by the_fog_is_coming
Fallout 4 is the seventh instalment in the Fallout franchise, and despite being the most popular Fallout game of all time, it is largely ridiculed by other Fallout fans.
I’m here to tell you that this is unjustified, and in fact, I believe Fallout 4 is one of the best Fallout games!
Why is Fallout 4 better?
Unlike other Fallout games, Fallout 4 walks the line between exaggerating retro futuristic themes and the authentic Fallout experience. It offers a relatively watered-down experience compared to other games like Fallout 1, 2, and New Vegas, but despite this, it has many redeeming qualities that I think outweigh the drawbacks.
1. Graphics:
Fallout 4 offers the best graphical experience of any Fallout;. However, many people would say Fallout 76 would take this role, I believe that Fallout 76 isn’t annihilated enough to fit into Fallout’s visual aesthetic. Fallout 4 includes new graphics systems such as weather, which introduces green radiation storms that look absolutely stunning, but also, with the advent of modern graphics tech, the game can fit many, many more small, medium and large objects into the map to make the world seem more detailed and immersive, even by modern standards!
2. Quality of life:
Many features like weapon crafting and legendary enemies, which were mildly touched on in Fallout New Vegas yet were relatively unnecessary, are now fully fledged gameplay mechanics in Fallout 4.
The scrap mechanic introduces a system that, instead of junk, that’s only purpose is to sell and occasionally craft with, Fallout 4‘s junk, has components within it that can be used for crafting and building. The crafting system is now extremely fleshed out, and you can change the muzzle, barrel, magazine, receiver, sights, stock/grip and blade of every weapon in the game using scrap components either collected or bought. This modification system lets players make their favourite weapon of use even better than they could in previous Fallout games (if they have the skills and resources, of course). Also introduced was the legendary system, which allows certain enemies to spawn as a legendary version of themselves; upon killing a legendary enemy, the player is rewarded with a legendary armour or weapon. More often than not, the legendary effect will not be very good, but occasionally, you will get something like an unlimited ammo capacity shotgun or an explosive minigun. And finally Fallout 4 introduces a new settlement system where you can help a settlement and, as a reward, build in it with modular pieces of houses/shacks. You can make water, guns, food and clothes production facilities in your settlements to sell to merchants or to help you on your journey throughout the wasteland.
3. Gameplay:
Rather than the dated isometric of the classic games or the janky first-person of the early 3d Fallout games. Fallout 4 offers the most polished Fallout yet; its gunplay feels like a first-person shooter rather than an RPG, and its player controls are very much up to date, even by modern standards; the game includes things such as advanced sneaking, stealing and pickpocketing as well as an advanced and, in my opinion, better perk tree. The game features more things, such as cool effects from different chems and drugs across the wasteland, the legendary system, improved magazines and improved bobbleheads.
4. Leveling system
In my opinion, Fallout 4 has the best levelling system of any Fallout game, because of 1 reason: simplicity; in Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas, the perk menu requires you to scroll through a list of perks so you can see what each one does, this creates issues like having to stop scrolling to move your mouse onto the perk you want to look at and you having to pick a perk to look at based on its name alone, Fallout 4, however, doesn’t do this. Instead, Fallout 4 creates a stylised and animated full-screen perk menu that is laid out in a grid; this allows you to see an animated perk icon and move your mouse over it without having to scroll and choose based on perk names; this results in players initially understanding the point of perks more before they even hover over them and the perk menu looking less daunting, this lets new players feel like they can understand the perks and not have to spend ages reading perk descriptions on each level up.
5 .RPG elements
Fallout 4 was the first Fallout game (disregarding Fallout Shelter) to focus on combat way more than story. This is where I think Fallout 4 is the worst. Fallout 4 seems to use its better graphics and satisfying gunplay so much that it focuses on the combat elements of the game over the worldbuilding and story. This results in Fallout 4 not feeling like it’s different every time you play it.
In Fallout New Vegas, you can convince people using one of many skills or perks you have. Convincing people can result in higher rewards, quest progression, starting quests, or just giving you items,
The game also has a system that, in quests you can interact with an object or npc and are given options of how to deal with it/them this lets the player still have a chance at completing quests no matter what sort of items or skills they have, and gives a feeling of uniqueness to the same quest each time you play it, Fallout 4 however has none of the popup skill checks on interacting with an object and the speech checks it has will still lead to the same place in the story as the other dialog options, and if you fail a speech check you will usually have many more, easier chances to get the same information/result, this causes a feeling of over-simplicity and bad design, it take players out of the game by making it just feel like a combat simulator with RPG elements and not the true RPG fallout was and should be.
Conclusion:
Fallout 4 is the game that brings Fallout’s concept to a broader audience. While the more dark and gritty previous Fallouts certainly had a following, Fallout 4 was built for newcomers to the franchise, and it certainly succeeded. It has the best graphics, the best gunplay, the best quality-of-life features and the best DLC, but that’s for another article. If you want a simple, enjoyable Fallout experience or are just a newcomer to the franchise, then I suggest you start with this game because of its great stability, out-of-the-box playability and modern feeling.