Fallout 4 is a game that is very dear to me. The experience I had with it was extremely unique, and it’s really shaped my perspective on the game. I played it as a young teenager, and it was like nothing I had ever seen before. However, you’re not here to read a memoir. Even despite my nostalgia, I’ve always known this game was flawed. It took me 3-4 years to even officially beat it because of an awful game-breaking bug that soft-locked my main save file. Now that I’m an adult, I can see even more problems beyond the glitches. Though, despite its issues, I still think there’s a lot of enjoyment to be had with it at the end of the day.
Gameplay:
Fallout 4 is an open-world RPG with a large emphasis on FPS/TPS gameplay. You play as a former soldier (or the wife of a former soldier) from before the Great War and the sole survivor of an experiment involving cryogenic freezing in Vault 111. You wake up 200 years later and are tasked with navigating the wasteland and finding your kidnapped son… or screwing around… you can definitely do a lot of screwing around. The over 200 hours on my soft-locked save file is certainly a testament to that fact. This game has a lot of content.
Exploration is probably the best place to start discussing things, as it’s what shapes the gameplay loop. Fallout 4 features an expansive world packed with landmarks. There’s no shortage of interesting places to see, so going off the beaten path is always encouraged. If you just play the game for the main story, you’ll definitely miss out on what makes the game special. Even all these years later, the game still has one of my favorite open world maps. There’s interesting and unique items to collect, weird yet memorable side quests to do, and cool optional companions to find, to reasonably sum things up. However, I do have one big critique for the interior layout of buildings, and it’s that they can be so dang CONFUSING. I mean SERIOUSLY it is so easy to either get turned around or just flat-out lost due to their size and weird layouts. It’s such a pain, and it doesn’t help that they can sometimes feel super cramped too.
Combat is solid. Fallout 4 has definitely got it down in both the weapon and enemy variety departments. You’re seriously spoiled for choice with the weapons. You got pistols, rifles, baseball bats, snipers, rocket launchers, wooden boards, machine guns, shotguns, chainsaws, you name it. There’s a weapon for every occasion and tons of ways to modify them. If I had to give one substantial critique for it, it would be that there’s a bit too many ammo types, and it’s easy to run out of a certain type fast because it’s simply impossible to find. Nonetheless, it's an expansive and fairly impressive system. Armor is in a similar boat as well. Both normal armor and the series’ iconic Power Armor can be modified to your heart’s content. As for actually engaging with enemies, it’s pretty standard FPS/TPS stuff. You point at the things and click the buttons. There is the VATS mechanic, though, which will basically automatically shoot things for you if RNG deems you worthy. I never really used this mechanic as I had really bad luck with it, but it can be useful if you have the stats for it. Fights in Fallout 4 can be really intense. The game likes to overwhelm you or put you in situations where there’s an enemy who can kill you really quick if you don’t stay on your toes. I have my own mixed feelings about this, but generally, I think it can be pretty fun and leads to some exciting moments.
Throughout the world, you can find places to turn into settlements, which you can build on and make your own. This mechanic has both its upsides and downsides, but I’d say I have a positive opinion of it overall. As you explore and kill enemies, you can pick up junk to break down into material to use in modifying weapons or building up settlements. There's tons of customization options for settlements in the base game, and each of the DLC’s add even more. Settlements can hold your companions, grow food, contain a collection of workbenches, store your stuff, and generally just serve to be a safe place to hang out and make your own. They can be quite fun, but sadly, it does have its flaws. The happiness mechanic for your settlers is so finicky, and I’m sure achievement hunters all have nightmares about it. There’s also maybe a bit too many settlements around the map, and populating all of them can be a bit annoying so it’s better to ignore some completely. Each settlement you own also becomes a bit of a burden, as they can often be attacked by raiders or creatures while you’re away, and while you can totally ignore it, it can lead to some things being damaged and needing repair.
And finally, the stats and perks. Everytime you level up, you gain a point which you can spend on a skill tree. You can either spend that point in a stat to gain access to more perks associated with it, or you can spend it to actually unlock a perk. Perks are generally pretty useful, so it’s hard to go wrong with where you spend. However, points can quickly become sparse, making it a slog to unlock certain things and really be able to explore the range of abilities the game offers. Possibly the worst offender of this is the perks associated with building and modifying, since if you didn’t already invest points into the stats they’re associated with at the beginning, it can take forever to get to them and effectively level them up while also investing in other perks you need. It can lock you out of exploring a lot of the interesting weapons and armor modifications the game has to offer. But, as a whole, I’d say the skill system isn’t too bad. It’s fine for what it is.
