I guess it's an alright stealth game, and the depiction of Innsmouth is still better than the horrendous Stuart Gordon movie (Dagon). But the atrocious writing ruins any attempts at horror and immersion here.
Every character and their every line of dialogue is a cliche. Every cutscenes is a borefest. The writing neither imitates Lovecraft's style nor even the way people talked at the beginning of the 20th century. And having stuff like "Gilman Hotel" with its owner Charlie Gilman is like something out of a parody. Oh yeah, we fish-people like to have fish-related names so you could see there's something fishy about us. In addition, the game expects you to read logs, which are just as horrendously written. If this game was a book, nobody would've ever read it. I gave up at the point where Zadok was retelling me the premise of 'The Shadow over Innsmouth', at which point I questioned what I was even doing, listening to this bastardized version of a great book instead of just revisiting the actual book.
I'm not gonna address the gameplay much, which seems fine for a stealth game, but I'm not usually into stealth games unless they do something unique and cool like Tenchu or MGS. But there is this dissonance between the story and the gameplay that manifests in different ways. For example, there's a million of locked doors. And I like to check every corner of every level for the fear of missing something (especially in adventure games), and the phrase "it won't budge" has become a major annoyance in the little time I played this. Interacting with objects just to hear the character say obvious things like "it's a stove" is also making the game look silly, thus reducing the horror. And what's up with that prologue where they send you into a house full of armed cultists without a gun? It just doesn't make sense and takes you out of the world. I felt the same way with all the rude Innsmouthians that straight up insult you without the game letting you retaliate. I'd much rather they just grunted and walked away, which I think would only add to the sense alienation and suspicion.
I think, while CoC: DCotE (what an acronym!) is a better game, Darkness Within, which I reviewed recently, is an infinitely better Lovecraftian horror adventure. I'd rather play that game with a guide than spend any time on this without one. Plus I've heard it becomes very action-y in the second half and that the action here is not very good.
Every character and their every line of dialogue is a cliche. Every cutscenes is a borefest. The writing neither imitates Lovecraft's style nor even the way people talked at the beginning of the 20th century. And having stuff like "Gilman Hotel" with its owner Charlie Gilman is like something out of a parody. Oh yeah, we fish-people like to have fish-related names so you could see there's something fishy about us. In addition, the game expects you to read logs, which are just as horrendously written. If this game was a book, nobody would've ever read it. I gave up at the point where Zadok was retelling me the premise of 'The Shadow over Innsmouth', at which point I questioned what I was even doing, listening to this bastardized version of a great book instead of just revisiting the actual book.
I'm not gonna address the gameplay much, which seems fine for a stealth game, but I'm not usually into stealth games unless they do something unique and cool like Tenchu or MGS. But there is this dissonance between the story and the gameplay that manifests in different ways. For example, there's a million of locked doors. And I like to check every corner of every level for the fear of missing something (especially in adventure games), and the phrase "it won't budge" has become a major annoyance in the little time I played this. Interacting with objects just to hear the character say obvious things like "it's a stove" is also making the game look silly, thus reducing the horror. And what's up with that prologue where they send you into a house full of armed cultists without a gun? It just doesn't make sense and takes you out of the world. I felt the same way with all the rude Innsmouthians that straight up insult you without the game letting you retaliate. I'd much rather they just grunted and walked away, which I think would only add to the sense alienation and suspicion.
I think, while CoC: DCotE (what an acronym!) is a better game, Darkness Within, which I reviewed recently, is an infinitely better Lovecraftian horror adventure. I'd rather play that game with a guide than spend any time on this without one. Plus I've heard it becomes very action-y in the second half and that the action here is not very good.
2 Comments
@TheQuietGamer I dunno what to say, man. I'm very nitpicky about the way things are written, not only their content. A lot of people like the content of Lovecraft's stories but not his writing. I've heard people call him a bad writer. I actually think Lovecraft is one of the greatest writers of all time, and his often-overlooked Dream Cycle is probably even better than the Cthulhu Mythos. And I don't see this game attempting his style at all. And, as someone who enjoys old Gothic literature more than most modern books, I feel like this game isn't even being an authentic representation of its time period. I just looked it up, and the main writer on this game is also the lead designer, who doesn't seem to have any other writing credits, and the contributing writer is another game designer, whose only writing experience is rulebooks for fantasy tabletop games. I mean it was pretty evident to me, because writing in games is more often than not treated similarly to writing in mainstream cinema: there is focus on characters and plot, and the macro-storytelling. While micro-storytelling gets neglected, the little pieces of information fed to you every couple of minutes have no actual substance beyond just moving the plot forward.
Regarding the Stuart Gordon movies, they're all sex and violence. I'm pretty sure Lovecraft would've disliked them. He was a gentleman who admired the romanticism and chivalry of the olden times that he felt was deteriorating with the influx of immigrants ruining the Western culture (not that I agree with him on that part). His stories, while often referencing horrific and blasphemous rituals, never actually described what exactly was going on there. I feel like Stuart Gordon flat out doesn't understand Lovecraft. His most famous movie is Reanimator, which I haven't seen, but it's based on the least Lovecraftian of Lovecraft's stories, which he himself only wrote for money. His From Beyond straight up misses the point of cosmic horror, making a human being the main villain of the story. And, while Dagon is a lesser offender, it still leans into the "creature-feature" territory, making the fish people exaggerated boogeymen with bulging eyes and sharp teeth that cut people's faces off. There's no subtlety whatsoever, which is kinda at the core of that story. The true horror of Lovecraft's fiction is that these entities are not evil, they're indifferent. These fish-people are a society. Their culture and customs might seem scary to us, but our opinions don't matter. They're a superior species and will gradually take over. This game did better than the movie, but it still lacks subtlety, I think.
Regarding the Stuart Gordon movies, they're all sex and violence. I'm pretty sure Lovecraft would've disliked them. He was a gentleman who admired the romanticism and chivalry of the olden times that he felt was deteriorating with the influx of immigrants ruining the Western culture (not that I agree with him on that part). His stories, while often referencing horrific and blasphemous rituals, never actually described what exactly was going on there. I feel like Stuart Gordon flat out doesn't understand Lovecraft. His most famous movie is Reanimator, which I haven't seen, but it's based on the least Lovecraftian of Lovecraft's stories, which he himself only wrote for money. His From Beyond straight up misses the point of cosmic horror, making a human being the main villain of the story. And, while Dagon is a lesser offender, it still leans into the "creature-feature" territory, making the fish people exaggerated boogeymen with bulging eyes and sharp teeth that cut people's faces off. There's no subtlety whatsoever, which is kinda at the core of that story. The true horror of Lovecraft's fiction is that these entities are not evil, they're indifferent. These fish-people are a society. Their culture and customs might seem scary to us, but our opinions don't matter. They're a superior species and will gradually take over. This game did better than the movie, but it still lacks subtlety, I think.
TheQuietGamer
3 days ago