Encased: A Sci-Fi Post-Apocalyptic RPG

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.

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.

The only downside to this game in my opinion is the lack of Fog Of War on inner maps. From what most reviews say, Act 2 content drops off substantially, to the point where huge scripted, not random inner maps have almost no loot and maybe a tiny amount of exp. Not having Fog Of War on these maps makes it very painful and tedious to fully explore them. Don't get me wrong I like tedious exploration in my RPG's, but not when there is no indication of discovered areas aside from a notice on screen of gained exp. I would atleast want to see where I've been, on an inner map, rather than just guessing.

Aside from that, this game is great. I would still recommend it at it's current price of $29.99. I bought my copy on discount this past year, for around 4 or 5 bucks. 100+ hours of gameplay for $29.99, is still a deal in my opinion. Otherwise wait for a discount and buy Atom RPG instead.

The game falls off HARD after the first chapter. It tries to setup this world full of weird anomalous items and phenomena but it very rarely shows you them in game. It describes plenty of cool concepts in random item descriptions and codex entries.
But in game its the same reused assets in normal building/deserts all the way down. The atmosphere isn't there at all and the flimsy gameplay with basically no enemy variety makes it completely unfun after act 1.

slow paced.. but honestly very great. beautifully designed and has a pretty decent story line.
it is a very good game. and very calming to play after a long day at work . It has the pacing of old school RPGs but honestly I was engaged and very intrigued to see the rest of the map every time.

cool crpg game that was slept on if your a fan of fallout and likes some old school crpg games then try encased wont go wrong with it

A game that starts off strong, but the more you play it, the weaker it becomes.

Encased puts you in a strange world. You are still on Earth, but inside some kind of alien bubble. Humanity has only recently discovered it, somehow, and only recently been able to get inside. Think Roadside Picnic, where sometimes the laws of physics no longer work the way they should, where technology so advanced it could be seen as magic, and what is alive and what is dead is a blurred line. It is a fantastic premise, and the game starts of extremely strong.

The starting area shows off tons of different class/skill specific challenges and dialogue options. It builds a highly detailed area for you to explore and get used to, before dumping you outside; where little by little, the game slowly.. erodes away. Some areas of the game world are highly developed, mostly the areas where you start the game, and some areas in the mid game. As you go along you stop finding places like this, where there are tons of ways to proceed in the game, tons of skill and dialogue checks, and you can see where they had to cut stuff out and slim stuff down in order to finish the game.

On the whole, I enjoyed the game. There were some things that really annoyed me, like inventory management (there is just so much useless trash and crafting materials), how crafting worked, and how upgrading weapons worked. The last part there is the biggest thing for me. I did not realise that there was no stronger progression of guns as you work your way through the game. Instead you craft your gun to have a higher level, thus doing more damage on top of other things. I got extremely unlucky in what merchants I encountered, and what they had in stock, and was unable to purchase weapons in my skill class at a higher level, and had to rely on crafting. I didn't mind making my character more of a crafter to compensate for this, as at the start of them game it opened up other avenues despite making my character weaker overall, but in the end it wasn't worth it.

I found the story and characters to be interesting, but also slightly confusing. The area you play in eventually splits up into different factions that oppose each other, but it isn't like Earth has been destroyed, or that contact will never be remade. So a lot of the things people do, don't really make a lot of sense when you keep in mind that the rest of the planet will eventually remake contact.

The sheer randomness of some encounters, the merchants you run into, what merchants have in stock, can make it so that you waste a lot of time on the world map, or having your character sleep. There is apparently something that happens at some point in the game if you wait too long, but I never encountered it.

Combat is interesting, but it doesn't feel like there are a lot of viable abilities or skills for it. You mostly just use your base attack or one or two skills that are actually alright based on the action points they cost. You encounter and fight a good amount of different kinds of enemies, and your choices do matter in terms of who you want to help, and who you don't. Though, at one point they kind of force you to help out everyone, including people you may really not like; unless you are good at stealth and stealing. Otherwise you will just have to kill them all and then suffer through constant attacks from that faction from that point on.

Overall, I enjoyed my time playing the game. It is not a perfect game, it is really a just finished game, and you can feel it. But you can also feel that a ton of effort was put into this. I would recommend it, if you don't have anything like Wasteland 3 or Baldurs Gate to play; and only on sale. You can easily get it on sale going up to 90% at times. Get it then.