Sadly, the game is quite buggy. There's loads of minor glitches littered throughout, and if you're unlucky like me, you can even get soft-locked! Yay! It is 2024, so things might have been ironed out by now, but who knows. It's a Bethesda game.
Story and Characters: (Spoiler Warning)
My main save file soft-locking really saved my perception of this game’s story for a long time. I got soft-locked a few missions before the protag actually finds their child, so the rest of the game lived in my mind for a long time as this mythical, epic story of choice and conflict. I built this picture in my head from the things I heard from my friends and family. However, when I finally actually beat the game… yeaaah, it’s uhhh… just kinda meh. I have a lot to say about this game’s writing, both good and bad, so I’ll start by explaining the plot in its entirety.
You start off with an opening monologue from Nate, a former soldier living in Massachusetts, talking about the horrors of war before cutting to him in his house in front of a mirror. This is where you modify your character’s appearance and/or swap to Nora, Nate’s wife who works as a lawyer. After that, you just vibe in your house for a while with your baby son, Shaun, and your robot butler, Codsworth. Eventually, a nervous Vault-Tec rep comes to your door and gets you to register for a spot at the nearby Vault 111. This is where you’ll pick out your starting stats. You do more vibing then OOPS sudden nuclear war. Nate and Nora take Shaun, head to the vault, and are seemingly safe while the world outside is annihilated. However, everyone in the vault is immediately thrown into cryopods to be awoken at a later date. After who-knows-how-long passes, you wake up, but are not completely unfrozen. You see scientists surrounding your spouse who’s holding Shaun, trying to take the baby from them. After your spouse resists, they are shot and killed by a rough looking man who’s assisting the scientists in this kidnapping. You get frozen again, wake up several years later, and vow to avenge your spouse and save your son. However, it seems that the vault had gone derelict a long time ago, with you being the only sole survivor in the cryopods. You get out of the vault alone and venture into the wasteland. (Side note: I experienced this entire opening for the first time while secretly watching my dad play it from a distance. I was still young at the time so it freaked me out. I remember being especially startled when the spouse got shot. I don’t know how impactful this opening is for adults, but I know it definitely imprinted into the mind of child me.) From there, you meet up with Codsworth in the ruins of your neighborhood and learn that it’s been 200 years since the bombs fell. You can choose to go do whatever at this point, but otherwise, the game naturally leads you further down the road where you find a shootout at the town of Concord. Clear the enemies and you’ll meet the Minutemen. The Minutemen are a real ragtag group, and their mission is to protect the settlements of the Commonwealth, which is the name for the Massachusetts wasteland. They give you your first set of Power Armor, and while you can stay and do quests for them, they point you to a place called Diamond City as a starting point for the search for your son. On your way there, you get a distress signal from the Brotherhood of Steel which you can investigate if you so choose. Once you actually arrive at Diamond City, you quickly get a tip relating to an organization called the Railroad, which you can also pursue. Otherwise, stuff happens and you meet a detective named Nick Valentine. You learn that Shaun was taken by the Institute, a mysterious organization that kidnaps people to replace them with androids called Synths. They've been causing conflict in the Commonwealth for quite some time. You specifically follow the trail of a mercenary named Kellogg, who is the same person who killed your spouse. You find him, kill him, take his brain matter, search through his memories, and learn the secret to getting into the Institute is teleportation. Stuff happens and you can eventually build a teleporter. You can now enter and explore the Institute, a super advanced place of science and technology, and meet Shaun. You find out that he is now actually an old man and the child you saw in Kellogg's memories was actually a Synth recreation of himself. Shaun goes by the Father now and is the Institute's leader. After this, you have a choice to make. Side with the Institute, Brotherhood, Railroad, or Minutemen to decide the Commonwealth's fate. Each faction has their own ideas for its future. The Brotherhood wants to eradicate the Synths and the Institute, as well as other Brotherhood of Steely things. The Railroad wants to destroy the Institute but save Synths by integrating them into society. The Institute wants to save the Commonwealth with its revolutionary technology or something like that. The Minutemen… I actually don't know what the Minutemen want… I think they just want to homestead... Anyway, siding with the Institute will see you becoming its leader and destroying the competition. Siding with the Railroad or Brotherhood will also have you beating up the competition, and the Minutemen will simply blow up the Institute while remaining relatively friendly with the others. And that is the story of Fallout 4 :)
