I wonder what the first two parts would look like Fallout, be they not role-playing games, but isometric quests? The answer to this question is given by the developers from the studio The Brotherhood, authors of excellent Stasis And Cayne, in his new job – Beautiful Desolation.
Forward to the future
Associations with Fallout there’s no hiding here – the main menu is stylized exactly like “follow”. The action takes place in the future, where there is a lot of radiation and colorful factions. True, there are no direct indications of a post-apocalypse in the plot. It all starts in the 60s of the last century, when a huge and clearly alien object called the Triangle suddenly appeared over Cape Town. But he did not destroy half of humanity, but, on the contrary, contributed to a technological breakthrough. Among other things, many robots appeared, including, as it later turns out, intelligent and even more than emotional.
It was these robots (here I call them agnates) who were guarding the perimeter of the Triangle when journalist Mike Lasley and his brother Don flew up to it. Mike – decided to get data about the object and tell the whole world the truth, because he suspects that the authorities are hiding the true purpose of the Triangle. In the end, of course, something went wrong, the heroes were discovered by the security robot dog Bug, and all three were thrown in time far into the future.
Wonderful strange world
And there is exactly what all the fans love so much Fallout And Planescape: Torment: some sects, new gods and religions, bizarre creatures and animated talking air defense systems that shot down our ship. IN Beautiful Desolation you can chat with a talking skull at the bar, see a striptease performed by holograms, communicate with a faction of robotic skeletons, as well as creatures merged with drones and calling themselves “we-me”. There’s even almost a race of intelligent mosses here.
And our robotic Bug is https://sportsbettingmedia.co.uk/ extremely colorful – when communicating with her, we learn how experiments were carried out on her, how happy they were when they made the world’s first robot capable of feeling and experiencing emotions, and how she didn’t want to be dismantled again and again, implanted and selected other people’s memories for the sake of new experiences. You can encourage the bug, calm it down, or, on the contrary, you can laugh cynically and be rude. The same goes for communicating with your brother. And in one situation there is an option to try to sacrifice them..
And all this – the setting, the main characters and talking trains – is not here for show, everything works for the atmosphere. And the key factions are well written – they are really different and crazy in their own way. And you will have to interact with each of them more than once or twice in order to get key items to activate a portal that can return our heroes to their time. And often you have to choose who to support – sometimes it depends on who will survive and who will die. The partners approve of different decisions, and in any case we will get one of several endings.
Fallout without RPG
Like I said at the beginning, Beautiful Desolation – this is not an RPG, but a quest. There is no leveling up, constant battles or loot here. There are battles reminiscent of Heroes of Might and Magic (or rather, about Disciples), but they are simple, and there are not enough of them – to solve a specific problem, even if it stretches over the entire passage. There is gambling and rudimentary trading – for golden figurines hidden here and there we get credits, and with them we buy mainly quest items (for example, devices for access to a specific place), a couple of modules for improving our ship (we use it to move between settlements and interesting places) and souvenirs for decorating the cockpit.
But mostly we communicate with numerous characters and solve riddles. Well, what riddles… Really interesting situations happen: when, for example, you need to guess to turn on the android for recharging and at that moment hack it, thus finding out the password for the desired door. Or when, in order to remove the on-board processor, you need to place the symbols in the correct order on the access panel, checking the entries in the code, and images with these symbols have to be collected in a variety of places and settlements. In other situations, we fly drones or take part in gambling games where we throw dice and fight.
Item Adventure
However, in most cases it all comes down to constant running around looking for the right things. And all of them Beautiful Desolation ready to help us and give what they need only if we do something for them, and more often than not, bring it. Would you like to receive a disk with data?? Bring the sacred mask. Do you want a mask?? Win in the arena. Do you want to participate in battles?? Sacrifice a bone covered in blood. Entered the arena? Now search and insert special tokens here.
This is how we run back and forth all the way and insert tokens and other found objects into the right hole. Moreover, this process is implemented lousy from the point of view of interface and convenience. And objects for solving one problem are necessarily scattered across different (and sometimes very distant from each other) locations. Sometimes they have to be combined in the inventory, and very often we need to guess that in order to advance through the plot or find other solutions, we must return to distant lands and talk again with someone with whom we have spoken more than once.
On the other hand, this somewhat archaic approach was just typical for classic RPGs and quests from the 90s and early 2000s. Namely, the authors were inspired by them Beautiful Desolation – the spirit is maintained here. And in general, everything is fine with the style and “visuals” of the game – just look at the screenshots. This picture is also like a balm for the soul of all fans of old-school adventures and RPGs. It is this atmosphere that outweighs negative emotions – despite the inherently primitive gameplay, it is really interesting to discover locations, meet new colorful characters, make choices in dialogues and constantly learn something more about this unusual world. Although, of course, it could have been better if the authors had added more non-trivial riddles and various mechanics.
Pros: interesting plot; unusual and well-developed setting; many colorful characters and factions; nonlinearity, which also affects the fate of entire factions; there are interesting riddles and mini-games; gorgeous picture; great music from Mick Gordon (Mick Gordon).
Cons: almost the entire gameplay is based on primitive runs between locations in order to deliver the items the characters need; weak voice acting for many NPCs; there are problems with finding the way – often you can’t figure out where and where you can go.