Not a big fan of the way this game does storytelling, and despite not having completed it I feel confident in saying that the rest of the reviews are very much correct. The RPG systems and mechanics seem allright, but the narrative is very confusing and moves at an incredibly wonky pace, including psychic hallucinations within the first two hours that basically throws out the window most of what you've been doing so far.

It's just not a story that's told very well. Great premise, poor execution.

Just wasn't that fun.

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.

Unfortunately the game feels very unfinished in the last third part of it. Also there are some frustrating mechanics and useless skills. Still I liked the beginning of the game a lot. Worth trying if it is on sale.

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.

My playthrough was a rollercoaster of love and hate. The first 15 hours felt like a slog, and I regretted every second of it. However, after crossing a certain threshold, the experience became more bearable—and honestly, even somewhat addicting.

I can see the immense effort that went into creating this game, but it’s also evident that something went awry during the development process. There are numerous systems that slow down the gameplay without adding meaningful value.

That said, if we evaluate it purely in terms of CRPG elements, the game fits the genre well. It’s firmly rooted in the tradition of classic CRPGs, particularly the Fallout series. It offers diverse solutions for different roleplaying approaches, multiple factions with varying ideologies, and consequently, a range of different outcomes in the finale.

One major gripe I have is with the writing. It fails to spark interest, with most dialogues limited to a maximum of three sentences. This brevity feels illogical, especially for a protagonist grappling with a crisis of such magnitude.

The story itself is familiar, essentially a reinterpretation of the Strugatsky brothers' famous novel Roadside Picnic. We’ve seen similar narratives in recent years, such as Annihilation or Stalker (both the game and the movie).

All in all, I would still recommend this game to CRPG fans—at least for one playthrough.

I like this CRPG and I had a lot of fun while playing it. It's not really a Fallout clone but it shares a lot of similarities but it still has it's own identity.

I like post-apocalyptic theme, and I have played Encased and Wasteland 3. Between these two, I prefer Wasteland 3 more, even though it was published earlier than Encased. I also like Encased, it is promising, but after 20h into the game I decided to stop. Combat is not as smooth as Wasteland 3. I cannot modify my stat, which is very limiting. I cannot control my Companions' skills. Enter a room with 20 interactable objects, just to loot garbage items. Stealth mode is almost useless.

Game seems alright, ill prolly come back to it just at a later time.

the games pretty good, i really dont understand the dislikes, it literally plays like fallout 2. if you liek fallout 2 you'll probably like this game too

Bought this because i loved the old fallout games, this is not nearly as fun.

The best hidden ending that I know of to beat the game is to play as a retard with minimum IQ and use WeMod+ Cheats so that you can befriend every faction and in the end, do not follow any faction but just drive away the bad quantum thing. Great ending... also make sure to give away millions of waters, drinks, foods, etc and healthy healing kits and gears and give away to others... the NPC's actually sells/trades/shares/gives away those things and crime is minimized when resources are high... similar IRL, when resources are running out such as no water/food etc, people are more likely to get into conflicts.. so as a retard, when you trade, you are allowed to give away tons of foods/waters (from Console Commands cheats) without any issues...

First half is the best part, would have been more interesting exploring the world without the apocalyptic side personally. Second half it starts to decline and it feels rushed in some points, honestly its good for the price you can usually pick it up for around 5-6 american dollary doos with a sale. Just don't expect it to be as good as fallout 1-2 or other crpgs.

Game was alright. Sooo much time spent looking through boxes for stuff you neither need nor can carry due to encumbrance. I guess I should just have not looked through all the boxes, but I'm used to games where looting has a purpose. Why have so many things to loot when they're all so useless?

By mid-game nothing was challenging, just killed everything in one or two turns. Although you don't actually ever have to fight anything, you can just sneak around everything.

Some maps I was forced to wait for my character to cross the entire map over a dozen times because that's the only way to leave to go to the overland map. Wouldn't be so bad if the movement wasn't so slow.

Still recommending it because I liked the voice acting and was mildly entertained by the story. Probs should get it on sale after you've already played slightly better games in this genre like wasteland 1-3 or fallout 1-2.

Nice hidden little gem here. Has some vibes of DnD and it's a great game so far! Had an instance early on during tutorial where I was quest-locked from opening a door. I shot through and broke down the door instead and was able to move forwards in the game. CLASSIC

Another CRPG heavily influenced by Fallout (1997)

I think this game fares a lot better between two other CRPGs from the same cloth: ATOM RPG and UnderRail.