Now, you may be wondering, “OneTrooBloo, why did you write an 800 word summary of the game's plot?” and that's because I need it to effectively discuss my problems with it. First of all, Nate and Nora stink as RPG protagonists. Nate is too defined. He's supposed to be an honorable soldier who loves his wife, yet he can go out into the wasteland, do crimes, and form a harem. Nora is more of a blank slate, but it doesn't really make sense that she can just wield a gun right off the bat. Both of them are dead-set on finding Shaun according to their dialogue, yet you can just do whatever and even ignore him if you want. The freedom to choose your faction at the end just feels so weird for the characters too. At every turn, the game feels like it wants to give you freedom to be who you want to be, but the narrative is constantly fighting it and losing. As a result, I don't really know who my character is as a person, making it kind of hard to really connect with them. Second of all, the faction stuff. The factions are cool on an individual level, but they really harm the story by sending it in all kinds of different directions that just sort of have the same result. You just kill everybody and they're gone, and for what? It's frankly more of a detriment to the world, because now you've just made enemies and limited some of the places you can go. Not to mention that the factions are unbalanced. The Minutemen seem like dweebs. The Railroad is OVERHATED. LOOK, I KNOW THEY LIKE THE COLOR BROWN TOO MUCH BUT I THINK THEY HAVE A NOBLE GOAL... The Institute has sci-fi stuff. And then there's the Brotherhood of Steel. Almost everyone I knew who played the game sided with them. Who wouldn't want to have cool airships and metal army people on your side? I'm a Railroad advocate, but I cannot deny the BoS's absurd level of coolness. It sort of defeats the point of having pickable factions. I will admit though, their philosophical dynamic is pretty cool. The conflict in regards to Synths is legitimately interesting. I think with better writing and more hands-off characterization for the protagonist, it could have made for a seriously good centerpiece of a story.
A big issue that plagues the game and definitely brings down the story is the dialogue. It can be really hit or miss, and often when it misses, it MISSES. For the positives, a lot of its best moments come from the game's good character writing, which I'll get more into later. Another thing I like is how it usually considers context. There's loads of different variations for dialogue exchanges based on events that have happened or who is in your party. The voice acting is also generally pretty solid. As for the negatives, persuasion checks are absolutely awful. Characters will just change their minds in completely unnatural ways like you're using mind control on them, and it's unfortunate because persuasion checks usually happen at the most pivotal moments. The protagonist's dialogue is also just generally bad. Their writing can be quite bland, and the options are far too vague and sometimes too extreme. It's very easy to come off as way too nice or way too mean on accident. While NPC dialogue is more consistently decent, they are definitely prone to exposition tangents which can get old fast.
The main character may suck, but luckily, Fallout 4 has a legitimately good supporting cast. It's not the craziest thing in the world and you don't have to look hard to find a game with better, but still. I cannot deny my love for this game's characters, especially the companions. Codsworth is a super charming first companion and a good friend. Dogmeat may just be a dog, but his interactions are so cute. Piper is a determined journalist and my personal favorite character, and her connections to Diamond City are interesting. Nick Valentine is also awesome with his cool voice and super intriguing backstory. Danse is a stoic BoS soldier who is more than meets the eye. Then there's Cait, Curie, Hancock, MacCready, Preston, and I could go on and on. The companions are just so memorable and they all have their fans for a reason. You can grow your friendship and even romance some of them to learn more of their stories. They really do feel like friends. They'll even react to each other as well as the world around them on your travels together. Their characterization is amazing. There's lots of memorable NPCs too, with inhabitants of the various towns and factions having notable personalities and even sometimes charming dialogue or interesting side quests.
