Wasteland 3 is a game that I'm kicking myself for not playing sooner as I got it as a gift from a friend around early 2021, we play it a bit but never really got into it for whatever reason. However, now that we HAVE gotten around to finally playing through the whole game I have to say if you are looking for a modern post-apocalyptic turn-based RPG that is similar to games like Divinity: Original Sin 2 or the OG Fallout games then you have come to the right place. TLDR at the end.
The Story: 8/10
Pretty much all of the dialogue is well written, well at least to my monkey brain it is. The plot is intriguing as you get strung along from job to job in your quest to get supplies for Arizona, you meet many interesting characters and you have to decide who you can trust and who you cant. Throughout the game, you can make a few story-changing decisions that will alter how things play out. However, your overall action will have an effect on how people treat you, and how well you are known can have its upsides and downsides. The voice acting is great too as every character is voiced and everyone does a great job at playing their role and breathing life into the setting. There is seemingly a good chunk of replayability in the story has multiple endings, different ending slides depicting some of the people you meet along your adventure, And many factions to break bread with or go to war with some of my favorites being the killer Mexican clowns, the Ragen A. I worshiping cultists. You can also grow the Colorado Rangers to be whatever kind of faction you would like it to be if you wanna be feared or renowned the choice is for you to make. One thing to note is that I think me and my friend got one of the worse endings in the game so whoopsie.
The Gameplay: 6/10
Wasteland 3 gameplay is great but buggy. The game's combat is an Xcom-style system of a combat grid and action points and the RPG mechanics are great! You can have up to six party members, four-player made and two-story NPCs, with a full party you can have a very diverse party makeup that covers most of the gameplay styles, and playing in co-op the party is split to each person having three party members each. Out of every gameplay style we played with I'd say that snipers are broken in every sense of the word as not only did we get 2000-3000 damage shots as opening attacks which meant that in any fight we started the enemies were always down one person before the fight even started. Snipers also soft-locked the game several times as if my friend ran out of ammo in the mag and needed to reload the game would freak out and not know how to handle it so we would need to reload a save, and the final perk in the sniper tree Chain Ambush would break the game as if you went into Ambush which normally you would just shoot any enemy once that moves within your guns range. Instead, it does all of that and if you kill an enemy in Ambush you re-enter which means you shoot another enemy, and if you keep killing enemies that means you just keep going into Ambush which is cool but if you kill the last enemy of combat with Chain Ambush you still re-enter Ambush, which breaks the game as now it doesn't know if you are in or out of combat and the only fix is to reload a save. Another part of gameplay is world exploration. You have walking around in an area with your party and you have driving around in the car in the over world. There sadly isn't much to talk about here as it's all the standard kinda stuff you'd expect out of a game like this. Exploration isn't bad it's just not notable.
The Graphics: 7/10
They're good...that's it.
The Musi- ok ok no really the Graphics are great I'm just not great at explaining why the pretty moving pixels are good but here goes nothing.
The Graphics of the game aren't anything to write home but are still good-looking and work well enough to help sell the post-apocalyptic look and feel that the older fallout games have. The art direction is great too as there was always something cool or weird just around the corner just waiting for us to find it. The different gangs all have their own looks and feels which makes them feel distinct from just your stock fallout 3 and 4 styled raiders as they also all have their own goals, ambitions, and ways of doing things that they wear on their sleeves or in their skin. The environments are well crafted and look great, as a colorado native it does a great job at invoking feelings of home for me. All of the different locations are fun to travel and fight through as most of them look great. However, I do think that at some points it can get dull after a while as looking at snow and trees does get boring. But then the game has a new and charming local to show you so it all works out in the end.
The Music: 10/10
I'm not even sure where to begin with this segment. The music is outstanding in every regard, the instrumental tracks are fantastic as they all help to sell feelings of danger and uncertainty in both combat and exploration, it feels like danger is around every corner. Filled with both hunting acoustics and electric synths every fight is filled with this sense of this urgency and exploration is given a sense of unease that wouldn't be there if the music wasn't nearly as good. And finally Wasteland 3: Hymns & Ballads, which is an album of songs made for the game by various artists that both sound great and are theming appropriate, the songs on this beautiful dark country album will also play in-game at specific battles which adds more weight to said fights. There are also some Beautifully sung choir songs that sadly just aren't my thing.
TLDR and Overall Score: 7.5/10
The Story is well told and executed fairly well, the graphics are good, and the music is great. The combat is fun but buggy at times, the world is full of fun factions and you have some varied options to deal with them that will change how the story plays out.
