Also, if you don't feel like reading, feel free to watch my video version of this "review":
It may sound weird that I finished the story of Fallout 4 just now, I mean it's been out a long time and all. The thing is for once I enjoyed it so much I didn't want it to end, in the past I've never been the biggest Bethesda fan so I've never dragged their games out any longer than I've had to. Let me elaborate, in Bethesda's previous games like Skyrim and Fallout 3 I've felt the writing and gameplay was rather poor.
Sure they were very open and all that but I need the game to be enjoyable to play if I'm going to enjoy everything else it has to offer. I just couldn't get into their previous games because they felt so stiff in every way, the worlds felt like amusement parks where I interacted with robots and so on. Fallout 4 however did elevate itself to such a level it no longer felt weird, for once the writing was pretty solid and the gameplay was highly enjoyable. I've spent a lot of time just exploring the world without a real objective which I've just never done before in a Bethesda game.
In many ways to me Fallout 4 is a promise of a bright future where I too will be able to get into their games. I say that because it's obviously not perfect, yes I enjoyed it a lot but lets talk about the things I want improved or added. Speaking of additions, settlement building was added to Fallout 4 this time around and it was an aspect I really enjoyed and put many hours into. It's fun but again not perfect, some settlements where just too small to really matter and there were just too many of them.
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| Fallout 4 effectively welcomed me into the Bethesda fanclub |
The way I'd like to see this aspect handled in the future is fewer player controlled settlements but deeper mechanics. I'd like for them to matter more, if I basically own the wasteland I want it to mean something. Would be fun to have some politics involved in this, think of Fallout New Vegas where you could choose to take everything over yourself, this is something I would've liked to see here. Yes I know that's what the Minutemen storyline is all about but they're not really yours to control. What I guess I'm getting is that I want to see a Gta style rise to power where you reach a point where you're a big deal, a point where caravan guards no longer treat you like some ragtag wastelander peasant.
I know Bethesda makes big games and I know you can do insane amounts of things in them, but if there's one thing they've yet to master it's to make the world respond to you in a way that you feel like you matter. Fallout New Vegas (again) did this pretty well, you were given feedback to your actions, if you killed members of Ceasar's Legion at first sight then you'd reach a point where you're vilified in their eyes, you could also become idolized by different factions and communities. In short it felt like your presence was acknowledged.
Moving on, to again bring up the Minutemen aspect, if you want you can pretty quickly in the game become the Minutemen General. A nice title, yet it feels hollow that even after having literally every settlement available under your control you still need to take care of everything yourself. It feels like the next step for Bethesda is to look into micro management, wouldn't be too far fetched considering they've added a big new mechanic such as settlement building. Let me send troops to defend settlements, to take over settlements, to sabotage the enemy or clear out raider camps. Just let me feel like the leader I've worked so hard to be.
Now to bring up something completely different, vehicles. I know there's both negative and positive opinions on this but I really feel vehicles could be a good addition to Fallout. Now I don't think they'd work well in Fallout 4 in particular but they could be added to improve future installments. How, you may ask? Well Fallout 4 felt very dense, not really a bad thing in most cases but this is Fallout, you're supposed to feel like you're in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, yet it feels too "alive". You walk two feet and you stumble upon yet another settlement or otherwise inhabited location. Some breathing room between points of interests would go a long way to capture the feel of the original games and a vehicle would be more useful.
Of course I also bring up vehicles for another reason, in a near future a patch will be released that overhauls the survival mode, one way it does this is by removing fast travel. One point against vehicles I always hear is that you miss out the sense of exploration, that you'd just race past everything interesting. Now my counter point is that fast traveling does this to a much higher degree, at some point the world gets very small as there's no reason to actually wander around anymore. You're just going from loading screen to loading screen. My solution would be to completely remove fast travel, apart from maybe certain locations like Witcher 3, but instead introduce vehicles that allows you to travel faster between locations while exploring the wasteland in between.
Could work a bit like the power armor does in Fallout 4, speaking of which, the power armor in Fallout 4 was both a hit and a miss. First, I do like that this time around it felt like a big, powerful piece of armor. Secondly, not a fan of the Fusion Core system, I get that they wanna limit it somehow to make sure you don't abuse such a valuable asset. I mean it's really against the lore that their batteries only last 30 minutes, it's just wrong in that regard. What I'd suggest is reduce their level of protection so they're not quite as overpowered and don't sprinkle them around the wasteland like they've done here. I'm fairly certain that it can be balanced without messing up the lore much.
There's two more points I'd like to address in this already lengthy piece, the dialogue and choices. Now let it be know that I actually liked having a voiced protagonist, if I spend an hour creating my character I like to see him interact with those around him. What I don't like is that I suddenly can't interact with anyone after having done their quest. What I refer to is that I've literally completed every quest in the game and there's no one I can talk to anymore except traders and those who give radiant quests. Oh and by the way a small thing about that I'd like to see someone but faction characters give out these quests, as an example that chem salesman in Diamond City could always have more ingredients for the player to collect.
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| Fallout 4 can be pretty lonely |
As far as choices go, and this will be my final issue, I would've liked to see a more open story. Now I do feel this was the most well written and interesting story ever to be in a Bethesda game but because it was about searching for your son you're automatically written to be a good character. Even the companions reflect this, there's not a single companion that's outright evil, even Fallout 3 had this so it baffles me that this time around being good (more or less) is your only option. Not that it had to be that way, I could easily see how instead of being a force for good the events in the game would lead the protagonist on a more violent and evil path. Though as I don't wanna spoil much I won't go deeper into that, I would however like to see in the future that you don't define my character this much from the start. Like the voice actor even sounds so kind it's hard to be an evil bastard even if you try.
There you have it, my thoughts on Fallout 4 and where they can go from here. I am very excited for it as I did enjoy playing it a lot. I had spent about 200 hours on my first playthrough and I want more, to me that's a testament to how good the game is.
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