Sound and Visuals:
The sound design is pretty dang good, though audio glitches weren't uncommon (no surprise there). The music is quite nice too. There's of course the trademark mid-1900's licensed music the series loves, but there's also some original songs with the same vibe composed for the character Magnolia to sing. They're pretty good. Alongside that, there's the main soundtrack that'll play when you don't have the radio on. It's honestly beautiful and fits the vibes of walking through the wasteland so well.
Fallout 4's graphics haven't aged as bad as I thought they would, but it certainly hasn't been graceful. I remember feeling pretty mixed about them even at the time. The overall visual style is very dirty and bleak with muted colors, which works great since this is a game about an apocalyptic wasteland. The environment design can look pretty samey at times, but there's plenty of creativity on display too. Character/creature design is also good, as should be expected from the series. The character models themselves are solid too, but their animations can be super janky. The facial animation is especially stiff, which doesn't help with the presentation of the already iffy dialogue. There's lots of effort poured into other areas of the visual presentation though, like the animated intro cutscenes when you boot up the game or all the art on the magazine covers and whatnot. Overall, I'd say that the graphics are still competent even if aged.
Conclusion:
Fallout 4 is a really cool open world game that I don't think people give enough credit to. While the story has big problems, the game offers so much more than that. It provides an awesome world to explore with good mechanics and loads of side content to back it up. Sure, those parts of it aren't spotless either, but if nothing else, they have loads of charm that make them worthwhile. This game goes on sale for pretty cheap nowadays so give it a chance if you're a fan of the genre, though do definitely brace yourself for the potential glitches.
DLC:
Decided to include a quick breakdown of the DLC because why not.
Automatron is cool. The story is a bit of a nothing-burger, but the robot building mechanic it introduces is nothing to sneeze at. Has a few other neat features too.
Wasteland Workshop features cool new buildable stuff for settlements, but the main gimmick of trapping creatures doesn't work very well.
Far Harbor is the best DLC by far. It has a large new map with its own neat locations, new enemies, and even a genuinely interesting main story. There's lots of cool stuff to check out with this one.
I've actually never owned Contraption Workshop, but it seems kinda pointless.
Vault-Tec Workshop lets you build your own vault! It's kinda cool and gives you lots of useful new things to use on your settlements. The quest behind it kind of sucks though, so I wouldn't call it a must-have.
Nuka World kinda sucks. While the new map is pretty cool, its story is bland and the questline that follows it is downright grueling. I'm the only person I know in the large circle of Fallout 4-playing people in my life that has actually completed this DLC because it's just that long and painful. It at least offers a lot of content if nothing else.
Gameplay:
Fallout 4 is an open-world RPG with a large emphasis on FPS/TPS gameplay. You play as a former soldier (or the wife of a former soldier) from before the Great War and the sole survivor of an experiment involving cryogenic freezing in Vault 111. You wake up 200 years later and are tasked with navigating the wasteland and finding your kidnapped son… or screwing around… you can definitely do a lot of screwing around. The over 200 hours on my soft-locked save file is certainly a testament to that fact. This game has a lot of content.
Exploration is probably the best place to start discussing things, as it’s what shapes the gameplay loop. Fallout 4 features an expansive world packed with landmarks. There’s no shortage of interesting places to see, so going off the beaten path is always encouraged. If you just play the game for the main story, you’ll definitely miss out on what makes the game special. Even all these years later, the game still has one of my favorite open world maps. There’s interesting and unique items to collect, weird yet memorable side quests to do, and cool optional companions to find, to reasonably sum things up. However, I do have one big critique for the interior layout of buildings, and it’s that they can be so dang CONFUSING. I mean SERIOUSLY it is so easy to either get turned around or just flat-out lost due to their size and weird layouts. It’s such a pain, and it doesn’t help that they can sometimes feel super cramped too.
Combat is solid. Fallout 4 has definitely got it down in both the weapon and enemy variety departments. You’re seriously spoiled for choice with the weapons. You got pistols, rifles, baseball bats, snipers, rocket launchers, wooden boards, machine guns, shotguns, chainsaws, you name it. There’s a weapon for every occasion and tons of ways to modify them. If I had to give one substantial critique for it, it would be that there’s a bit too many ammo types, and it’s easy to run out of a certain type fast because it’s simply impossible to find. Nonetheless, it's an expansive and fairly impressive system. Armor is in a similar boat as well. Both normal armor and the series’ iconic Power Armor can be modified to your heart’s content. As for actually engaging with enemies, it’s pretty standard FPS/TPS stuff. You point at the things and click the buttons. There is the VATS mechanic, though, which will basically automatically shoot things for you if RNG deems you worthy. I never really used this mechanic as I had really bad luck with it, but it can be useful if you have the stats for it. Fights in Fallout 4 can be really intense. The game likes to overwhelm you or put you in situations where there’s an enemy who can kill you really quick if you don’t stay on your toes. I have my own mixed feelings about this, but generally, I think it can be pretty fun and leads to some exciting moments.
