Call Of Cthulhu Review
Call of Cthulhu: a little too interventionist investigation in the heart of madness (Update: Nintendo Switch)H.P. Lovecraft is definitely on the rise. There are many titles to come that are more or less freely inspired by the author's work. Call of Cthulhu, developed by the French of Cyanide, adapts the universe of the writer and more precisely that of the paper role-playing game which comes from it, and has just given birth to a narrative investigation game mingled with RPG.
Already technically rather dated, it must be recognized that Call of Cthulhu struggles even more to shine on Nintendo Switch. If certainly, the nomadic mode allows you to enjoy a finer resolution than in docked mode, the overall appearance of the game is immersed in an almost constant display blur, a feeling that becomes more pronounced as the gaze takes in far. In docked mode, things are even more supported. The textures are not for the most part runny and the lights diffuse a grain detrimental to the good readability of the decorations.
On the performance side, with the exception of the particularly long loading times (allow a good thirty minutes for each of them), we noted some jerks when the camera movements were a little too sharp even if overall the experience remains quite stable. So, if you are not too careful about the visual aspect of a title which here has leveled the rendering from the bottom, Call of Cthulhu Switch remains the same experience as the original, of which you can find the full test , made on PC and home consoles, below.
Edward Pierce is a war veteran. Having suffered many traumas during the conflict, the man turned into an alcoholic detective, quickly contacted by a man asking him to investigate the death of his daughter and his family. The fire on the remote island of Darkwater effectively decimated the home, but the incident appears to be less accidental than the police appear to believe. The detective, whom you play, goes to the disturbing island and is confronted, Lovecraft forces, to obscure cults based on tentacles, you can imagine.
A neat LOVECRAFTIAN ATMOSPHERE
If technically Call of Cthlulhu is lagging behind, especially in the animation of the characters or in awkwardness of realization, the title of Cyanide shines by its atmosphere. Huge care has been taken in different environments, so that the player feels oppressed without ever really knowing why, like the starting point for many news from Lovecraft, where the reader feels a certain discomfort without being able to exactly define the origin. The mood murky as desired and accurately reproduces the atmosphere of the work of Lovecraft and in that, Cyanide succeeds hands down his adaptation work.Care has also been taken in writing in general. Indeed, the dialogues that you will have the opportunity to follow are credible and well dubbed, thus facilitating the immersion of the player in the island of Darkwater. The attention paid to the sound environment is also to be welcomed in that it greatly reinforces the oppression that emerges from the premises. And the work accomplished to deliver a quality narration is certainly not in vain, given the fact that the title of Cyanide is more narrative than interactive.
MORE NARRATIVE THAN INTERACTIVE
Before launching Call of Cthulhu, you need to know what to expect. Indeed, if we find a few elements of investigation, they can only be summed up as an observation of clues that your hero will connect alone. When you arrive on a stage, several magnifiers are scattered here and there, and when the player interacts with one of them, the protagonist draws the necessary deductions himself. Thus, these research phases are more of a way to flesh out the narration a little without really allowing the player to brainstorm. The puzzles to be solved are indeed quite rare and respond more to the search for objects based on observation than to the puzzle solving itself. The "investigation" aspect, therefore, is ultimately only touched on in the same way as the reflection aspect.The pan RPG, for its part, does not work exactly in the traditional sense of the term and will mainly have an impact on the way you can approach conversations. However, to sum up the talent tree to a simple possibility of unlocking dialogue wheels would be very simplistic. Indeed, it is also in the way of resolving certain objectives that the distribution of skill points will be important. Thus, neglecting psychology or eloquence will close many doors to gathering clues from the local population. Not distributing enough points by force will prevent you from forcing a mechanism giving access to a new room. In this case, it will be necessary to find another solution to progress in the adventure and, in its first third, Call of Cthulhu proves to be quite inventive. The feeling that it would have been possible to act differently to, for example, cross the safety of an area to explore is quite present in the first portion of the game, a feeling that erodes a little as the game progresses.
BETWEEN FREEDOM AND LINEARITY
Despite everything, the title of Cyanide knows how to reward exploration, and a player digging in the smallest corner of each room will be able to unlock dialogue options or possibilities that a player in a hurry will probably never see. That said, do not expect a solid replayability, the story varying less than the way of revealing it, with a few branches. Note that during your adventure, a sanity gauge will empty as the hero is confronted with books or occult events, making him gradually fall into madness. If choosing to fully embrace insanity can unlock different choices during the adventure, the presence of the gauge seemed anecdotal, rare being anyway the disturbing elements that can be avoided by your character.Call of Cthulhu in any case makes the effort to vary the game sequences and the ways of resolving sometimes seemingly hopeless situations. This notably involves infiltration sequences, which, if they are not catastrophic, nevertheless work in a somewhat laborious manner due to erratic behavior of artificial intelligence. And in some places, the checkpoints are a little too far apart so as not to frustrate the player in the event of sometimes unfair detection.
The adventure of Call of Cthulhu is therefore quite framed, and regularly places the player on rails from which he cannot always deviate. The investigation phases are used to unlock elements of understanding the story and ultimately prove to be fairly uninspiring for the player. If certainly, the atmosphere of the game manages to catch it quickly and that we salute the writing work and the quality of certain environments crossed, we regret the presence of a slightly too abrupt final, which follows a last third of adventure far too corridor, rushed and a little confused. It is a lack of consistency that is all the more damaging since this part of the adventure exacerbates certain defects in form which sometimes overshadow the background too much. It is regrettable as the good ideas and intentions are there, but they are sometimes only lightly touched and we would have liked them to go further in their application.
The notes
+ Positive points
Atmosphere worthy of Lovecraft's work
Some aesthetically inspired places in Darkwater
A first portion of the very immersive adventure
A real care taken in writing
Sound design successful
Good shelf life for the format (around 7-10h)
Some differences in goal resolution work well
-Negative points
Overall very interventionist
A last third really rushed
Technically dated
Rendered on Switch significantly below console and PC versions
Very long load time on Switch
Sequences of infiltration and sometimes laborious research
Slightly stingy with riddles and puzzles
More focused on storytelling than interaction, Call of Cthulhu shines with its atmosphere and its writing, but comes up against a fairly limited interactivity and phases of the game, notably research or infiltration, which are not always very happy. The promises of freedom of action and immersive story, held in the first third of the game, fade in its last portion in favor of a rushed and sometimes awkward narration. Already technically weak on the PC and home console versions, the Switch version of the game suffered from a manifest downgrade, clearly more apparent in docked mode than in portable mode, which will therefore be preferred. Thus, if an epic at the heart of the madness for a little ten hours tempts you, Call of Cthulhu will not be an unpleasant moment, far from it, but it will be necessary to forgive its clumsiness of form to appreciate the substance.
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