The Council

Without ruining much, this is a great and interesting political aventure/narrative game that has some serious flaws, like some ocassional glitches requiring you to restart a chapter (the developer has been steadily fixing those), but the story and replay value is high if you're into historical fantasy games and exploration games. The game is a bit harder than most, so if you're not writing stuff down or have a will to remember stuff, this is going to be a maddenning game. Those flaws in place, there's nothing like this game out there and I hope there is either a sequel or an offshoot.

The Council blew me away as the creators managed to excell at some very difficult things. First of all the Plot is captivating. All of the characters are interesting personalities with their own secrets which you can discover and use against them, if you so choose. The web of shifting alliances, betrails and secret goals always keeps you on your toes. The game also trusts you to make decisions which are not explicitly staed. Often you are not bluntly told that the information you found is relevant, rather there are dialogue options you can choose which get rekontextualised by the information you discovered. This makes it all the more rewarding when you figure out how to handle a konversation/konfrontation, because you did indeed figure it out on your own. Tension without combat can sometimes be hard to pull of, but in the Council does a brilliant job in this department two. There are all kinds of tense konversations where you can try to hold back crucial information or pretend to know whats going on when you really dont and much more. The variity of nonviolent konflikt in this game is amazing. There are also quite a lot of puzzels in the council and they all fit the theme and hit the sweetspot of beeing difficult, but not frustratingly so. Also some of the puzzels can be solved in a wrong way and you walk away from it thinking you had it only to later find out that you got it wrong. The skillsystem is also very well designed and also acts as an aid when you are lost as you can get hints and information by using your abilities. It is also cleverly interwoven with the characters as they respond differently to different approches. I would absolutly recommend the Council to everyone who contemplates playing it. It is executed to near perfection.

The Council has a great story that got more and more interesting as it got towards the end. I think the end itself was a little rushed and weak though. The game is divided really into two parts: conversations you have with others and puzzles that you encounter. The conversation system is fantastic. You can upgrade different skill sets such as science; manipulation; politics; agility; and many more by gaining XP and finding texts to study. Each character you converse with will have immunities and vulnerabilities that tie into your skills. You can find out these traits for characters through conversation; by finding out from others or by means such as searching their rooms for clues. The other half of the game was the puzzles and they were a real mixed bag. Some of them I didn’t mind but others required constant back and forth between clues. Some were just convoluted. It wasn’t so much I didn’t understand what the game wanted from me as I simply didn’t enjoy it enough to care. The map system also wasn’t very good and was poorly labelled. The voice acting was overall very good. I thought that the voice of Jacques Peru and Louis de Richet who were supposed to be French characters had distinct North American accents. Everyone else had appropriate accents for their homeland but those two stood out. The graphics were fairly good overall. The world detail in the mansion was well done as was the lighting; clothing and facial detail. The hair was a mixed bag that ranged from decent to poor though. Two things I found strange was the ability to pick the locks of peoples belongings right in front of them and they didn’t seem to care as well as after being physically deformed due to one of my choices almost no one seems to notice or act differently. If someone I knew to be fine and healthy a few hours ago suddenly shows up missing a limb I may ask if everything is alright. I am not bothered by those two issues, I just was amused by them.

Might be a good game, but after around 5 hours I just felt so incredibly bored by all the tedious searching and backtracking, all accompanied by a very very boring story (others might disagree of course).

not just a visual novel, this is a very good game of logic intruigue and a bit of puzzle solving but not too much. good oice work carries you through and the animation never gets in the way. good for story more than anything but actual gameplay was a close second.