Throughout the world, you can find places to turn into settlements, which you can build on and make your own. This mechanic has both its upsides and downsides, but I’d say I have a positive opinion of it overall. As you explore and kill enemies, you can pick up junk to break down into material to use in modifying weapons or building up settlements. There's tons of customization options for settlements in the base game, and each of the DLC’s add even more. Settlements can hold your companions, grow food, contain a collection of workbenches, store your stuff, and generally just serve to be a safe place to hang out and make your own. They can be quite fun, but sadly, it does have its flaws. The happiness mechanic for your settlers is so finicky, and I’m sure achievement hunters all have nightmares about it. There’s also maybe a bit too many settlements around the map, and populating all of them can be a bit annoying so it’s better to ignore some completely. Each settlement you own also becomes a bit of a burden, as they can often be attacked by raiders or creatures while you’re away, and while you can totally ignore it, it can lead to some things being damaged and needing repair.
And finally, the stats and perks. Everytime you level up, you gain a point which you can spend on a skill tree. You can either spend that point in a stat to gain access to more perks associated with it, or you can spend it to actually unlock a perk. Perks are generally pretty useful, so it’s hard to go wrong with where you spend. However, points can quickly become sparse, making it a slog to unlock certain things and really be able to explore the range of abilities the game offers. Possibly the worst offender of this is the perks associated with building and modifying, since if you didn’t already invest points into the stats they’re associated with at the beginning, it can take forever to get to them and effectively level them up while also investing in other perks you need. It can lock you out of exploring a lot of the interesting weapons and armor modifications the game has to offer. But, as a whole, I’d say the skill system isn’t too bad. It’s fine for what it is.
Sadly, the game is quite buggy. There's loads of minor glitches littered throughout, and if you're unlucky like me, you can even get soft-locked! Yay! It is 2024, so things might have been ironed out by now, but who knows. It's a Bethesda game.
Story and Characters: (Spoiler Warning)
My main save file soft-locking really saved my perception of this game’s story for a long time. I got soft-locked a few missions before the protag actually finds their child, so the rest of the game lived in my mind for a long time as this mythical, epic story of choice and conflict. I built this picture in my head from the things I heard from my friends and family. However, when I finally actually beat the game… yeaaah, it’s uhhh… just kinda meh. I have a lot to say about this game’s writing, both good and bad, so I’ll start by explaining the plot in its entirety.
You start off with an opening monologue from Nate, a former soldier living in Massachusetts, talking about the horrors of war before cutting to him in his house in front of a mirror. This is where you modify your character’s appearance and/or swap to Nora, Nate’s wife who works as a lawyer. After that, you just vibe in your house for a while with your baby son, Shaun, and your robot butler, Codsworth. Eventually, a nervous Vault-Tec rep comes to your door and gets you to register for a spot at the nearby Vault 111. This is where you’ll pick out your starting stats. You do more vibing then OOPS sudden nuclear war. Nate and Nora take Shaun, head to the vault, and are seemingly safe while the world outside is annihilated. However, everyone in the vault is immediately thrown into cryopods to be awoken at a later date. After who-knows-how-long passes, you wake up, but are not completely unfrozen. You see scientists surrounding your spouse who’s holding Shaun, trying to take the baby from them. After your spouse resists, they are shot and killed by a rough looking man who’s assisting the scientists in this kidnapping. You get frozen again, wake up several years later, and vow to avenge your spouse and save your son. However, it seems that the vault had gone derelict a long time ago, with you being the only sole survivor in the cryopods. You get out of the vault alone and venture into the wasteland. (Side note: I experienced this entire opening for the first time while secretly watching my dad play it from a distance. I was still young at the time so it freaked me out. I remember being especially startled when the spouse got shot. I don’t know how impactful this opening is for adults, but I know it definitely imprinted into the mind of child me.) From there, you meet up with Codsworth in the ruins of your neighborhood and