This game is fucking old, dude, and it plays like shit. I know that saying something like "nyehhh this nearly 25-year-old CRPG feels antiquated" isn't exactly a Hot Take (TM), but-- dude, no. Plenty of games from around this era were playable not in spite of their core gameplay loop, but because of their core gameplay loop. Fallout 1 isn't bad just because it's a geriatric hunk of junk, it's bad because it never stops feeling janky, unintuitive, and overly complicated.

Combat is complete drivel - hit probabilities always feel rigged against you, and the game is borderline unplayable unless you dump all of your points into Agility due to how SPECIAL and AP works in this game. It feels like enemies can just decide to fuck you sideways on a whim. The UI is not only aesthetically rancid and unintuitive, but it also constantly gets in the way of you comprehending how the game works for the first few hours, and even when you get used to it, it still feels terrible because everything's too small. Map design in this game sucks - the isometric viewpoint and the same-y look of every NPC from a distance makes it hard to telegraph who you're talking to and where you're supposed to go. A lot of your Fallout experience will be wandering around trying to figure out where exactly you're supposed to go or wondering where that fucking Initiate is. You're also on an in-game timer which-- what?? Why??? The game's 'short' enough that it doesn't really matter, but it's still a garbage idea for something that's supposed to be as open-ended and go-at-your-own-pace as Fallout. Couple all that in with the garbage presentation and the need for a manual / YouTube videos / Reddit to help guide you through basic shit, and you'd think this game is destined to be a rock-solid 1/5...

...And yet, somehow, the game's writing, lore, and worldbuilding reel it back in and keep you going. It's atmospheric, has a great sense of vision and purpose, and the way the plot & world around you gradually unravels from "find the water chip" to "save the Wasteland from turning into Mutant goop" is pretty flawless. It happens so subtly and so seamlessly you don't even recognize the stakes are ramping up in the background - it just feels... naturalistic. The characters are well-written, the different factions present in the game all have something different to say for themselves, and the ending is spectacular, a wonderful blend of nail-biting difficulty and genuinely tangible despair. You only meet The Master once, but he's such a cool motherfucker and he defines the game and its' overall themes and tone so brilliantly that it feels like you've always been fighting him (basically, Senator Armstrong before Armstrong was even a thing).

The setting is equal parts haunting and charming, both a world that's barely clinging to life as a result of human folly and a world that keeps going because of this human folly. To say that it's a wonderful critique and deconstruction of nationalism, patriotism, and war as a whole is an understatement. And I don't give a fuck if that sounds pretentious to you, because Fallout's themes, writing, and sense of vision rocks my cock, and the way it all brilliantly culminates in an explosive finale followed by a sad, quiet ending scene that leaves you feeling utterly empty is pristine.

Also The Glow is fucking awesome. Best location in the game, bar none. It's cool and creepy and irradiated to hell and back and full of some of the coolest lore in the entire series thanks to ZAX. So Fallout does have that. Basically, the backend of this game comes dangerously close to being 'kinda good'.

So a game with dogshit gameplay and poor design choices that wind up hampering but also enhancing a genuinely wonderful post-apocalyptic narrative where your choices matter... winds up being pretty mediocre. I would say it deserves a remake, but Fallout has never exactly been a stable series to make games out of.