Overall a nice, fun introduction to the Fallout series and universe. This is my first Fallout game ever played, and being a retro game enjoyer I'm glad I started with the very beginning, and enjoyed this game enough to try at least the next game in the series and maybe even the newer games.
Best way to describe this is, basically Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 but set in a post apocalyptic nuclear wasteland. In fact, this game actually predates Baldur's Gate 1 by about a year so some quirks about this game may make it seem primitive when the two are compared. For example:
* Characters can only move in the four cardinal directions, so when moving diagonally you move in a zig-zag.
* There's only four NPC companions that can join you, their story and interactions are minimal once they join, death is permanent, and they can't upgrade their armor so they are most useful in the early game; by the end of the game they will sadly most likely have been killed by some combination of mini guns, rocket launchers and flamethrowers. RIP Dogmeat, you were the best boy.
* Sometimes your companions block your way and you can't move around them through a doorway, sometimes trapping you until they randomly move away
* You can't control your companions during combat, and their AI is primitive and usually involves foregoing any tactical positioning in favor of going head first into combat out in the open, quite easily to their own death
* No dialog log so blink and you miss some pretty important information, better have pen and paper handy
* This game, as launched, does have occasional bugs. Sometimes the game crashes randomly, and some quests were never fully implemented so some endings remain impossible to obtain without hacking or mods.
* I'll have to admit, towards the endgame I got stuck and had to use a guide to progress. Choose the skills you invest in wisely, and also the aesthetically pleasing but admittedly dated pre-rendered graphics can make important details a bit hard to see.
One way this game differentiates itself: combat is turn based, just like a real TTRPG, as opposed to pseudo RTS with pause combat that Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 had.
Even considering the limited technology available at the time, this game fulfills the basic tenets of role playing: choices and consequences. You, the player character, make all sorts of choices throughout the game through dialog choices, quest choices, and of course your character sheet through your stats, your skills and your equipment. And these all decide the story your character experiences and ultimately the endings you achieve. Yes, endings is plural because you get a series of endings based on the various choices you made in various places with various NPC's. So there's definitely replay value just on ending permutations alone, and of course things like different character builds.
See that, CDPR? Bethesda had the basics of a sci-fi cRPG demonstrated decades ago so there's no excuse.