learn that it’s been 200 years since the bombs fell. You can choose to go do whatever at this point, but otherwise, the game naturally leads you further down the road where you find a shootout at the town of Concord. Clear the enemies and you’ll meet the Minutemen. The Minutemen are a real ragtag group, and their mission is to protect the settlements of the Commonwealth, which is the name for the Massachusetts wasteland. They give you your first set of Power Armor, and while you can stay and do quests for them, they point you to a place called Diamond City as a starting point for the search for your son. On your way there, you get a distress signal from the Brotherhood of Steel which you can investigate if you so choose. Once you actually arrive at Diamond City, you quickly get a tip relating to an organization called the Railroad, which you can also pursue. Otherwise, stuff happens and you meet a detective named Nick Valentine. You learn that Shaun was taken by the Institute, a mysterious organization that kidnaps people to replace them with androids called Synths. They've been causing conflict in the Commonwealth for quite some time. You specifically follow the trail of a mercenary named Kellogg, who is the same person who killed your spouse. You find him, kill him, take his brain matter, search through his memories, and learn the secret to getting into the Institute is teleportation. Stuff happens and you can eventually build a teleporter. You can now enter and explore the Institute, a super advanced place of science and technology, and meet Shaun. You find out that he is now actually an old man and the child you saw in Kellogg's memories was actually a Synth recreation of himself. Shaun goes by the Father now and is the Institute's leader. After this, you have a choice to make. Side with the Institute, Brotherhood, Railroad, or Minutemen to decide the Commonwealth's fate. Each faction has their own ideas for its future. The Brotherhood wants to eradicate the Synths and the Institute, as well as other Brotherhood of Steely things. The Railroad wants to destroy the Institute but save Synths by integrating them into society. The Institute wants to save the Commonwealth with its revolutionary technology or something like that. The Minutemen… I actually don't know what the Minutemen want… I think they just want to homestead... Anyway, siding with the Institute will see you becoming its leader and destroying the competition. Siding with the Railroad or Brotherhood will also have you beating up the competition, and the Minutemen will simply blow up the Institute while remaining relatively friendly with the others. And that is the story of Fallout 4 :)
Now, you may be wondering, “OneTrooBloo, why did you write an 800 word summary of the game's plot?” and that's because I need it to effectively discuss my problems with it. First of all, Nate and Nora stink as RPG protagonists. Nate is too defined. He's supposed to be an honorable soldier who loves his wife, yet he can go out into the wasteland, do crimes, and form a harem. Nora is more of a blank slate, but it doesn't really make sense that she can just wield a gun right off the bat. Both of them are dead-set on finding Shaun according to their dialogue, yet you can just do whatever and even ignore him if you want. The freedom to choose your faction at the end just feels so weird for the characters too. At every turn, the game feels like it wants to give you freedom to be who you want to be, but the narrative is constantly fighting it and losing. As a result, I don't really know who my character is as a person, making it kind of hard to really connect with them. Second of all, the faction stuff. The factions are cool on an individual level, but they really harm the story by sending it in all kinds of different directions that just sort of have the same result. You just kill everybody and they're gone, and for what? It's frankly more of a detriment to the world, because now you've just made enemies and limited some of the places you can go. Not to mention that the factions are unbalanced. The Minutemen seem like dweebs. The Railroad is OVERHATED. LOOK, I KNOW THEY LIKE THE COLOR BROWN TOO MUCH BUT I THINK THEY HAVE A NOBLE GOAL... The Institute has sci-fi stuff. And then there's the Brotherhood of Steel. Almost everyone I knew who played the game sided with them. Who wouldn't want to have cool airships and metal army people on your side? I'm a Railroad advocate, but I cannot deny the BoS's absurd level of coolness. It sort of defeats the point of having pickable factions. I will admit though, their philosophical dynamic is pretty cool. The conflict in regards to Synths is legitimately interesting. I think with better writing and more hands-off characterization for the protagonist, it could have made for a seriously good centerpiece of a story.
