Circus Electrique is a game that wears it's inspiration on it's sleeve.
As a more accessible Darkest Dungeon set in a Victorian steampunk world you play the role of Amelia Craig, a journalist returning to the newly opened 'Circus Electrique'. The circus is run by your uncle Randolph, a man she blames for her mothers death. Finding herself coming to a place she vowed never to return to at the same time as London is beset by 'the maddening' where people are turning vicious and attack for no reason leaves Amelia and the members of the Circus left to find out what is causing it.
The story premise is actually pretty good overall and some of the characters are well realized but it does take time to truly get anywhere and revelations fell a little flat or were predictable with a truly nothing of an ending final scene really deflating the entire experience. In a similar vein the gameplay initially seems interesting mixing circus management and exploration and combat. Despite London's current event 'the show must go on!' after all. However it feels overly drawn out towards the end with no variation leaving it feeling rather rote.
Initially the circus shows must be set up meaning you have to split your characters into two teams, the circus performers who will put on a show and the circus combatants who will explore outside on a tile like map in regions of London. Each battle counts as a day completed which will often also complete the show. Each show requires certain stats to preform (music, awe, happiness and whatever the other symbol means) and will gain certain resources and rewards at the end depending on how you do. Each member of the circus you recruit has different stats and requires resource to level up skills or even food to maintain. Even on hard however these resources were coming out of my ears to the point I had 2.5k food and used 15 a day n the final chapter. It all became rather meaningless.
Each troupe members vocation is their combat class in battle. Clown, Strongman, Snake Charmer, Belly dancer, Juggler, Ventriloquist, Acrobat etc. The character designs for each class are pretty good though I must admit. They had a very stylized almost caricature version of circus performers from that era that are pretty striking. Each class has different skills and even among the same class there is some variation on both skills and circus stats. They get recruited from a random pool you can refresh meaning to get the best characters for what you want to build party wise involves a lot of save scumming for the RNG or just making do. Exploring the map aside from battles will reveal scenarios to choose from for the right answers for prizes and you can choose different paths that you can then later replay. It's all kind of the same though and the lack of variety is really felt including in combat where I used the same team for most of the game. It felt like I was just going through the motions by the end.
Aside from dragging a little and the disappointing ending I had other issues too with trophies just not unlocking for no reason and though I reset the game and got some of them at least one is completely locked out meaning I would need to do a full playthrough again to obtain which further soured me at the end on the whole affair.
Overall the Circus Electrique isn't a bad game however, in fact aspects of it are good both mechanically and artistically but it's missing that headline act for a really sell out experience. Still if you ever though Darkest Dungeon was too hard and what you really want is to see a clown throw a ball at a robot bear then this might be the game for you.
+ Nice premise.
+ I like the character and art designs.
- Ending was kinda disappointing.
- Gets stale towards the end.
- I experienced some trophy bugs.
As a more accessible Darkest Dungeon set in a Victorian steampunk world you play the role of Amelia Craig, a journalist returning to the newly opened 'Circus Electrique'. The circus is run by your uncle Randolph, a man she blames for her mothers death. Finding herself coming to a place she vowed never to return to at the same time as London is beset by 'the maddening' where people are turning vicious and attack for no reason leaves Amelia and the members of the Circus left to find out what is causing it.
The story premise is actually pretty good overall and some of the characters are well realized but it does take time to truly get anywhere and revelations fell a little flat or were predictable with a truly nothing of an ending final scene really deflating the entire experience. In a similar vein the gameplay initially seems interesting mixing circus management and exploration and combat. Despite London's current event 'the show must go on!' after all. However it feels overly drawn out towards the end with no variation leaving it feeling rather rote.
Initially the circus shows must be set up meaning you have to split your characters into two teams, the circus performers who will put on a show and the circus combatants who will explore outside on a tile like map in regions of London. Each battle counts as a day completed which will often also complete the show. Each show requires certain stats to preform (music, awe, happiness and whatever the other symbol means) and will gain certain resources and rewards at the end depending on how you do. Each member of the circus you recruit has different stats and requires resource to level up skills or even food to maintain. Even on hard however these resources were coming out of my ears to the point I had 2.5k food and used 15 a day n the final chapter. It all became rather meaningless.
Each troupe members vocation is their combat class in battle. Clown, Strongman, Snake Charmer, Belly dancer, Juggler, Ventriloquist, Acrobat etc. The character designs for each class are pretty good though I must admit. They had a very stylized almost caricature version of circus performers from that era that are pretty striking. Each class has different skills and even among the same class there is some variation on both skills and circus stats. They get recruited from a random pool you can refresh meaning to get the best characters for what you want to build party wise involves a lot of save scumming for the RNG or just making do. Exploring the map aside from battles will reveal scenarios to choose from for the right answers for prizes and you can choose different paths that you can then later replay. It's all kind of the same though and the lack of variety is really felt including in combat where I used the same team for most of the game. It felt like I was just going through the motions by the end.
Aside from dragging a little and the disappointing ending I had other issues too with trophies just not unlocking for no reason and though I reset the game and got some of them at least one is completely locked out meaning I would need to do a full playthrough again to obtain which further soured me at the end on the whole affair.
Overall the Circus Electrique isn't a bad game however, in fact aspects of it are good both mechanically and artistically but it's missing that headline act for a really sell out experience. Still if you ever though Darkest Dungeon was too hard and what you really want is to see a clown throw a ball at a robot bear then this might be the game for you.
+ Nice premise.
+ I like the character and art designs.
- Ending was kinda disappointing.
- Gets stale towards the end.
- I experienced some trophy bugs.