Out of curiosity, because I've somehow accumulated them all over the years, I installed the original Fallout.
It is not a friendly game, by modern standards.
Everything is very small and very brown. You have to repeatedly right-click to toggle how you're interacting with the world. The writing is wildly variable, but leans towards the bad. The UI is inscrutible and fiddly, but I eventually worked out how to equip and use items so I wasn't killed by a rat eight feet from the vault door.
I can just about see the outlines of what people liked back in the mists of 1997, but I'm not sure I'll be going back to it.
Two episodes into Fallout, and it's… okay? I'm not a fan of the games, and the 50s music & retro-futurist aesthetic don't really do it for me, so it was always kind of going to be a harder sell.
I don't think it quite balances the grim and the goofy tonally, and some of the VFX/SFX could be better - like, the power armor looks weirdly cheap and weightless, like very good amateur cosplay.
I'm interested to see where it goes once everyone kind of comes together a bit more (an assumption on my part, but I guess we'll see), and the cast are mostly very good.
Spoiler - click to showThat would match the historical William Adams, so maybe! I do like that better.
EDIT:
Spoiler - click to showIt's also borne out by the offical podcast - the showrunner says that's what it is!
Shōgun stuck the landing pretty well!
Spoiler - click to showThe framing device of Old Man In Bed seemed largely pointless, and only really served to undermine the peril of Blackthorne's would-be sacrifice. It's not the worst thing in the world, I just think it detracted more than it added.
I want to watch the whole thing again immediately.
I've also been watching Renegade Nell in bits and pieces, and enjoying it tremendously. It's anachronistic supernatural YA cheese through and through - and unfortunately doesn't have quite the budget it needs in places - but it doesn't take itself at all seriously, and Louisa Harland (Orla from Derry Girls) is fantastic.
The first time I heard of this was a sidebar ad that made it look like a mobile game; I thought it was some kind of idle battler/gacha thing for ages.
Ninchilla