A big issue that plagues the game and definitely brings down the story is the dialogue. It can be really hit or miss, and often when it misses, it MISSES. For the positives, a lot of its best moments come from the game's good character writing, which I'll get more into later. Another thing I like is how it usually considers context. There's loads of different variations for dialogue exchanges based on events that have happened or who is in your party. The voice acting is also generally pretty solid. As for the negatives, persuasion checks are absolutely awful. Characters will just change their minds in completely unnatural ways like you're using mind control on them, and it's unfortunate because persuasion checks usually happen at the most pivotal moments. The protagonist's dialogue is also just generally bad. Their writing can be quite bland, and the options are far too vague and sometimes too extreme. It's very easy to come off as way too nice or way too mean on accident. While NPC dialogue is more consistently decent, they are definitely prone to exposition tangents which can get old fast.
The main character may suck, but luckily, Fallout 4 has a legitimately good supporting cast. It's not the craziest thing in the world and you don't have to look hard to find a game with better, but still. I cannot deny my love for this game's characters, especially the companions. Codsworth is a super charming first companion and a good friend. Dogmeat may just be a dog, but his interactions are so cute. Piper is a determined journalist and my personal favorite character, and her connections to Diamond City are interesting. Nick Valentine is also awesome with his cool voice and super intriguing backstory. Danse is a stoic BoS soldier who is more than meets the eye. Then there's Cait, Curie, Hancock, MacCready, Preston, and I could go on and on. The companions are just so memorable and they all have their fans for a reason. You can grow your friendship and even romance some of them to learn more of their stories. They really do feel like friends. They'll even react to each other as well as the world around them on your travels together. Their characterization is amazing. There's lots of memorable NPCs too, with inhabitants of the various towns and factions having notable personalities and even sometimes charming dialogue or interesting side quests.
Sound and Visuals:
The sound design is pretty dang good, though audio glitches weren't uncommon (no surprise there). The music is quite nice too. There's of course the trademark mid-1900's licensed music the series loves, but there's also some original songs with the same vibe composed for the character Magnolia to sing. They're pretty good. Alongside that, there's the main soundtrack that'll play when you don't have the radio on. It's honestly beautiful and fits the vibes of walking through the wasteland so well.
Fallout 4's graphics haven't aged as bad as I thought they would, but it certainly hasn't been graceful. I remember feeling pretty mixed about them even at the time. The overall visual style is very dirty and bleak with muted colors, which works great since this is a game about an apocalyptic wasteland. The environment design can look pretty samey at times, but there's plenty of creativity on display too. Character/creature design is also good, as should be expected from the series. The character models themselves are solid too, but their animations can be super janky. The facial animation is especially stiff, which doesn't help with the presentation of the already iffy dialogue. There's lots of effort poured into other areas of the visual presentation though, like the animated intro cutscenes when you boot up the game or all the art on the magazine covers and whatnot. Overall, I'd say that the graphics are still competent even if aged.
Conclusion:
Fallout 4 is a really cool open world game that I don't think people give enough credit to. While the story has big problems, the game offers so much more than that. It provides an awesome world to explore with good mechanics and loads of side content to back it up. Sure, those parts of it aren't spotless either, but if nothing else, they have loads of charm that make them worthwhile. This game goes on sale for pretty cheap nowadays so give it a chance if you're a fan of the genre, though do definitely brace yourself for the potential glitches.
DLC:
Decided to include a quick breakdown of the DLC because why not.
Automatron is cool. The story is a bit of a nothing-burger, but the robot building mechanic it introduces is nothing to sneeze at. Has a few other neat features too.
Wasteland Workshop features cool new buildable stuff for settlements, but the main gimmick of trapping creatures doesn't work very well.
Far Harbor is the best DLC by far. It has a large new map with its own neat locations, new enemies, and even a genuinely interesting main story. There's lots of cool stuff to check out with this one.
I've actually never owned Contraption Workshop, but it seems kinda pointless.
Vault-Tec Workshop lets you build your own vault! It's kinda cool and gives you lots of useful new things to use on your settlements. The quest behind it kind of sucks though, so I wouldn't call it a must-have.
Nuka World kinda sucks. While the new map is pretty cool, its story is bland and the questline that follows it is downright grueling. I'm the only person I know in the large circle of Fallout 4-playing people in my life that has actually completed this DLC because it's just that long and painful. It at least offers a lot of content if nothing else.