Great game. The story is amazing. Character creation by itself makes the game unique. Combat is great.
I love how the game combines many of Lovecraft's stories together.
Recommend the game to any fan of H.P's work
The game seemed promising when I first heard about it, but I was sadly disappointed by the released product. The best part is the dialogue with other characters, general atmosphere and the music. All the textual content is well written and interesting to read. The music is eerie and fits the game perfectly.
The actual gameplay is maddening. There are plenty of bugs, both cosmetic and those that affect the gameplay. For example, a 3440x1440 display resolution works, but some graphical items are not adjusted for it. Your menu might stop working, so you can't access the character sheet, inventory or even the pause menu. Some mechanics are not explained well enough or information is hidden from the player. Like exhaustion or hunger statuses, which will just appear on the character without any exhaustion or hunger bar giving you a chance to prepare. There are too many things like this to make playing enjoyable.
This review is based on version 1.0.4.
As a Kickstarter backer, I was very excited about this game. It had the promise of weird exploration rather than just a demon hunt.
While the game's artistic style is good, the actual sense of exploration is rather bland. There is little in the way of payoff when you discover something, other than the character's sanity taking a hit. Many times you're thrust into unavoidable combat and the characters are in no way designed to be warriors, so you end up battered constantly. Even stealth doesn't always get you through unscathed.
I'm also not a fan of games that require you to rest after a certain amount of time has passed, or to keep a supply of rations on hand because your characters regularly get hungry. Not resting or eating causes you to incur penalties. This just makes you burn through funds to stay stocked.
Finally, there is a common, game-killing bug right near the end that has yet to be fixed and no workarounds have been offered. I recommend trying the demo. If this game seems like the one for you, wait until the next major patch comes out before buying.
(English isn't my first language) Look, I love Lovecraft's mythos and I can talk about it for hours, but I'd usually start with "Lovecraft's not the best novelist around" and that's why I think is important to discern if something is "Lovecraftian" or cosmic horror. The latter is about themes and even though the game tries to play that note, I didn't feel really crushed by the futility of existence or whatever. And that's actually a good thing, because I think that wouldn't make a good RPG game. The game isn't "Lovecraftian" either, since it doesn't really add anything new or original to the way Lovecraft wrote his works. And that's a good thing, too. The game is just a loveletter and should be seen as such - I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who doesn't know its source material because its streghts lies in constant callbacks, but I wouldn't recommend it to someone who's enamored with Lovecraft's (pun very much intended) works uncritically. BUT! If you're just a little more than a casual fan of the Mythos, this is perfect for you.
The game never feels bloated, because it's actually short for its genre and offers a lot of nice role-playing opportunities. I felt almost always motivated to do stuff so I could buy stuff to do more. To learn more. But then the last act happens and the game loses its momentum and... well, that's the one star down.
I liked the story of this game, the hopelessness of it, but it was bogged down by an odd quest structure and rng combat. The magic system was pointless becuase not only does magic cost you sanity (of which you're ALWAYS losing some), but the spells really don't do much offensively, thus making anyone specced for magic kinda useless.
The game is also short and and some of the quests seems like they don't really lead anywhere. Also, the game ends on a cliffhanger that will never be resolved.
The graphics were well done and very interesting, especially the interesting monster designs. And the music was nice and well fitting to the story, as well. This could have been a great game, but the devs kinda left it unresolved and left behind.