In the middle of the development of the first S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game, a few crucial creatives started 4A Games in Kyiv. They weren't the first studio to schism from GSC Game World, and they weren't the last, (because, it seems, Sergiy Grygorovych is a donkey), but by now it seems 4A has taken the prize as the chosen spiritual successor studio for the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. lineage or whatever, even though S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 is coming.
I have never played S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (I'm getting sick of typing that out, there's so many punctuation marks), but I am given to understand it has this gameplay/vibe, just more open-ended. And by this gameplay/vibe, I guess I mean the Big Roadside Picnic Energy game. You know what I mean; post-disaster- no apocalypse necessary, but it's preferred; an overwhelming Slavic atmosphere that if I could pin it down is somewhere between pure dread and dogged determination in the face of increasingly long odds; uncanny monsters and anomalies. You know it when you see it.
Although this game has certain kinks added to that formula, probably from the source material. Both Communists (not the cool type, the Marxist-Leninist type) and Nazis (there is no cool type of Nazi) are besetting the poor bastards who are just trying to survive. Most iconically, bullets are currency, although specifically high-quality bullets. The cheaper, post-collapse-of-all-professional-munitions-manufacture pills are worth nothing, which makes sense.
Mechanically, the game is sound. Before it was remastered it was probably less sound, but as of right now, the game is sound. There are often, throughout the extremely linear campaign(which is to its benefit, given the subway theming, because mission by mission, on the loading screens you see your particular route through the titular Moscow Metro), moments where stealth is incentivized, although not mandatory, and this probably lends it some replayability, alongside the generous difficulty options. The real thing that makes this game special is the atmosphere and the tension; at any moment, you feel like, you could end up in a dangerous tangent, whether it's the enemies cornering you in a cell and then pulling a trigger in your head, or the monsters killing you, or the weird alien fellas killing you. It all boils down to feeling like time is running out, basically.
That's due to the linearity to a great extent, but it's also due to the story; you are a 24-year-old guy in Exhibition who has up to this moment been your average survivor. Orphaned, yes. Living on a knife's edge, yes, like everyone in this hell the world has become, but so far not slipping off. Anyway, the station gets attacked, and you're forced to get help in Polis from a faction of good guys. That's a simple premise, but the trick is in the experience, the moving on down the line (and above the surface, God help you), the forward momentum, the world that is constructed around you by the developers. Even in this sort of jank state, the developers show a great understanding of narrative and environmental design (the latter looking better in this remastered state than it did before, probably). This was a wild ride, and I am dying to know how they improve on it with the other two games.

This is a good game, but there's far too much of it. If I had taken a week or a bit more than a week to concentrate my gaming activity to only playing this game, I'd have probably been dead by hour 20. I can't tell you of what; probably acute nicotine poisoning, given the subject matter of this game.
Oh, the story? Who gives a fuck? I am not the sort of gamer that has to have every story in their games be good- and at least this one didn't actively anger me like Far Cry 5's did. The villain was stunt casted. There's a Rambo mission. They hath given me slop, and I have eaten, and yea, I have not vomited. I can't say that with every game like this. Give me a break.

If one ever found this game, somehow, one would be befuddled. And I should know, because I was. Who is System Create? Why do they have a registered trademark sign in their logo, when this appears to be the only thing they ever made? Where did they come from? Where did they go?
Then you play it, and things begin to make more sense. This was probably not a high-priced game. It is a 3D colour-matching game, sort of like Columns, except it looks like it was made by the sort of fly-by-night operation that thrived in Japan in the PS1 era, because it probably was; 20-30 people, the knowledge of how to make a video game scattered and spiced amongst them, some brand-new computers, and a dream.
The dream (in this case, going off vibes: bigg mone), judging by the fact that nobody has heard of this game (and I mean nobody; if you survey the hardcore Japanese PS1 gamers of the era they'd probably scratch their heads as much as the nearest Westerner), has its wreckage somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. But that's unfair. This isn't that bad. Not much meat on the bones, but it is thoroughly competent and pleasant (aside from the splash screen that comes in after the opening animatic and before the main menu loads in. Bad vibes. Can't explain it), and the soundtrack ought to please anyone hungry for someone going way harder with a General MIDI workstation keyboard than this game demanded (specifically with that Latin-flavoured track, goddamn!)