Fallout: Classic Collection

Fallout is a total vibe, but like, a depressing one. You're a Vault Dweller who's been hiding in an underground bunker your whole life 'cuz the world got nuked to hell and now your water supply system is busted, so you gotta suit up and go topside into a desolate wasteland to find a new one. It's a classic hero's journey but everything is brown, rusted and wants to kill you since the game is built around this «survival of the fittest» mentality. Gameplay-wise, it's all isometric and turn based, you create your character with these stats called S.P.E.C.I.A.L. and basically walk around this map, stumble into towns and talk to people or blast them. A fun fact is that the game actually lets you be dumb, like, if you make a character with low intelligence, your dialogue options become grunts and gestures and it completely changes how the game plays and people react to you.

Fallout: Classic Collection

Fallout

Fallout 2

Fallout 2 came out right after and it's basically the same game but cranked up to eleven. You play as a descendant of the first game's protagonist, part of a small village trying to survive and your job is to find this thing called the Garden of Eden Creation Kit to save your people but what makes it feel like a massive second act is how big it gets. The first game was about surviving in a ruined world but the second one is about what happens when people start rebuilding, which somehow makes it feels more messed up. The humor is way more «in your face» too but it feels less like a lonely survival trip and more like a really twisted road trip across the postapocalypse.

Now for the bad, 'cuz yeah, these games have issues. The user interface is rough and you'll be in a town with a several identical looking people and you have to click on every single one to find the one who actually have a quest and the quests themselves can be so frustrating. You might need to use a specific computer, but it's in a room with thirty other computers that all look the same or you might need some random item you sold three hours ago because you had no clue it was important, and seriously, the inventory management is a nightmare. The funny thing is the game's solution to its own bad design is often just to kill everyone. Can't fulfill the side quest? Just shoot the guy. Can't find an item? Pickpocket it. It turns frustration into a fun kind of chaotic freedom.

And yeah, there's a tech wizard who managed to cram these games onto the 3DS, using the Community Editions as a base, which are already a huge deal because it fixes a ton of the originals' bugs and adds some QoL features, he's been tweaking the graphics rendering, fixing how the mouse simulation works with the 3DS and optimizing this game even more for the system. Now for Fallout 2 is a whole different story since it's still a prealpha, is probably only for the New 3DS models and the loading times are a slog right now. Also, I tried several times to make a forwarder for this sequel, but it just keep crashing. So, you'll have to go to the Homebrew Launcher and launch it from there instead.

Download

Your vault needs you! The water supply system is busted, the G.E.C.K. is still missing or maybe you just got exiled. Whatever the case, stop hoarding bottle caps and hit that download button to grab this mysterious .RAR file left over from before the war. Extract its irradiated contents, then drag every single folder straight onto the root of your SD card. If you're playing the first game, go ahead and install that .CIA, for Fallout 2 tho, you'll need to launch it through the Homebrew Launcher for now. Fire it up, crank that Pip-Boy light and try not to get murked by radscorpions on the way to Shady Sands. Think you can make it without turning into a ghoul?