say:

Are we really shitting on Sseth just because he's popular and brought a bunch of new people to the game?

You are aware that his content is not meant to be an in-depth review of the game right? I don't think he's ever referred to himself as a serious critic either. He really only exists to entertain and crack jokes about things he likes.

It's really sad to see people still gatekeeping this hard.

cypherusuh

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Re: Finally a real review of this game.
« Reply #10 on: March 08, 2021, 12:57:29 am »
People do be like that sometimes. There's always a fan and hater.