Even excusing the hilarious state of the game from a technical standpoint with all the bugs and what not (which I do believe will get fixed), this game is so far from what was promised to us. It's not even an RPG. It's a linear action adventure game with a few critical choices in a (fairly solid, admittedly) 15-20 hour storyline (albeit with double that content in side story missions which are good), set in an fake open world. Why fake? Well, it's an open world for sure, but it's hollow. Nothing to do in it. No pedestrian AI, no AI for drivers, no working police AI. Basically, it's the most expensive walking simulator with little to no interactivity with the surrounding world. This just screams cut content, so much of it. Oh, and perhaps most importantly, the gameplay is really mediocre. Sure, you have plenty of fun weapons to use, but enemy AI is worse than in a 2001 game, the character development system is basically just nonsensical percentage boosts for basic stats, and even those basis stats don't make much sense. It all feels just cobbled together, poorly. On a positive note, the story and quests are fine, characters are good, the game is beautiful (really stunning) and there's excellent music. There's a great game buried somewhere in this mediocre mess of cut content and poor design decisions. Not a great RPG for sure, but a great action adventure game, hence my 3/5. With technical stability, I might bump it to a potential 3.5/5, but no more than that. Not with so many broken promises and missing stuff in this shell of a masterpiece that wasn't to be. CDPR could potentially fixit, if they give it a "No Man's Sky treatment" everybody seems to be aching for. I personally doubt that will happen, but yes, it could save this one, and CDPR's reputation which is gone. Otherwise it will remain a testament to corporate greed, poor decision-making and blatant lies to loyal fans. Oh the irony... Silverhand would rail against you, CDPR, and so should we.
There's one thing that seems to be an universal truth when it comes to video games - adapting Lovecraft and his works to this format is hard and rarely seems to work. There are only a handful of titles across various platforms that truly deserve to be labelled Lovecraftian and are actually fun-to-play video games at the same time. Stygian...well, it has issues with the latter part of the sentence. As far as its story, setting, art style, music, atmosphere etc. go, Stygian is simply great, even if also simple at times. You create and play as a character in Arkham, a city which has been mysteriously torn away from this world of ours and cast into some unknown dimension of utter darkness and eldritch horrors. There's plenty to see and experience here, and it is truly pleasant to see just how much love and respect the developers have for HPL's work, as well as the time period his works take place in. Some of the details here are truly things that only hardcore fans of HPL's work will know. The story and the quests are filled with mystery, but also play fairly straightforwardly. There are sometimes multiple solutions for your tasks, but in general, the game progresses fairly linearly. It is not an issue, however, since it is so well done. So why the 3 stars? Well, Stygian has one crippling fault. Its combat. To put it simply, it is awful. This isn't a combat-focused game, and the developers warn you about that from the get-go. But whether you like it or not, there are combat instances here which are essentially unavoidable. And while you can have a character/party build that will make fighting through the game a breeze, the fact still remains that the combat is poorly designed. Playing it feels like a chore and takes the joy from an otherwise fun and unique game. If you are looking for a stylish Lovecraftian RPG and are willing to ignore and deal with the glaring flaws of one of its core features, go for it. If you're looking for anything else, probably avoid.
This demo shows only the most basic mechanics and components of this title. In short, it is promising. However, being a demo, some of the most important mechanics (such as god powers) are locked out. Same goes for technology progress (other than first few basic techs such as agriculture). What you basically get here is a short tutorial into how you need to establish your settlement, how "Nuggets" work, live and reproduce, outlines of weather and seasons mechanics, as well as basic resource management. What I've seen so far is mostly good. Probably the best surmise would be "simple yet elegant". Everything, from UI, graphics, music to gameplay can be described that way. However, as I've mentioned, the most important aspect, gameplay is largely locked out, so this shouldn't be the final judgement. From the technical side, demo seems well-polished and I had zero issues. I hope that stays the same for the final product. I will most likely purchase this title once it is released. I heartily recommend you try out this demo and I hope developers deliver on it. The market desperately needs a fresh and well-made godsim experience, and The Universim has the potential to fill that gaping hole.