The one thing this game absolutely succeeds at is it's world-building. It's the 1970s. There's this mystery dome with "alien" tech inside. Once you enter you can never leave. There's different classes of people who enter the dome for different reasons and it's color coordinated and built into the society of the dome and the character creator its self.

I freakin' love this sh!t, and have no clue why this game has a mixed rating on Steam. If you like CRPGs and Fallout don't sleep on this one. Highly recommended.

Game is a pretty good tactics-styled isometric scifi RPG, very reminiscent of Fallout or Outer Worlds with heavy inspiration from games like XCOM. Major complaints: its very easy to get "stuck", especially in the intro levels, and there's lots of different ways your character can just suddenly die that aren't really explained at any point until it kinda just happens -- for example the Severely Fatigued debuff. Overall, really fun, just think it needs more QOL touches.

DEI Infested from character creation onward.

the voice acting is really good, good graphics, and a good replay value as well

A game that is exactly what it claims to be. It doesn't claim to be the next anything. It's a solid sci-fi RPG with all of the isometric goodness of the classics without skimping on the quality to attain the appearance of older games. It's intentional in design and the mechanics are overall pretty enjoyable.
If you like the nuanced cheesing of older games but the play-styles and QoL of newer titles, this is a must have. Level 50 before the tutorial ends, totally possible, if you know where to look.

Controls are messed up, and the first text screen was in russian when everything was set to English. When i move my mouse to click a character to talk to, my entire screen is turning around erraticly. I really want to like this and play this, but the game just makes it impossible for me.

I will give it a thumb up for the work done, but this game is not great. Combat is VERY lacking. I like the world, exploration and character development. But companions are very poorly designed and never developed, combat is extremely poor. It has a good story and a great world, but it did not catch me for long because of rather boring gameplay. Has vibes of wasteland and fallout, but those are just better. Still recommend you to try, it's worth a dozen hours or so.

К сожадению, у это игры есть один минус, который не позволяет насладиться всеми другими многочиследдными плюсами, и это ее боевка, и ИИ противников. Любой противник будет бежать к вам в мили самым прямым путем, а если он умеет стрелять, то он будет стоять в чистом поле. Равно как и вы, игра не поощрает укрытия, фланги и тд, ведь через ход-два все встанут в клинч. Если вы не любите тактику, то возможно это вам не помешает насладиться остальной частью продукта

The game ticked almost every box in my wishlist for a modern isometric RPG: variability, freedom of actions, perks and advancement of your characters, rich open world and an interesting story.
I wish developers issue the second part of the story, especially given that its ending offer freedom to turn the story in every imaginable direction.

Love me some turn based RPG, especially post-apocalyptic Sci-Fi ones.

A great CRPG that is mechanically like Original Sin 1 (almost 2) and thematically like Fallout. The dialogue and choices are well-spread. Skills and perks are nothing special but Relic system and some traits/perks makes you think a bit in how to build. The famous HAMMER BAG made me run a parallel 2nd character. As fun as Arcanum's dialogue. Worth the effort.

It’s an okay cRPG, mainly if you’re looking for a new old-school Fallout experience. The setting is great and the graphics aren’t bad either. However, the world and characters are bland, and the combat is easy and exploitable. There isn’t much variety in enemies either. But the biggest downside is the story. It sucks. The 'side with one faction to save the world' trope is here, and it’s not innovative at all. The ending is... well, anticlimactic, to say the least. I would only suggest this game to someone who really needs a newer Fallout-like experience and has already beaten the Wasteland series. For everyone else, I’d say it’s a pass.

I initially like the idea of this game. But I am 2.4 hours into it now.. Casually playing, I admit, I haven't actually PLAYED the game yet - It has just been an awful long trudging tutorial that makes me want to refund this and all my sanity.
Tell me i'm a moron. Tell me I am not a nerd on this one - Who cares? This game has probably the most uninteresting intro/tutorial of anything I have ever experienced. Maybe one day I will continue and see what this game has to offer, but for now... I dunno. Blah Blah Blah - Just give me a plot and a game. Don't push me through a mindless "paint by numbers" tutorial to justify your mechanics. I assure you - I can handle them (BG1/BG2)

Initial complaint. Inconsistency.
There is a start where you specifically know multiple languages, and somehow one of them isn't Russian?
Obviously this is possible but the description is that of a polyglot and Russian seems like significant enough sized language as far as speakers and especially within the context that surely this would allow the character with this start to be able to actually speak to Igor and have the conversation better communicated.

