I recently picked up this little gem of a game and I’m having a blast. I absolutely love it!
It is basically what Fallout 3 should have been like. I mean I love Fallout 3 for what it is, but ATOM RPG seems more like the true successor to the original Fallout games.
It is a narrative-driven isometric RPG with turn-based combat, set in Russia after a global nuclear war. You play as a recruit for a secret organisation that sends you on a mission to find a missing exploration squad. The game has an overarching main quest but there are tons of sidequests and meaningful decisions which really have an impact on the world and its people.
There are hundreds of NPCs, each with their own unique character and backstory, but you won’t find out too many of those stories if you play as a daft brute without social skills.
If you play as a “people-person” with high intellect, you might have a really hard time in a fight but you can solve most quests without any violence.
So the RPG factor of this game is really great, and because it allows different playstyles the replay value is great too (for my first playthru I talked my way out of most conflicts, but on the next playthru I will take no prisoners).
The dialogue is really funny (can be really tragic at times too), it’s ripe with references to the Fallout games (for example you hear rumors about a courier who got shot in the head but barely survived, got patched up by locals and then got on a revenge spree) and while many NPCs (you can talk to 99% of them) are not relevant to any quests, you can still gain tons of XP by just talking to people and listening to their stories. And if you don’t like reading a lot but still need XP, you can just kill everyone that crosses your path.
It’s an indie game from a small dev, so don’t expect modern graphics. It doesn’t have many bugs as far as I can tell, just some obvious translation errors and misspellings but nothing that’s keeping me from enjoying this game.
So if you like reading short stories and/or challenging turn-based combat, this might be the game for you! But if you are a fan of the original Fallout games, it’s a must-have!
One more thing, you can have a dog companion which you can even level up on 4 different skilltrees! I just found him yesterday in a random encounter on the world map and now even my knife-wielding intelligentsia character has a chance in firefights