Encased - Dev Update, Release Sales

Played for a couple of hours now and I just left the prologue and did some other stuff, I am very positively surprised.
I actually like the narrator quite a bit. However not everything is narrated and voiced. It's mostly the starting area as it seems.

I think Encased is a mix from these following games: Fallout, Divinity OS2, Pillars of Eternity

From Fallout it got a bit of the setting and the flair, and the types of interactions like playing a stupid character. The anomaly thing is going more into stalker territory though. The variety of possible solutions also reminds of Divinity OS2, you can just do everything, kill everyone, and sometimes you are surprised "what, this is possible?". For example I just escaped the tutorial area with a car (and didnt take the bus)…after dying on multiple attempts, if you do just the right stuff, you can do it. It's not what I want to do, and I reloaded, but I was surprised its actually possible.
I mention Pillars of Eternity specifically because Encased also has these "Event Screens" and it's also there where the narrator shines. These event screens in some special dialoges or for example when escaping the car, are something you encountered in PoE a couple of times but not often enough. They are very well done in Ecnased, with some supporting background noises, very atmospheric.

So if the game goes on like that, it might get one of the top spots in my all time favorite games, right next besides of Divinity OS2. There is just nothing so far which is bad in any way.

Ah funny. 9 times out of 10 I am the one who loves the voice overs and narrators and never have a problem. Now its the complete opposite

No idea why just that voice so grates on my nerves, couldn't stand it. Which is odd as I usually like, or am at least neutral, to most voices.

Ah well good to know it isn't constant. I shut it off shortly after getting off the elevator and after helping Monty. That was the length I was able to deal with it.

That being said love the game, it is really nicely done.

Originally Posted by Kordanor
Played for a couple of hours now and I just left the prologue and did some other stuff, I am very positively surprised.
I actually like the narrator quite a bit. However not everything is narrated and voiced. It's mostly the starting area as it seems.

I think Encased is a mix from these following games: Fallout, Divinity OS2, Pillars of Eternity

There's some influence from ATOM too, a game that surprised me last year, in a positive way. It's a little bit rough around some edges but not much, has a good amount of quests and dialogues, and there are often several ways to solve any problem too.

Originally Posted by Redglyph
There's some influence from ATOM too, a game that surprised me last year, in a positive way. It's a little bit rough around some edges but not much, has a good amount of quests and dialogues, and there are often several ways to solve any problem too.

Ah, yeah, thats still on my todo list.

Haven't touched the game yet as Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous has my attention right now. Maybe in a few weeks if I don't play Atom RPG and it's expansion also.

I'm glad to see this game is being so well received. Really pleased for the developers who totally deserve this.

Ooh, just back from vacation, but I played a ton of the Encased EA and liked it very well. Black Geyser is a generic Baldur's Gate/Icewind Dale wannabe; not bad, but not really good either. Solasta is a battle emulator. Just set pieces with some random encounters and the story is very bare bones. I haven't touched Pathfinder as I heard the battle system both sucks and is broken. Basically, just like the kingdom system from the first game. No desire to tackle that mess but I bought it for later. I haven't played the first one much past getting a kingdom to manage that I didn't want. No roleplay option to just do my own thing.

Originally Posted by crpgnut
Ooh, just back from vacation, but I played a ton of the Encased EA and liked it very well. Black Geyser is a generic Baldur's Gate/Icewind Dale wannabe; not bad, but not really good either. Solasta is a battle emulator. Just set pieces with some random encounters and the story is very bare bones. I haven't touched Pathfinder as I heard the battle system both sucks and is broken. Basically, just like the kingdom system from the first game. No desire to tackle that mess but I bought it for later. I haven't played the first one much past getting a kingdom to manage that I didn't want. No roleplay option to just do my own thing.

You can put the kingdom management in kingmaker as easy and just breeze through it.

Apparently they're going to make the army management bit automatic in a few patches. It's not working yet.

I have my eyes on this one too - will pick it up at some point when I'm done with WotR. Not enough time to play all these games >.>

Originally Posted by Pladio
You can put the kingdom management in kingmaker as easy and just breeze through it.

Apparently they're going to make the army management bit automatic in a few patches. It's not working yet.

Well, since I typically make half a dozen characters for these types, that's where I'll start. I made a sorcerer hybrid last night, but have no real clue what I'm doing. I will try to let the non-pc characters fight on their own, so I'll play a lower difficulty and just control my character.

I've played a little bit. The voice acting is a nice addition, makes the game more complete in comparison to the EA.

I like the narrator and the voices I've heard, they're good quality IMO. The voice of Dean Rayhet was not as I imagined it, but that's fine. I cannot help myself messing with him

I'm not sure which is better, having a narrative voice for the descriptions, like Encased and D:OS, or no voice like Pathfinder. I found it awkward with Pathfinder, in fact, but I understand it can take a lot of time if one has to wait for the voice instead of reading the text.

Launch game impressions by Mortismal Gaming.

There aren't a lot of articles or videos worth mentioning on this game. I hope it catches up later, maybe the timing was a bit unfortunate.

so, who played this some time, it has a lot of combat, is it worth going for a charisma build?

Originally Posted by porcozaur
so, who played this some time, it has a lot of combat, is it worth going for a charisma build?

My last character had a good deal of charisma, along with psyche for the psionics skills. It's perfectly enjoyable, you get many specific dialogues options (CHA checks).

There's a fair amount of combat if you want, but you can avoid a part of it. It's not the dominant part of the game like in Solasta, it's more balanced, a good part is taken by dialogues and quests.

You can rely on the companions when a fight cannot be avoided, or if you need strength to move something (it was not possible in EA and I had to use a lot of drugs to achieve it myself ), so don't go lone wolf. If you can get enough skill points in weapons though, you can still take part efficiently while being mainly charisma-oriented (silver wing seems the obvious choice).

EDIT: I took psyche because the base skill in psionics is 2*psyche, whereas other combat skills is the sum of 2 other abilities, like for ex. deftness & perception, which means you have to invest more at the expense of charisma. But you can catch up by earning skills later, only… it's later and you'll sacrifice other opportunities.