Review for Encased. Game for PC, Mac, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch, the video game was released on 07/09/2021 The version for Nintendo Switch is scheduled for the 30/09/2021(in 5 days). The version for PlayStation 4 is scheduled for the 30/09/2021(in 5 days). The version for Xbox One is scheduled for the 30/09/2021(in 5 days).
Encased, without too many words, we could define it as a product out of time, but continue reading to understand why and for a greater contextualization of this (apparently) violent judgment, experiencing with us the first impact with the title, then confirmed by the following hours of play.
Encased is a Tactical RPG set in what is not wrong to define ucronia, a version of our 1970s in which a huge glass dome is discovered in the middle of a remote desert; the artifact obviously attracts the attention of many interested gazes, those pushed to discover the very nature of this mystery, those ready to get their hands on any profit that may result from it, those who simply see the opportunity for a new life.
It is up to us to decide who to interpret, with an intro dedicated to the selection of the character which, if from a narrative point of view it involves what the plot explained to us a little earlier with a few lines of text and static image, it is already a clear example of where the title aesthetically wants. and mechanically go to par.
Close your eyes and think hard about the first Fallout, that of 1997; well, if you opened them now with Encased in front of you, you would make Joseph Plateau and his theory happy persistence of vision. It is clear that the Post Nuclear RPG par excellence is the main reference for the Dark Crystal Games team, both from the visual point of view (the UI really reminds us of it a lot) and from the point of view of the management of the character's statistics, as far as evolved from what Bethesda did more than 2 decades ago.
Reading the individual statistics can be absolutely interesting, but these represent a superficially implicit value that, we are sure, can only be seen at work after a while, a peculiarity that makes the initial tables an effort that does not correspond to an actual benefit for who plays.
At the first clicks, however, we are already immersed in a context that promises to make us forget very soon the crooked nose of just before, a little because of its being in media res (in fact we are already towards the end of our journey towards the entrance to the dome), partly because of that just mentioned feeling of ineluctability (whoever enters the dome cannot leave it without, for some reason, undergoing a terrible death).
In fact, based on the role we have chosen according to the criteria of C.R.O.N.U.S. (the Committee for the Search of Non-Usual Objects), a group created shortly after the discovery of the Dome, we could start our character in the Black Wing, a paramilitary police force very prone to violence, or in the Blue Wing, the section of engineers, or even in the more managerial Green Wing, even in the Orange Wing made up essentially of criminals. As in other titles of the past (Cyberpunk 2077, I'm looking at you), this choice of ours changes thenarrative incipit only in the intro, then adapting to the narrative plateau that makes up the Encased “campaign”, if not for some dialogue in which the supporting actors recognize the Wing to which we belong.
The first interactions with characters and environments underline even more the creative pillar that Fallout has certainly represented for the team, but, precisely in function of this emphasis, we notice the first strong contrast: if the UI is a refined and careful wall of text , full of well-written dialogues that certainly give the idea of a great job at the level of narrative design (with real characters each with understandable motives), in-game assets do not enjoy the same fortune; characters and environments are in fact generic and rather anonymous, so much so that our first impression was that of having in front of us one of those free asset packages that the various graphics engines sometimes give to its users.
After an exploratory section that can be faced, according to the skills of our character (a 34-year-old gun fanatic with little charisma but high perception and intellect), in at least 2 ways, we finally arrive at the first fight; it is not without some difficulty that we are able to better understand the strategy to use to get the better of it and, while surviving, we are left with very little life and no curative elements. Driven by exploratory spirit and from the hope of finding something with which to improve our state of health, we arrive in a highly radioactive and toxic area that kills us in a matter of seconds, forcing us to reload the rescue.
This could be the description of many of our hostile encounters, but Encased certainly has the advantage of not being punitive in a sadistic way, towards the player: like many others, it only demands that you "learn" his language, as per CRPG tradition . Applause also goes to the courageous choice not to include level scaling, but it should be noted that a button dedicated to the acceleration of the combat itself would have been very welcome, especially given the slowness and woodiness of the animations. Encased, however, forces us to take a tone that is anything but peaceful in the context of the companions, especially with regard to their behavior in battle: like Trico from The Last Guardian, giving orders and seeing them executed are two worlds so distant as to be impossible to cross.
We want to dedicate a final mention to exploration: discovering the environments and areas of Encased is interesting, thanks to a light but visible (at least to the careful eye) environmental storytelling work that helps the sense of immersion, but the stage collapses in the moment. in which the umpteenth box contains the umpteenth "junk" element that we cannot do anything about, also considering its obviously low commercial value; all this must also be contextualized in a crafting mechanic that is always on the verge of frustration.
Encased is a title clearly conceived and created in the name of the deep passion for the most classic exponents of the RPG genre. This, however, makes certain limits of the genre almost necessarily implicit, which simply do not age so well: statistics that are too numerous and without obvious and immediate gameplay value, a slightly excessive woodiness of the animations, a story that can be perceived and experienced. only through endless walls of text. If passion were enough to make a good game, Encased would be an absolute success, but the merits that we can find in this work are not enough to lift it from its status as a “game out of time”.
► Encased is an RPG-Strategy-Tactical-Adventure-indie game for PC, Mac, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch, the video game was released on 07/09/2021 The version for Nintendo Switch is scheduled for the 30/09/2021(in 5 days). The version for PlayStation 4 is scheduled for the 30/09/2021(in 5 days). The version for Xbox One is scheduled for the 30/09/2021(in 5 days).
