The game had me hooked on his themes from the get go: the synthesis of Lovecraft's "Dream Cyle", Clark Ashton Smith's saturnian tales, Chamber's "King in Yellow" and Machen's nightmares, what's not to love? Unfortunatly until recently I just couldn't crack it's mechanics, which so seemlessly complement and enhance it's themes. They just felt too obtuse, too arbitary, too opaque to actually have an internal logic; I just couldn't get past them. This though didn't prevent me from thinking of the game, of it's wonderful writing and it's simple but bewitching art style. I kept mulling on my failed early tries and I sporadically kept getting back to it, full of hard-headedness for being so constantly defied by it's unyielding apparent irrationality. The fact that the game kept pushing back against my efforts felt so right with how it is to actually study ancient philosophy and esoteric societies that I kept going at it, as the first, and only, hint of the game suggests. Now I've started speaking it's language and I feel like a modern Hermtes Trimegistos, with it's tantalizing possibilities and mysteries opening up to me. Just keep going and the Veil of Maya will part, opening up one of the most unique and frustatingly enjoyable games I've had the pleasure of experiencing.
Stygian: Reign of the Old Ones is by far one of the best Lovecraft inspired games out there: it's atmosphere is off the charts and get's the feeling of inescapable dread like few other games. It's burstsing as the seems with references and characters from Lovecraft's work and actual life and it weaves it all together in a tightly knit and coeherent narrative, even one in which madness is the end resault. The gameplay is an intresting mix of GDR and light tactical combat, which is fun but also very demanding to the point that it's often best to avoid combat when possibile, but it dosen't hinder progression as one levels up mostly thanks to non-violent means. That said the main problem of the game, not considering the rough edges that the developers have promissed to address, are th numerous bugs that hinder the experience. Up until my 17th hour in the game the bugs had been very light and just mildly annoying, but then I ran into a bug that crashes my game and I can't proceed. The good thing is that the devs are hard at working in squashing the bugs, and even with this game breaking bug I still think the game is great.
