See if we can play with madness in our Call of Cthulhu Review.
On paper, Cyanide’s Call of Cthulhu has the potential to be a deeply enriching dive into classic Lovecraft mythos thanks to a heavy influence from the 1981 tabletop pen and paper role-playing game of the same name. and you know what? Those pen and paper roots are where Call of Cthulhu tends to be strongest, but that’s also a part of the reason the game’s weaknesses are so prominent.
You play as private detective Edward Pierce, stuck in a rut via existential crisis when an intriguing case lands in his lap. Pierce must travel to Darkwater Island to investigate the death of the Hawkins family, who all tragically died in a fire at their home. Pierce hasn’t got much to go on, but a disturbing painting by the family’s mother could provide an otherworldy clue. Before you know it, there’s cultists, unspeakable creatures, and a sense of impending doom around every green-hued corner.
Call of Cthulhu is presented in first-person and gives you a procession of large open areas to explore and investigate during each chapter. Pierce can interact with the people of Darkwater, asking them questions to gain fresh insight and information on the case. Here is where Call of Cthulhu shines. The game doesn’t point out its clues to you in an obvious way, rather, it asks you to pay attention to what you see and what you’re told and go back over the notes in Pierce’s journal. As you complete smaller objectives you gain points to upgrade your skills in deduction, conversation, and knowledge of the occult among others. These effectively improve your chances of succeeding in certain sections of the game, be it gleaning extra info from an artifact or sweet-talking a disgruntled fisherman into starting a ruckus.
While this method oversimplifies interaction in some ways, it makes for a great spin on the visual novel genre where you have a bit more control. Not so much a ‘walking simulator’, but rather a digital equivalent of a pen and paper RPG. This means you can fail an opportunity to progress one way, and still have a variety of other routes available depending on how skilled you are at a certain thing. The system is the most in-depth part of Call of Cthulhu and it’s a very good reason to persevere when certain other aspects of the game fall spectacularly short.
You see, while Call of Cthulhu talks a good game, whenever it tries to be a more ‘traditional’ video game it struggles. Stealth is introduced a few chapters in and is of the insta-fail variety. The first time it appears it’s fairly easy to navigate, though the game doesn’t explain itself very well in regards to how it works. It’s when it shows up the next time that it’s a frustrating mess. You’re hunted by a foe, unable to defend yourself without obtaining a certain weapon. Problem is, the stealth is implemented in such a patchy, ineffectual way that it makes traversing the environment a harrowing affair as you’ll be killed the second you’re touched by the enemy and its view of you is a tad vague.
Combat is another sore point. It’s very, very rare, confined mostly to situational button prompts that you can barely class as combat to begin with, but it does appear in an ever-so-slightly more fleshed out form later in the game, and it is wholly unpleasant and ill-fitting with the game. It’s telling that the source material has an aversion to combat in the first place, but quite why that extends to shonky stealth is a bit of a mystery, especially when Cyanide is no stranger to it.
These are somewhat brief ripples in the water thankfully. The structure outside of it is so well handled you can almost forgive these indiscretions. Take the way the game handles sanity. It’s woven into every kind of action you take, and your understanding, or lack thereof, can determine just how Pierce’s psyche holds up over the ten or so hours he spends on the damned island. That then flows through into the game’s branching choices and eventual multiple endings too, and the results are satisfying even with the more risible things you have to endure to get there.
These deep systems are nothing though if Call of Cthulhu can’t capture the tone and atmosphere of Lovecraft’s work, and for the most part, it does that exceedingly well, but this is a game with a fair few rough edges to navigate in the technical department. Visually-speaking, Cthulhu is a suitably uneven beast. On the one hand, it’s strong in its world design. The somber, grim greens of the game’s visual atmosphere wash over everything, giving an ethereal look to this once-proud fishing town. The biggest compliment you can pay Call of Cthulhu is that it often manages to feel positively Lovecraftian. Not all the time (there are some sections that are a tad humdrum and could be from any first-person horror), but a significant portion of it.
Detail isn’t always Call of Cthulhu’s friend sadly. The character models are largely stunningly similar, and for a game that does not exactly have the biggest cast of characters around, it’s rather unfortunate how cheap that makes Call of Cthulhu look. The animation commits a comparable crime. Lip-sync is well out, and character models move rigidly and mechanically. It surprisingly doesn’t take as much out of the immersion as you’d expect, but the wrong combination of issues (which is an all-too-common occurrence) really can derail the mood.
Throw in an endgame that funnels you towards the conclusion in a far more basic manner than the opening sections and the overall feeling I came away with was one of frustration. There is a lot of promise here, but not quite enough of it fulfilled. The combat could have been done away with completely (rare as it is anyway) and the stealth either ditched or simplified. The strong suit of Call of Cthulhu is in its conversation/investigation mechanics. Sure the game would have been a little lacking in variety if that’s all there was but honestly, it would have been a much more consistently enjoyable and immersive adventure for it.
Call of Cthulhu review code provided by the publisher.
Call of Cthulhu is available now on PS4, Xbox One, and PC.