Otherwise what is the point of implying knowledge of many languages if it isn't an applicable skillset.

There's an incredibly frustrating radiation bug that appears midgame. If you don't keep your saves properly organized, you'll end up stuck in a mess of your own making.

The bug caused 2 instances of level 3 radiation sickness, permanently draining all my attributes with no way to heal it, even with a med station.

This is a good crpg, however some quests are not well explained and I needed guides for them.

Good old style RPG. Like BG3.
It were best 31 hours of play.
There are a lot of minuses, but what do you want from indie developer? It is already good enough.

After over 40 years of playing games, I'm tired of reading. Please hire voice actors or stop writing several books worth of reading in your games.

Honestly, good CRPG. Yeah, I only got into the companions late in the game, and yes, it had some problems here and there (I myself actually got stuck cause of a bug, but the solution was in the steam's discussions). But the combat system was good, I enjoyed the options and factions, and the setting was pretty original imo. Plus, it's the CRPG which, alongside Wasteland 3, got me back into CRPGs.

So yeah, good game.

It's nice to get a pleasant unexpected surprise from an indie game every once in a while. This is a cRPG love letter to the likes of Fallout 1&2, Jagged Alliance 1&2, Gorky 17 etc.

I found the gameplay to be exactly up my alley. You explore, you loot (a lot), you have tons of quests, dialogue, world-map travel (like in Fallout 1/2) with a ton of random events.

I've seen complaints about the fatigue system and that some people find the combat not fun. That doesn't make any sense to me. Fatigue simply means your character gets tired as time passes and/or through certain actions/attacks so you have to either rest in a bed or pop an energy drink and that's it. You also have to eat and drink. All of that is not a nuisance at all. If anything I find it helps with the immersion. Also food, drinks and beds are plentiful. As far as the combat goes, I'm loving it. The weapons are fun, the skill tree/advancement is well-thought. In my opinion they absolutely nailed it with the gameplay in every way. Anything I disliked is minor and not even worth mentioning.

There is stealth, stealing, sneaking, different types of weapon systems, contraptions, special "relics" that will buff some of your attributes and nerf others.

I think the story and the world-building is where it could have been better. It's not bad at all but it could have been great. It is still enough to immerse you in the world and it's a good concept. If you compare the intro cinematics for the Fallout 1&2 games they actually tell you everything you need to know in a few seconds and their impact is strong. It may be a budget-related issue but I felt this game could have done a similar job with a short intro-cinematic briefly describing what this universe is about.

There's actual voice acting for a lot of NPCs and all of your companions which was a very pleasant surprise. It's also a massive game if you want to explore everything. I'm 43 hours in and I haven't finished it yet.

Overall it is a fantastic game if you are coming from old-school cRPGs. A lot of time and work was put into it and I absolutely love it.

I am a fan of Arcanum, Fallout 1 & 2 and other games like that. So when I heard about this game, I had to give it a try.

You get access to hand-to-hand, melee, high tech weapons, light guns and heavy guns AND Psionics. There are also utility skills like Criminal, Tech, Science, Medicine and more.

Overall, I really liked the game. I bumped into problems with a particular psionic perk that didn't work right. But I didn't sweat it to much. I would highly recommend it.

Realized I never reviewed this. Admittedly I didn't finish it, but loved what I did play>

I plan to go back and replay it soon.

A great game...in the first half. Initially there are plenty of roleplay options, a great atmosphere, detailed maps to explore - this disappears in the second half once the full map opens up, suddenly the locations you can visit are huge with next to nothing to actually do in them, devoid of atmosphere etc. It seems as if the Devs gave up.

3/10

Fatigue mechanic sucks
Combat did not seem that deep or interesting, low amount of skills
UI was meh, you have a huge amount of skills and actions but you can only have 1 hotbar for them so you have to constantly cycle them
The writing just didn't grab me, too much text that doesn't matter make it seem like everyone just yapping for no reason and im reading walls of text that lead to nowhere
50 empty container per zone, why have so many objects that have nothing of interesting to give

All of this in the first 5h of the game, and people say the 2nd half is the worst part..

a worthy successor to the old fallouts

I tried but I really can't get into it. The story and writing feels flat.

Encased is yet another Fallout 2 clone. It wanted to be Fallout 2 so badly that it was willing to ignore or reject over two decades of evolution in the cRPG space, and the result is a bad game.

It’s also an unfinished bad game.

Play something else.

mid