What we have here is a turn-based combat RPG. There are many similarities and references to Fallout and Fallout 2, but don’t expect voice work from Ron Perlman, or the over-the-top gory animated deaths of the Interplay art design team. It’s an indie, with a budget to match.

Combat is very well thought out and challenging. There are many different styles of character you can build (keeping in mind that they must be combat-based), ranging from a sledgehammer-wielding melee specialist, to a stealthy crossbow ninja, sniper, trapper, or a psychically gifted guy with metathermic, psychokinetic and/or thought control powers. The crafting system is very robust, allowing you to create weapons and armor of a much higher quality than the ones sold in shops. Use the hearts of your enemies as an ingredient in healing potions! You can also pick up a fishing rod and catch eels, anglerfish and about a dozen other creatures for use in different medicines. Eventually you’ll get to buy and furnish a house, so Underrail is kind of an indie cross between Fallout and The Sims, with giant scorpions that paralyze you with their venom and vanish before you can do anything.

The world is populated with all sorts of interesting characters to meet -- each of the cities has its own unique interests, with their own vernacular. There’s a lot of well-written scientific explanations which help make the fantastic elements feel more believable. Most of the lore of Underrail is shrouded in mystery, and you’ll rarely know the full story about anything. (I’ve heard that if you spend points in Persuasion, you’ll get a clearer view of what the hell is going on here, but my first character build was pretty sloppy so I had to put all I could into combat and crafting.) It’s an epic, which took me over 300 hours to complete on my first playthrough (mostly from fishing). If you’re competent at videogames it’ll take you considerably less.

About 2/3rds of the way through, Underrail suddenly turns the difficulty meter to 11 (it was already set at 10 and a half), and so many of the conventions are changed, it feels like you’re playing a different game. There’s an electrical facility where electronic locks aren’t highlighted when you press Tab key, there are waves of respawning monsters that you can only run away from, and a key ingredient to opening a gate can only be found inside a hallucination. Then there’s the chemical reagent puzzle with 13 variables that is different every time you play ... but I won’t go into that. By the time you’ve hit the level 25 cap, you may find it all a bit too grindy to continue. There were many points in the Deep Caverns where I was seriously considering abandoning the game. I mean, I have my backlog to consider. But I persevered for some reason, and got to the “ending.” SPOILER: It’s a cliffhanger.

I really enjoyed the first 2/3rds of Underrail and I’ll probably go back and try a few other builds eventually. The developer’s been hard at work on improving every aspect of the game since its 2015 release (which is why the expansion has taken so long to materialize). I hope the difficulty speedbumps in Deep Caverns eventually see some smoothing. This is really a niche game, and it’ll never appeal to a broad action-rpg audience, but for those of us who loved the Interplay Fallouts, and are willing to accept the limitations of small indie budgets, Underrail is a hell of a ride.